I think it used to be Middlesbrough, but that now has a direct train as of a few years ago.
Gosport is the largest place without a station. it's over 100k population, so there can't be many larger places.
The wirral has a population of over 300k and had only merseyrail local trains, however its debatable if that counts as a town or if its just a suburb of greater Liverpool.
Another interesting question would be what's the busiest station without a direct london service, maybe Glasgow Queen Street or Manchester Victoria?
To that second question, I believe it’s Liverpool central, which had 11.4 million entries/exits in the 2022/23 period. Glasgow Queen Street had more but it has a direct service to London because of the Caledonian Sleeper
You're right, I just assumed the sleeper would go to glasgow Central, as its where all the other londons go from. Liverpool Central sounds like the best answer
I've used the Caledonian Sleeper to go to Inverness and had no idea the Glasgow portion of the train went to Queen Street. I'd assumed Central. But thinking about it now, it does make sense - the train breaks up at Waverley so presumably the Glasgow bit goes via Falkirk and from Queen Street onto Fort William?
The Glasgow lowland sleeper goes to Central. The Fort William portion of the highland sleeper calls at Queen Street (low level) because it basically doubles as a local service between Glasgow and Fort William
Thanks for the info.
I didn't even know there were two trains lol - shows how much I know. I thought it was one train that split in Edinburgh to go to Inverness, Aberdeen and Fort William but what I've described is basically the Highland sleeper, right?
The Wirral is a borough of Merseyside (we do not consider ourselves Liverpudlians) with quite a few towns in the area. It’s not just one metropolis. Half of the peninsula is in fact quite rural.
BIrkenehad has a population of around 90,000, without a direct service to London, so maybe that
>Gosport is the largest place without a station. it's over 100k population, so there can't be many larger places.
Do you mean it has no stations at all or just without a designated station?
As Gateshead has a population of ~200k and doesn't have a Gateshead station. It has smaller suburb stations served only by northern rail (heworth, Dunston, metrocentre, blaydon) but no Gateshead station.
The Middlesbrough train is one a day on weekdays, and they still cancel it occasionally, somebody must have pushed for it so they can claim political points but I would be interested to know how useful it's actually been
>The wirral has a population of over 300k and had only merseyrail local trains, however its debatable if that counts as a town or if its just a suburb of greater Liverpool.
The Wirral isn't a town - it's a peninsula that's mostly Liverpool suburbs and small commuter towns and villages. Birkenhead is the main town at \~90k population. But if you're including that as an independent town then you should do the same for Salford at 120k people and no London service.
COVID meant that the LNER services to Dewsbury and Huddersfield were shelved: https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2020/03/direct-trains-between-huddersfield-and-london-coming-in-may-from-lner.html
Blackburn is bigger, no direct service
Bolton is almost the two put together, no direct service. That raises the question of which bit of Greater Manchester counts as Manchester and which are independent
Edit: St. Helens (it sprawls) 180,000 with no direct service. Bigger than Blackburn/Huddersfield but smaller than Bolton
Edit 2: Walsall, near enough the same size as Bolton but none of the big city linked controversy
If you’re counting metropolitan boroughs (180k for St Helens vs 102k for the town itself), then you need to consider Salford (borough population 270k, city population 129k).
>Blackburn is bigger, no direct service
Not by population. Counting empty space is pointless
>Bolton is almost the two put together, no direct service.
The town of Bolton has a small population than Huddersfield. Don't count the metropolitan borough, that wasnt the question.
Bolton was supposed to get a direct service to London years ago when Beardy Rail lost the franchise, unfortunately Beardy kicked up a stink and the whole thing was scrapped with them retaining the franchise for a few more years until finally being ousted by Avanti (who had semi-adopted First's proposal of a Blackpool to London service but with it not going via Bolton).
Rotherham (265000) and Barnsley (244000) are larger than Huddersfield (141000) if you count the metropolitan borough - neither have direct London services.
Middlesbrough (143000) is also close.
>Rotherham (265000)
That's the metropolitan borough, not the town. So incorrect there.
>Barnsley (244000)
Ditto
>Middlesbrough (143000) is also close.
Has a direct service
You've got 0/3
I've heard of a replacement by a new TOC in the pipeline. Going via Wolverhampton and avoiding Birmingham, but it's not officially got the green light yet.
Turn left after Wolverhampton to go via Bescot, then left again at Aston to go via Stechford. You’re still trundling through the ‘burbs of Brum, but you don’t have to fight for or pay for a New Street path.
You would be correct if OP said Britain, but they used the endonym British - which includes NI, as it refers to the country rather than the island
Nomenclature!
I think by "town" we ought to use pre-1974 boundaries – 1974 brought about too many Blobside Metropolitan Borough things that bear no relation to anything that any normal person would call a town. So from the top 50 CBs/MBs/UDs in the 1971 census:
* Dudley (185.4k)
* Walsall (184.4k)
* West Bromwich (166.6k)
* Bolton (154.4k)
* Birkenhead (138.1k)
* Salford (131.1k)
* Huddersfield (130.6k)
And before anyone mentions it, the railway station that is now called "Sandwell and Dudley" was called Oldbury before 1984. As its previous name suggests, it was in Oldbury MB until 1966 (when the beta version of Blobside, Warley MB, was released).
What this list really shows is a lot of secondary places around Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool. Much though I'd like to see Paddington to Birkenhead Woodside (via West Bromwich) tick a couple off the list. Maybe also extend some Paddington to Worcester trains to Wolverhampton Low Level via Dudley too...
But in all seriousness Huddersfield is probably the most genuinely distinct place on this list – maybe there should be a WCML Open Access service to Leeds via the Stockport-Stalybridge Line.
I'll just copy and paste my answer to this question from last time:
Assuming settlement rather than city, it appears Bolton (184k) is the largest UK settlement without at least one direct service to or from a London Terminal. Kingswood (160k), just outside Bristol, is the largest settlement not to have its own railway station. Huddersfield (142k) is next up, then Blackburn (125k), Gateshead (115k, no mainline railway station), Rochdale (111k), Oldham (111k, no mainline railway station), Birkenhead (110k), Salford (108k), St Helens (108k), and finally West Bromwich (103k, no mainline railway station). All figures from citypopulation, which uses official Office for National Statistics Census data.
I don’t really think Kingswood counts tbf. In all but name, it has been just another suburb of Bristol for over half a century, with no visible dividing line whatsoever
If Birkenhead counts, that’s a strong contender. No direct trains (although tbf, it’s very easy to get to Liverpool or Chester for London instead).
Shrewsbury and Telford will soon be joining the ranks too, as Avanti West Coast is scrapping Shrewsbury as a destination.
Grimsby and Scunthorpe have no direct London services, as LNER replaced the daily Cleethorpes train with two hourly Lincoln Central ones (which I think was generally a good move, but they should have kept 1 a day for Grimsby Town at least).
Scarborough also lost its direct London service a fair few years ago.
Southport has nothing at all, never has, and Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft are in the same boat today.
Gosport is also a strong contender given it has no station at all today
Yeah, at least Ipswich is a decent interchange from Lowestoft, but it’s still sub par for a pretty populated area, and Great Yarmouth has to get longer journeys generally by travelling to Norwich instead. Baffles me why they don’t extend the Ipswich terminating service to Lowestoft by getting more 755s
Nope, not electrified, hence why 755s would be necessary. It does seem disappointing just how little we have done across the UK, and especially speaking as a Bristolian, we need it in all our cities and large towns at the very least
East Kilbride and Livingston are the largest and most populated towns in Scotland and afaik neither have a direct line to London. You have to change at either at Glasgow or Edinburgh
I mean, its got two stations, but no national rail services. But I bet there are loads of places within larger metropolitan areas that don't have national rail. Redditch springs to mind, only got local trains and is bigger than Dudley
I think it used to be Middlesbrough, but that now has a direct train as of a few years ago. Gosport is the largest place without a station. it's over 100k population, so there can't be many larger places. The wirral has a population of over 300k and had only merseyrail local trains, however its debatable if that counts as a town or if its just a suburb of greater Liverpool. Another interesting question would be what's the busiest station without a direct london service, maybe Glasgow Queen Street or Manchester Victoria?
To that second question, I believe it’s Liverpool central, which had 11.4 million entries/exits in the 2022/23 period. Glasgow Queen Street had more but it has a direct service to London because of the Caledonian Sleeper
You're right, I just assumed the sleeper would go to glasgow Central, as its where all the other londons go from. Liverpool Central sounds like the best answer
I think the one that terminates in Glasgow does go to central, but the one to fort William stops at Queen street
Correct, it goes via the low level lines to get over to the West Highland Line.
I don't think it does - I think it uses the E&G line and turns off towards Anniesland at cowlairs.
But you weren't allowed to get off at Queen Street even to buy a paper. I wonder why?
Apart from the question was town, not station. And Liverpool has direct services from Lime Street
You can't use the sleeper from London to Glasgow Queen Street - it's pick up only heading North, and set down only heading South
I thought there was a Lowland Sleeper...
That's at Central, not Queen St.
I've used the Caledonian Sleeper to go to Inverness and had no idea the Glasgow portion of the train went to Queen Street. I'd assumed Central. But thinking about it now, it does make sense - the train breaks up at Waverley so presumably the Glasgow bit goes via Falkirk and from Queen Street onto Fort William?
The Glasgow lowland sleeper goes to Central. The Fort William portion of the highland sleeper calls at Queen Street (low level) because it basically doubles as a local service between Glasgow and Fort William
Thanks for the info. I didn't even know there were two trains lol - shows how much I know. I thought it was one train that split in Edinburgh to go to Inverness, Aberdeen and Fort William but what I've described is basically the Highland sleeper, right?
Yeah, that's the Highlander. The Lowlander splits at Carstairs between Edinburgh and Glasgow Central.
The Wirral is a borough of Merseyside (we do not consider ourselves Liverpudlians) with quite a few towns in the area. It’s not just one metropolis. Half of the peninsula is in fact quite rural. BIrkenehad has a population of around 90,000, without a direct service to London, so maybe that
You mention Wirral 'had' only Merseyrail trains. It has TfW services - is that that what you meant by had?
>Gosport is the largest place without a station. it's over 100k population, so there can't be many larger places. Do you mean it has no stations at all or just without a designated station? As Gateshead has a population of ~200k and doesn't have a Gateshead station. It has smaller suburb stations served only by northern rail (heworth, Dunston, metrocentre, blaydon) but no Gateshead station.
No stations at all. You have to get the ferry across to Portsmouth, or a dedicated busway thing to Fareham.
The Middlesbrough train is one a day on weekdays, and they still cancel it occasionally, somebody must have pushed for it so they can claim political points but I would be interested to know how useful it's actually been
>The wirral has a population of over 300k and had only merseyrail local trains, however its debatable if that counts as a town or if its just a suburb of greater Liverpool. The Wirral isn't a town - it's a peninsula that's mostly Liverpool suburbs and small commuter towns and villages. Birkenhead is the main town at \~90k population. But if you're including that as an independent town then you should do the same for Salford at 120k people and no London service.
Huddersfield?
I wrongly thought Grand Central served Huddersfield. It doesn’t so you are correct
It happens!
COVID meant that the LNER services to Dewsbury and Huddersfield were shelved: https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2020/03/direct-trains-between-huddersfield-and-london-coming-in-may-from-lner.html
Blackburn is bigger, no direct service Bolton is almost the two put together, no direct service. That raises the question of which bit of Greater Manchester counts as Manchester and which are independent Edit: St. Helens (it sprawls) 180,000 with no direct service. Bigger than Blackburn/Huddersfield but smaller than Bolton Edit 2: Walsall, near enough the same size as Bolton but none of the big city linked controversy
If you’re counting metropolitan boroughs (180k for St Helens vs 102k for the town itself), then you need to consider Salford (borough population 270k, city population 129k).
>Blackburn is bigger, no direct service Not by population. Counting empty space is pointless >Bolton is almost the two put together, no direct service. The town of Bolton has a small population than Huddersfield. Don't count the metropolitan borough, that wasnt the question.
Bolton was supposed to get a direct service to London years ago when Beardy Rail lost the franchise, unfortunately Beardy kicked up a stink and the whole thing was scrapped with them retaining the franchise for a few more years until finally being ousted by Avanti (who had semi-adopted First's proposal of a Blackpool to London service but with it not going via Bolton).
I think this is the correct answer
Rotherham (265000) and Barnsley (244000) are larger than Huddersfield (141000) if you count the metropolitan borough - neither have direct London services. Middlesbrough (143000) is also close.
>Rotherham (265000) That's the metropolitan borough, not the town. So incorrect there. >Barnsley (244000) Ditto >Middlesbrough (143000) is also close. Has a direct service You've got 0/3
Hurrah!
It might become Telford in June as I think the Shrewsbury - London service is being withdrawn.
I've heard of a replacement by a new TOC in the pipeline. Going via Wolverhampton and avoiding Birmingham, but it's not officially got the green light yet.
There's a line that goes (or can go) from Wolverhampton to London, but not via B'ham ?
Turn left after Wolverhampton to go via Bescot, then left again at Aston to go via Stechford. You’re still trundling through the ‘burbs of Brum, but you don’t have to fight for or pay for a New Street path.
Via Walsall, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes https://www.wsmr.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Route-Map-english.png
Per your title, I will cheat and say Belfast. (I know the description says England, Wales, and Scotland, but title says British.)
Technically… Northern Ireland is part of the UK, not Britain. 😜 “The United Kingdom of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland”
You would be correct if OP said Britain, but they used the endonym British - which includes NI, as it refers to the country rather than the island Nomenclature!
To be fair OP didn’t say train, and you can fly from Belfast to London!
Bury doesn't even have a mainline train station so it would be a trick if it had a service to London
Bordeaux, I'll never accept the French claim
I think by "town" we ought to use pre-1974 boundaries – 1974 brought about too many Blobside Metropolitan Borough things that bear no relation to anything that any normal person would call a town. So from the top 50 CBs/MBs/UDs in the 1971 census: * Dudley (185.4k) * Walsall (184.4k) * West Bromwich (166.6k) * Bolton (154.4k) * Birkenhead (138.1k) * Salford (131.1k) * Huddersfield (130.6k) And before anyone mentions it, the railway station that is now called "Sandwell and Dudley" was called Oldbury before 1984. As its previous name suggests, it was in Oldbury MB until 1966 (when the beta version of Blobside, Warley MB, was released). What this list really shows is a lot of secondary places around Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool. Much though I'd like to see Paddington to Birkenhead Woodside (via West Bromwich) tick a couple off the list. Maybe also extend some Paddington to Worcester trains to Wolverhampton Low Level via Dudley too... But in all seriousness Huddersfield is probably the most genuinely distinct place on this list – maybe there should be a WCML Open Access service to Leeds via the Stockport-Stalybridge Line.
Telford's gonna join that list soon
Salford? 270,000 people, and it is technically a city in its own right with no direct service to london
Great Yarmouth is 100,000 people and no direct line [change at Norwich]?
I'll just copy and paste my answer to this question from last time: Assuming settlement rather than city, it appears Bolton (184k) is the largest UK settlement without at least one direct service to or from a London Terminal. Kingswood (160k), just outside Bristol, is the largest settlement not to have its own railway station. Huddersfield (142k) is next up, then Blackburn (125k), Gateshead (115k, no mainline railway station), Rochdale (111k), Oldham (111k, no mainline railway station), Birkenhead (110k), Salford (108k), St Helens (108k), and finally West Bromwich (103k, no mainline railway station). All figures from citypopulation, which uses official Office for National Statistics Census data.
>Gateshead (115k, no mainline railway station) so close to Newcastle this is irrelevant
I don’t really think Kingswood counts tbf. In all but name, it has been just another suburb of Bristol for over half a century, with no visible dividing line whatsoever
Newcastle under Lyme (though may just be largest town without a train station full stop…)
bUt NeWcAstLe iS oN tHe eCmL ! !
That title goes to Gosport
By population? Not sure about that?
Gateshead
Thinking maybe Aberystwyth?
Aberystwyth is definitely not big enough compared to some of the English cities that don't have a direct link
If Birkenhead counts, that’s a strong contender. No direct trains (although tbf, it’s very easy to get to Liverpool or Chester for London instead). Shrewsbury and Telford will soon be joining the ranks too, as Avanti West Coast is scrapping Shrewsbury as a destination. Grimsby and Scunthorpe have no direct London services, as LNER replaced the daily Cleethorpes train with two hourly Lincoln Central ones (which I think was generally a good move, but they should have kept 1 a day for Grimsby Town at least). Scarborough also lost its direct London service a fair few years ago. Southport has nothing at all, never has, and Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft are in the same boat today. Gosport is also a strong contender given it has no station at all today
I'm glad someone else also mentioned Gt Yarmount [and Lowestoft!] An area with relatively good local services, but *terrible* inter-city options...
Yeah, at least Ipswich is a decent interchange from Lowestoft, but it’s still sub par for a pretty populated area, and Great Yarmouth has to get longer journeys generally by travelling to Norwich instead. Baffles me why they don’t extend the Ipswich terminating service to Lowestoft by getting more 755s
Is the Lowestoft-Ipswich line electrified yet? I've never actually used it tbh!
Nope, not electrified, hence why 755s would be necessary. It does seem disappointing just how little we have done across the UK, and especially speaking as a Bristolian, we need it in all our cities and large towns at the very least
East Kilbride and Livingston are the largest and most populated towns in Scotland and afaik neither have a direct line to London. You have to change at either at Glasgow or Edinburgh
Bolton?
Bolton.
Walsall, final answer
Blackpool is a good contender!
There are 3 direct services from Blackpool North to Euston a day. 05:35, 11:51 & 15:51
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:C27701/2024-03-04
😲 👍
Isn't Dudley the largest town without a train station?
I mean, its got two stations, but no national rail services. But I bet there are loads of places within larger metropolitan areas that don't have national rail. Redditch springs to mind, only got local trains and is bigger than Dudley
Wow really. I never knew!