2024: British Railway Stations

This year’s card uses the qualifying words used to distinguish railway stations in various locations. Each qualifying word or words represents the city, town, or district whose name starts the station name and thus its initial letter. So “Commando” would represent Lympstone Commando and thus the letter “L” (not needed here, in fact).

I chose a few examples that would be well known, such as Bristol Temple Meads, Birmingham New Street, Edinburgh Waverley, and perhaps Exeter St Davids and Worcester Foregate Street in order to make the code accessible even to those without detailed railway knowledge or to those of my recipients who now live abroad and perhaps have less recent experience of rail travel in Britain.

It wasn’t possible to follow this system consistently, so I had to cheat in a few cases, including “and Pontymister”, which doesn’t really qualify “Risca” but merely suggests that the station serves two localities, and “Airport”, which fails as a qualifier to identify Inverness Airport unambiguously.

Front page

This translates as:

Green Lanes	Harringay Green Lanes	On a local line in north London, whereas Harringay station is on the East Coast Main Line.
South Beach	Ardrossan South Beach	On the line from Glasgow to Largs. Ardrossan Town and Ardrossan Harbour are both on a branch.
Gilmour Street	Paisley Gilmour Street	Paisley’s largest station, where the routes to west coast termini divide. Others are Paisley St James and Paisley Canal.
Tanshelf	Pontefract Tanshelf	With a number of routes passing through the town, Pontefract Tanshelf is accompanied by Pontefract Monkhill and Pontefract Baghill.
Pen Mill	Yeovil Pen Mill	Fairly central in Yeovil town, on the line from Castle Cary to Weymouth. Yeovil Junction is further out, on the main line from London Waterloo to Exeter.

Sunnyside	Coatbridge Sunnyside	Coatbridge Sunnyside and Coatbridge Central are on different lines; there are other stations in the town but not using its name.
Upper	Helensburgh Upper	The first station on the West Highland Line after it separates from the local line terminating at Helensburgh Central, which is at a lower level, nearer the Clyde riverbank.
Esplanade	Ryde Esplanade	As its name suggests, Ryde Esplanade on the Isle of Wight is on the seafront, between Ryde St Johns Road and Ryde Pier Head.
and Elton	Ince and Elton	Ince and Elton station, really in Elton in Cheshire, serves both places.
Crescent	Salford Crescent	This new (1980s) station in the city of Salford in Greater Manchester, allowing services from Manchester Piccadilly as well as from Manchester Victoria to stop, distinguished from Salford Central.
Lower	Tyndrum Lower	This tiny village has two stations, one on each of the branches to Oban and Mallaig. Perhaps perversely, the other station is named Upper Tyndrum.
Eastfields	Mitcham Eastfields	One of two stations in Mitcham in south London, the other being Mitcham Junction.
Main Line	Acton Main Line	A small station on the Great Western Main Line. Including Underground stations, Acton probably has more named after it than anywhere: North, South, East, West, Central, and Town, as well as Main Line.
Galton Bridge	Smethwick Galton Bridge	Named after Galton Bridge, an early nineteenth-century road bridge over a canal, now bypassed by a new road and available only to pedestrians and cyclists. Smethwick Rolfe Street station is further along the main line.

And thus:

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Inside page

This translates as:

New Forest	Ashurst New Forest	A small station in the village of Ashurst but in the New Forest district, on the South West Main Line
Newtown	New Mills Newtown	The Derbyshire town of New Mills has a station on each of two passenger lines serving the area; the other is New Mills Central.
Deepdene	Dorking Deepdene	Between Guildford and Redhill, it was called just Deepdene but was renamed, apparently to clarify that it was the appropriate station (instead of Dorking West, also renamed from Dorking Town) for pedestrian connection to Dorking station on another line.

Temple Meads	Bristol Temple Meads	Bristol’s principal station; Bristol Parkway and Bristol Lawrence Hill also exist.
Woods	Elmstead Woods	In south-east London, on the line to Sevenoaks and beyond.
Warrior Square	St Leonards Warrior Square	The main station of St Leonards, in the Hastings conurbation.
Hale	Tottenham Hale	A major interchange between the Victoria (Underground) Line and National Rail services in north-east London.

Foregate Street	Worcester Foregate Street	The smaller of Worcester’s two stations, more central that the physically larger Shrub Hill.
Wharf	Imperial Wharf	On the newly-named Mildmay Line of the London Overground, in west London.
Wishing Well Halt	St Keyne Wishing Well Halt	A request stop on the short branch line from Liskeard to Looe in Cornwall.
Terminals 2 & 3	Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3	One of three rail stations at London’s Heathrow Airport, it also served Terminal 1 before this was closed in 2015.
Balshaw Lane	Euxton Balshaw Lane	A small station in Lancashire, on the West Coast Main Line (not to be confused with London’s Euston station)
Victoria Road	St Budeaux Victoria Road	One of two small stations (the other being Ferry Road) in St Budeaux, a suburb of Plymouth, Devon

High	Falkirk High	One of two stations on different lines through Falkirk, probably named simply from its elevated location above the town. The other is Falkirk Grahamston.
Broad North	Oulton Broad North	Oulton Broad, apart from being a shallow lake, is a suburb of Lowestoft, Suffolk. The North and South stations are on each side of the broad, after the line out of Lowestoft divides.
and Pontymister	Risca and Pontymister	On the Ebbw Valley line in south-east Wales, serving the village of Pontymister as well as the town of Risca.

Estate	Treforest Estate	In addition to the main Treforest station, this station, on the same line, serves an industrial estate.
Paragon Interchange	Hull Paragon Interchange	The word “Interchange” was added to the name of the city of Kingston upon Hull’s principal station when a bus station was added within the original station building.
St Davids	Exeter St Davids	The largest of three stations named after the city and county town of Devon, the others being Central and St Thomas.

for Hyde	Newton for Hyde	Newton is a suburb of Hyde in Greater Manchester. Hyde Central and Hyde North stations are on a different line.
Lock	Enfield Lock	Serves a part of Enfield, in north London, named after a lock on the River Lee Navigation. Distinguished from Enfield Town and Enfield Chase.
Bank Quay	Warrington Bank Quay	Warrington’s main station, on the West Coast Main Line. Warrington Central and Warrington West are on another, local line.

Mynach	Ystrad Mynach	Ystrad Mynach is a station on the line from Cardiff to Rhymney in south Wales.
Gateway	Edinburgh Gateway	A new (2016) station in the west of Edinburgh, providing an interchange between ScotRail and Edinburgh trams and serving Edinburgh airport. Others are the main Edinburgh Waverley and Edinburgh Park.
Parade	Alexandra Parade	Alexandra Parade is a local station in central Glasgow.
St John’s Road	Ryde St Johns Road	On the Isle of Wight, south of Ryde’s other two stations, Ryde Esplanade and Ryde Pier Head.

Grahamston	Falkirk Grahamston	The other of two stations on different lines through Falkirk; see Falkirk High above.
Green Park	Reading Green Park	A new (2023) station on the line from Reading to Basingstoke, serving the Green Park business area and the Madejski (football) Stadium, as well as Green Park Village.
Lake District	Oxenholme Lake District	The only station in Oxenholme. The extra words seem to be only for publicity purposes.
Oxford Road	Manchester Oxford Road	A smaller station than Manchester Piccadilly or Manchester Victoria. Manchester Airport and Manchester United FC (used only on match days but currently unused) are also named after the city.

New Street	Birmingham New Street	Birmingham’s main interchange station, not to be confused with Birmingham Snow Hill, Birmingham Moor Street, or Birmingham International.
Brow	Ryder Brow	A local station in Manchester, serving Gorton.
Airport	Inverness Airport	Serves the airport, of course, and an industrial estate. The main station is simply Inverness.
for Tewkesbury	Ashchurch for Tewkesbury	On the Bristol to Birmingham main line, in the village of Ashchurch, but serving also the nearby town of Tewkesbury.
Racecourse	Newbury Racecourse	Less than a mile from Newbury station, next to the racecourse and handling additional trains on race days.

Forster Square	Bradford Forster Square	Probably the smaller of Bradford’s two terminal stations, approaching the city from different lines and directions, the other being Bradford Interchange.
Edge	Alderley Edge	Serves a village in Cheshire named after a local escarpment.
Pier Head	Ryde Pier Head	The line from Ryde Esplanade runs along the pier to a station at the pier head.
(Olympia)	Kensington (Olympia)	A small station on the West London Extension Railway, served by National Rail, the newly-named Mildmay line of the London Overground, and the District Line of the London Underground. The parentheses are, unusually, part of its name.
Waverley	Edinburgh Waverley	Edinburgh’s principal station, distinguished from Edinburgh Park and the new Edinburgh Gateway.
for Eskdale	Ravenglass for Eskdale	In the small village of Ravenglass. The added words advertise the narrow-gauge heritage railway up Eskdale.

And thus:

AND BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR FROM BRIAN BARKER

There was no useful way to represent digits in this code, and I couldn’t have constructed the required year in Roman numerals, so went with “the new year” instead.

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Version 2: Revised 20 December 2024
Brian Barker