Talk:London station group

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Contents

[edit] Suggested addition to the table

Great article. The table could be expanded to show which tube lines serve which mainline stations, if this didn't cause width problems, and if someone felt like doing it. --Tagishsimon (talk)

I considered this but it wouldn't add much really and would probably be information overload, probably more suited to a travel guide. All you need to know in this article is that all stations are connected via the Undeground. MRSC 10:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thameslink?

And is Thameslink the "Only one railway line passes directly through the central area without terminating." If so, could we add a link. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Can anyone say, is it Thameslink that is refferred to by this line?

[edit] Elephant and Castle

The article says it includes all central London railway stations. Elephant and Castle railway station is located right on the central London ring road so why not include this? Simply south 17:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

If we add that one, why not every other station in zone 1? This article is just for the main terminal stations. MRSC 18:52, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
If that is so, then you might as well get rid of City Thameslink, Waterloo East and Farringdon Simply south 19:44, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Icons

What do the icons by the stations represent? I've never seen them used on the stations themselves, unless they're relatively new. --Tivedshambo (talk) 22:44, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Each station managed by Network Rail has one (Birmingham New Street has one as well). They're meant as a logo to identify that station and are used on station name signs on platforms etc. At least, that's the theory. --RFBailey 22:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move

I'm not sure I like having an article here. Can we come up with an alternative name which isn't horribly complex? I was thinking Railway stations in Central London or perhaps London railway terminuses? Morwen - Talk 22:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

No. The article does not list all the railway stations in central London (for any definition of that) so that is out and they are not all terminuses so that is out. The current naming does the job. Buy a ticket to "London" in the UK and it will be valid to at least one of these. MRSC 06:02, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
While the name of the page is fine, I do think it should only feature the London terminal stations - on rail tickets, the destination is always given as "London Terminals" for those stations, but for other stations (Clapham Junction, King's Cross TL etc), the individual station is given. Hammersfan 03/11/06, 14.05 GMT
Although "Terminal" is used on some tickets, they are valid to some stations on Thameslink. There's always been mega confusion about this but from early next year all stations in Zone 1 served by First Capital Connect will be designated "London" so all of them should be listed here. Timrollpickering 14:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split table

I think the table should be put back into one. London Bridge and Blackfriars both have through and terminal platforms, it seems putting them in a "terminals" section is a bit misleading. MRSC • Talk 09:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Closed stations

copied from User talk:MRSC: While I accept that Holborn Viaduct can legitimately be included on the London railway station list, I think it's taking it a bit far to include Bishopsgate and Minories, since they were replaced by existing stations, not to mention the fact that there is no living memory of either of them. Taking that view, I think then that there is a case for including both Holborn Viaduct and Broad Street on the template {{Railway stations of London}}. Hammersfan 08/11/06, 12.35 GMT

I'm am troubled by the idea of no living memory as a precluding factor. The stations in question both continued to operate after their “replacements” opened, so were not simply resited versions of the same station. In the case of Bishopsgate it was adapted and some trains called at both stations. MRSC • Talk 16:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
So you feel then that stations that were utilised for most of their existence as a goods terminal and goods sidings should be included on this list/template? While I recognise that Bishopsgate may have continued to be used by passenger trains after the opening of Liverpool Street, the fact is that passenger services stopped in 1879 and it was used as a freight terminal until it burned down Hammersfan 09/11/06

[edit] London Great Central Station

Have there ever been plans to actually have one main London railway station? If so that information should be included into the article (at least in form of a link), otherwise it’s just as interesting why noone sees such a need. (Not that London was special therein among the largest European cities, for Paris and Moscow have no central station either, but Berlin now does.) Christoph Päper 23:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2007 requested move

It seems to be confusing lots of people over whether there has been a central London station. As there are multiple and haven't really ever been just the one, it seems fitting to move this to a more appropriate title. Simply south 10:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

"Central London" is an ambiguous, poorly defined term as seen on that article. And the article isn't really about every single railway station in Zone 1, as seen by the non inclusion of Elephant & Castle. I'm not sure there is a clear alternative to what this article is aiming to be, which is primarily a) why there is no single "Grand Central" station for London; and b) what "London" means on railway ticket (which is a source of notability and confusion - there have been reported cases of people being prosecuted for basically not having an encyclopedic knowledge of how the finer details of the rules operate, particularly in regards to Thameslink). Timrollpickering 10:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
The current name suggests that there is one railway station for London but Im not sure what this article is about - the major stations in london, the terminals in london? Tbo 157talk 11:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Not all of them are exceedingly major and it lists virtually every National Rail served station in Central London (except Barbican), not just the termini. Simply south 11:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Central London on what definition though? Timrollpickering 11:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Good point as there are multiple. Not necessarily within Zone 1. I'm not sure which meaning would be used but i suppose that one which could be used would be those within the Inner Ring Road? Probably this should be defined here as well. Simply south 11:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I think until the article Central London is presenting one clear definition, at least within the relevant field, it would be unwise to use "Central London" for article titles where the scope is disputed. Implying consistency of terminology when the main article lacks it is going to cause problems elsewhere.
What about "London stations group" or something? That would be clearly anchor the article to "stations to which tickets for 'London' are sold", if we can get a clear wording. Timrollpickering 11:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I suppose "Central area of London" would be too controversial as well. Simply south 12:02, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I think everyone is missing the point here. Until you can pin-down what this article is really supposed to be about, you will never be able to come up with a sufficiently precise title. So, if it is listing the terminus railway stations in London, the title needs to say as much; if it is addressing "London as a destination on UK railways", then the title needs to reflect that. Since everyone has agreed that there is no such thing as London Railway Station, it is very difficult to have an article written about it.
This is a principle I use in my software engineering. When trying to name a function, if the function name requires the use of "and" to adequately describe it, then the function needs to be split into two (or more) smaller functions which can be named.
So, rather than 'just' renaming, is there a need to address the article's scope and perhaps split it into two different-named articles?
EdJogg 12:13, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Good point. Yes, there is a need to work out the article's scope before we can think about renaming. Tbo 157talk 12:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
The article seems to be about all the major London national rail stations. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 21:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Plus Farringdon and Waterloo East, so not all major. Simply south 10:05, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I would say Farringdon and Waterloo East are pretty major if you have a look at the number of people who use the station plus Waterloo East is connected to Waterloo main station. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 16:49, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Waterloo East certainly counts a major commuter station - a number of the Kent trains stop at WE and CX but not London Bridge. How about London Terminals as a name? At least that has some basis in reality on the ground, as that's what appears on your ticket when you ask for a ticket "to London Bridge" or "to Charing Cross", regardless of whether they are termini or not. Working out which stations are covered by London Terminals is another matter... I guess that these days "London" is fairly well defined as the area covered by Ken's patch, but I think there would be logic in sticking with just Zone 1. FlagSteward 17:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Is "London Terminals" the same as the London station group? There are still the tricky cases of Blackfriars - which is both a terminus for some peak hour routes from SE London & Kent plus a through station on Thameslink - and City Thameslink, which is traditionally the furthest one could can go from the south on just a "London" ticket (sort of a terminus on a through line) as well as the successor station to a terminus. Certainly a definition based on "what a ticket to 'London' runs to" seems to be the only way to get a clear list that doesn't involve pretending we can easily define "central London". Timrollpickering 18:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[unindent for reasons of sanity] So you suggest that this page should be renamed "Major railway stations of London" (or "...in London")? That will not address the issue of 'London' appearing on a railway ticket as the destination (as discussed above). You also have the problem of defining what is meant by 'major' in this context: "Major stations in London" must surely include Clapham Junction, Stratford, Oxford Circus, Heathrow...

Why does this article need to exist at all????

EdJogg 23:47, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

(Strike Oxford Circus as that is an Underground-only station and this is about overground stations)Simply south

(It was chosen deliberately to make a point about the possible change of name. Oxford Circus must be one of the busiest stations in London, hence 'major'? So, to be really clear you'd need to rename it "Major overground railway stations in London", which is fine until CrossRail is built... or "Major overground terminus railway stations in London". -- EdJogg 00:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC) -- PS can we stop whispering?)

What's wrong with Railways stations in London? Although the article lists only main stations and gives prominence to these, it links to a list of smaller ones. The meaning of "London" on a train ticket can be explained in the article without the current name being used. --Lo2u (T • C) 00:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I just looked at 'what links here' for this page and followed the link to/from Kew Bridge station (just chosen at random as a London railway station). I found that this page is linked from a template. Having discovered this, it should help clarify what this page is about, what it should be used for, and how it could be renamed appropriately.
The template in question is {{Railway stations of London}}, and looks like this:
v • d • e
Railway stations of London
Managed by
Network Rail
Managed by
train operator
Central area · Greater London
May I suggest that a page title including 'central' would be appropriate, that the page is essentially made into ONLY a destination from this particular template, and that any other topics (eg "London railway station") could be addressed on a different page.
EdJogg 07:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't it make more sense if this article only included the London Terminuses. No one seems to have any idea what this article is about and you could easily include every national rail station within Zones 1 and 2 or even within greater London. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 09:07, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Except that Thameslink means some of the stations are not terminuses, including London Bridge, whilst some through stations have replaced terminuses - Holborn Viaduct -> City Thameslink. Is there any clear definition we can use?! Timrollpickering 11:00, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Stations (whether through routes or not) that act as terminuses?--Lo2u (T • C) 21:40, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] XXX railway station

I'd always thought this article was mainly a convenience for people unfamiliar with London, who wanted to know where "London railway station" was ... they'd be directed to a set of stations to choose from. Applying the same logic, I though I'd find out where the following directed me to:

So, the issue we're dealing with is larger than merely this article, I think. I'd opine that such pages should be thought of as disambiguation pages, providing a relatively simple table of links (and possibly a map) of the stations which have a competing claim to be XXX railway station. --Tagishsimon (talk) 08:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the Birmingham one to New Street - International isn't even a valid destination for a ticket to "Birmingham".
Another crucial page in all this is Station groups which explains the combinations (and has quite a bit on London which perhaps should be here). Timrollpickering 08:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with extracting content from Station groups. I like the idea of using this page as a DAB page for the 'London terminal stations'. Any page referring to the confusion of what is meant by 'London station' should be redirected to the Station groups page, where the topic and ramifications are covered in detail.
EdJogg 09:42, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Station groups is for me a too scary a place to direct people wanting to understand "the confusion of what is meant by 'London station'". Whatever else we do I would want us to retain London railway station and its counterparts, even if just as redirects to wherever the confusion is sorted out. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Fair point. It should be simple enough to briefly explain on this page (for the average user) and link to Station groups for the full explanation. EdJogg 10:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RM prod

I don't think that a unilateral deletion of this article helps. Better to work out what we are going to do with it. Pointing people at List of London railway stations is a far from clever substitute; how would that article assist a person looking for London railway station? --Tagishsimon (talk) —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 06:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Just to reiterate, I prodded this page because I don't think the discussion is headed towards determining any objective criteria for inclusion in the article, or objective criteria as to what constitutes a "major London railway station", or even "central London". This parallels the tendency to delete lists and categories as original research when no objective criteria exist. I am still unsure as to the purpose of this page, and I believe someone above added a similar comment. I don't think that "London railway station" is a probable search term (under 1900 Ghits, most to things like "a north London railway station" or "a London railway station near XYZ"). Further, it is basically agreed that the current location is a negative topic - all there is to say about the title is that it doesn't represent anything in the real world. Thus we don't have Paris Station, Rome Station, etc. Dekimasuよ! 12:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay here's a proposal for what the article should cover:
A simple explanation of how the station groups work for ticketting purposes, especially in London where the rules are more complex than normal (for instance I, living in Forest Gate, can buy a ticket to "London terminals" but that doesn't allow me to change at Stratford and go traipsing about on the North London Line to come into any terminal I feel like).
A listing of all stations for which "London" is a valid destination, with notes as to what direction.
A brief note that there is no single "Grand Central" style station.
The best article title for this would be "London station group" or similar since that is a technical term with actual usage. Timrollpickering 12:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd be content with that solution, with a redirect of this article to that one. (Measuring google hits to assess the likelihood of someone searching for the article has little validity.) --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Get's my vote too! PRODding is not appropriate, but a re-write along the lines suggested by Timrollpickering would appear to resolve both problems: the purpose of the article, and its name. -- EdJogg 13:59, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I've made the first move... --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Had we gained consensus on the article name? Simply south 16:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, though YMMV. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I misread it. ........................ Simply south 16:47, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Simply south asks, elsewhere "Shouldn't it be "London railway station group" or "London National Rail station group"?". TRP or someone else may like to comment. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Oops just seen this. "London railway station group" is probably best as the station group concept predates National Rail (and several were abolished in the days of British Rail so if they ever get articles a single name form will be available). Timrollpickering 17:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to wait a few minutes before being bold again... --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree that London railway station group is better. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 17:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Works for me. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I notice this leaves us with an issue on Template:Railway stations of London, which points to the London railway station as its "central area" London stations. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
All the stations in the article are in the central area. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 17:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes but the central area is a messy term. Maybe that template should link to a list of all stations and this article, without ambiguous terms being deployed. Timrollpickering 18:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Or we do a London stations on & within the circle line article? (Shame about Waterloo & Liverpool Street. Maybe not.)--Tagishsimon (talk) 19:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Don't you mean Marylebone? Timrollpickering 19:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh dear. Extrapolating from "the central line's a faster way of getting there". Resigns trains & all that & goes back to seventeenth century obscure theologians... --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
If everyone is happy with London station group then I won't press the issue (much), but as someone who has never been to London, I'm not really sure how this title helps define the scope. "London station group" is a neologism - zero Google hits outside of Wikipedia - and I'm not sure what it is supposed to mean. It's fine to object to my parenthetical search results as you did, but I don't see that this has solved the objective criteria/original research issues I raised above. Dekimasuよ! 07:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually thats a good point that it gets no google hits. But I cant really think of any other names for this article. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 18:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Redirects are IMO what collect the google searches and transfer the user to an appropriately titled & themed article. I'm not perturbed by the lack of ghits, as I understand the term to be technical and limited to railway ticketing publications. (An alternative is that we go back to discussing the definition of central london, or some other pattern on which we can rest an article on stations in the centre of the city. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I suppose if no one opposes the current title and no one can think of any better titles, we'll just stick with the current title as it does make sense and is in line with the content of the article. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 19:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "London Terminals" and ticketing implications

I have a considerable interest in this article, as I wrote all of the content within the Station groups article (including the section moved across into this article). The move seems sensible to me; I realise that the content is quite, er, "arcane" and specialised (Tagishsimon's "starter for ten" comment was apt), but it's a difficult situation to explain. I may tweak some wording to provide a more logical link with the station groups article and to remove bits which are not directly relevant to London.

I saw a comment above about creating "a listing of all stations for which London is a valid destination, with notes as to what direction". Unfortunately this would not really be possible, as LONDON TERMINALS is, as per National Fares Manuals and ticket issuing systems, for pretty much every station in Britain (other than the "group stations" themselves). It would also look unwieldy and would be difficult to format, as many stations have several London group stations that are "legal". For example, tickets from my home station of Hassocks to LONDON TERMINALS are valid to CX, Waterloo E, London Bridge, Blackfriars, City TLK, Cannon Street, Vauxhall, Vic and Waterloo. Tickets from Stamford (Lincolnshire) would be valid to St Pancras via Leicester, Kings X or Moorgate via Stevenage, and Liverpool Street via Peterborough and Ely. Even something like Bath Spa, by virtue of being valid to Waterloo (via Reading and Ascot), would notionally be valid to Victoria as well (by changing at Clapham Junction) ... and I know from personal experience that the ticket gates at London Bridge and Charing Cross accept tickets from "South West Trains" stations to LONDON TERMINALS via Waterloo and Waterloo East - so in theory, you could travel from Bath Spa to CX, LB, Cannon St, BF or City T. Unfortunately there is no clear proof of this. This doesn't mean to say I wouldn't like to see such information recorded - in fact, I'd love it! - but it's probably the sort of thing that would be better published in the specialist press (such as the Transport Ticket Society Journal, which I write for).

If anybody has any questions about the ticketing and fare-setting side of things relating to the "London group", please leave me a note on my talk page. Hassocks5489 18:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

I've tried to amend the reference list as per the usual Wikipedia style for quoting journal articles. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the article in the Journal of the Transport Ticket Society (ref 1), and so the current reference starts ""{{{title}}}"". Does anyone have it so that the reference can be finalised? D-Notice (talk) 14:07, 8 June 2008 (UTC)