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Which is the most important station in Britain?

Which is the most important station in Britain?

  • London Waterloo

    Votes: 37 19.0%
  • London St Pancras International

    Votes: 38 19.5%
  • London Euston

    Votes: 34 17.4%
  • Birmingham New Street

    Votes: 101 51.8%
  • Manchester Piccadilly

    Votes: 15 7.7%
  • York

    Votes: 15 7.7%
  • Crewe

    Votes: 12 6.2%
  • Clapham Junction

    Votes: 29 14.9%
  • Glasgow Central

    Votes: 8 4.1%
  • Edinburgh Waverley

    Votes: 12 6.2%

  • Total voters
    195
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DanTrain

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I'm just curious as to which station(s) people see as the most important, in a general term.

Apologies for the lack of King's Cross, Doncaster, London Victoria ect, you're only allowed 10 options.

Dan :)
 
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bramling

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I'm just curious as to which station(s) people see as the most important, in a general term.

Apologies for the lack of King's Cross, Doncaster, London Victoria ect, you're only allowed 10 options.

Dan :)

I’d go for Euston, simply because of the number of major cities served (Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and to a lesser extent Edinburgh). But same could be said for Paddington and King’s X to a slightly lesser extent.
 

ooo

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At Pancras for me as it covers services on so many different networks and is also the main station for international rail travel
 

takno

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I went for Waverley because it's near my house, and without it the network would essentially be useless (to me)
 

Y Ddraig Coch

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I love how Birmingham New Street is winning so far as the most important, to me the most important can get me somewhere before mid morning on a Sunday if it is an important station.
 

fowler9

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I went with Waterloo as I thought I read somewhere it handles the most passengers. West Allerton wasn't an option. :)
 

driver_m

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New St. If it goes wrong it affects virtually the whole rail network.
 

wipers

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I don't really get the New Street argument - if something goes wrong, they just shift trains on to other lines (I.e. Nuneaton). Contrast that with Clapham Junction, whereby if that goes down you basically have no trains going in to either Waterloo or Victoria, two of the busiest stations in the UK.
 

whhistle

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Define "most important".
Most important for the price of a sandwich?
Most important for choice of pre-travel shopping?
Most important in terms of numbers of trains per hour?

Too many factors for a simple "most important".
 

Mikey C

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I imagine New Street is getting the votes, as it's hard to choose which London terminus is the most important!
 

InTheEastMids

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None of the above - I think the question misunderstands the basic value proposition of railways to society.
The value is in the network and the inter-connections, not in the actual points on the network.
 

TheDavibob

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I’d go for Euston, simply because of the number of major cities served (Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and to a lesser extent Edinburgh). But same could be said for Paddington and King’s X to a slightly lesser extent.
By that logic New Street is comfortably the most important station (though, to be honest, I have no idea what this question really means). From it you can directly access all of the above, as well as 13 of the 14 largest UK urban areas (Belfast unsurprisingly aside), and 15 of the largest 17. The centering of the primary non-London intercity franchise on Birmingham sort of ensures this.
 

Harbouring

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I will vote for Shippea Hill for the reason that if a station that sees no more than one passenger per calendar month can still have a service call there (however infrequent) then the ideals of why the railways exist is still maintained.

I don’t really believe that but it does prove that you can justify any station as being the most important if you try hard enough.
 

pdq

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The most important station is the one I want to travel from next.
 

DuncanS

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None of the above - there are two important stations for me, the one I get on to go to work and the one I get off when arriving at work.
 

racyrich

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I imagine New Street is getting the votes, as it's hard to choose which London terminus is the most important!

Even Fiennes reckoned New St, saying 'if New St sneezes, the rest of the network catches a cold'.
 

Mugby

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I'm not sure about having a list with both terminals and through stations in it.
 

ooo

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@DanTrain did you intend to allow multiple votes as surely people should only be able to vote for one station which they think is the most important rather than multiple stations.
 

Dave1954

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What about Exeter St Davids , that gotto be up there as one of the many of most important .8-)
 

DanTrain

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@DanTrain did you intend to allow multiple votes as surely people should only be able to vote for one station which they think is the most important rather than multiple stations.
I did rethink this after posting, but I couldn't edit it to fewer, so I'm afraid we can't change it.

As for the complaints over the question, I deliberately left it vague to see what people would put. New Street is clearly winning (not a lot of suprise there), and I guess that's down to the number of connections and intercity changes. In my head, I has 'important' to mean somewhere that you need to change at often, disregarding commutes or local journeys. However, I know it's vague, and that gives a nice spread of results (ideally there would have been more stations on the list).

Even Fiennes reckoned New St, saying 'if New St sneezes, the rest of the network catches a cold'.
This was the sort of think I had in mind, New Street has a dramatic impact on much of the rest of the network, in my opinion more so than London Termini or Shippea Hill! Although, regarding the post, it always seems to be bloody freezing in New Street... so then I guess the metaphor holds true for the rest of the network.

I will vote for Shippea Hill for the reason that if a station that sees no more than one passenger per calendar month can still have a service call there (however infrequent) then the ideals of why the railways exist is still maintained.

Read into it what you will, I'm more interested in the justifacations than the actual answers - the above one for Shippea Hill is a rather nice example :)
 

fowler9

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I thought it was a good question. Whilst what you could vote for was limited (just by the limitations of the platform we are working on) it has opened up an interesting discussion. I voted Waterloo because I thought it had the highest footfall. New Street is massively important. West Allerton closely followed by Lime Street are my most important.
 

AndrewE

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I don't really get the New Street argument - if something goes wrong, they just shift trains on to other lines (I.e. Nuneaton)
That only applies if you are focussed solely on trains from or to London. Most people traveling through Brum (my choice too) rely on New St either as their commuting destination or to change trains. A lucky few (actually not so few) are on cross-city or cross-country trains and get the network benefits in comfort!
Why am I not surprised that your location is in London?!
 
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