Station group

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In the ticketing system of the British rail network, tickets are normally issued to and from individual stations. However, in some instances, when there is more than one station in a town or other locality - and especially in cases where these are on different lines or routes - it may be desirable for passengers to be able to travel to one station and back from another, or more generally to be able to choose which of the stations they wish to travel to. To accommodate this requirement, British Rail introduced a series of station groups: notional "common locations" to which tickets from stations outside that group would be issued.

[edit] Example

Penge in South London has two stations: Penge East and Penge West. The former is served by trains from London Victoria to Orpington; the latter is on the route from London Bridge to Sutton. For a traveller arriving at, for example, a London terminal station and intending to go to Penge, it makes little difference which route is chosen; both stations are close together and serve the same area. Therefore, a ticket to be issued solely to one Penge station or the other would be unduly restrictive - it would remove the opportunity to travel by a choice of equally convenient routes. A notional "Penge group" solves this problem: a ticket issued in this way would be interavailable.

[edit] National Fares Manuals

The concept was explained in the National Fares Manuals (NFMs) issued approximately three times per year by the British Railways Board to stations, Rail Appointed Travel Agents and other ticket issuing authorities. (Since privatisation, they have been published by ATOC.) This representative quote is taken from Section A5 of NFM 64 (issued on 29 September 1996):

"Fares for certain ... cities and towns are shown to and from a notional common station[.] All fares are quoted and all tickets should be issued to and from [these notional group] stations except for local journeys between two stations in the same group. Tickets issued to and from these [notional group] stations are valid to or from any of their associated stations, subject to normal route availability."

[edit] Terminology and appearance on tickets

These "locations" had to be shown in a standard, easily identifiable way on tickets. The method chosen by the British Railways Board was as follows:

• Take the name of the actual location where the stations are: for Penge East and Penge West, PENGE.
• Add the suffix BR to this: PENGE BR.

In addition, each station group was allocated its own National Location Code (NLC). As noted below, these were almost all in the 0000-series: specifically, between 0250 and 0500. The NLC appeared on PORTIS/SPORTIS tickets, which by convention always showed the "origin" and "destination" NLCs as well as the code of the issuing point; but APTIS tickets (and those from later systems) always showed the NLC of the actual station of issue, even where a ticket was issued from a "station group".

After privatisation, the designation "BR" was no longer appropriate, although having been in use for more than 10 years it had become a convenient shorthand device for referring to the station groups concept in general (even the National Fares Manuals used the term "BR Stations" as the heading for the Section referred to above). A new designation had to be created which still took up little space on a ticket (location names are restricted to 16 characters on most ticket issuing systems) and which still conveyed a notion of interavailability.

The solution, introduced gradually from November 1997 and uploaded to all ticket issuing systems by January 1998, was for BR to be changed to STNS or STATIONS as appropriate:

• STNS if the location name was between 8 and 11 characters in length: for example, LIVERPOOL BR became LIVERPOOL STNS.
• STATIONS if the location name was 7 characters or fewer: for example, DORKING BR became DORKING STATIONS.^[1][2]

An APTIS ticket issued for travel between the "Bedford Group" and the "Croydon Group", showing the pre-privatisation designations BEDFORD BR and CROYDON BR.

A Shere SMART ticket issued for the same journey, showing the post-privatisation designations BEDFORD STATIONS and CROYDON STATIONS.

[edit] Exceptions to the new terminology

There were some deviations from this standard:

• As GAINSBOROUGH is 12 characters in length, a meaningful abbreviation to signify the station grouping could not be created. Therefore, tickets to the Gainsborough "group" are now issued simply to GAINSBOROUGH.
• Although GLASGOW STATIONS was seen briefly on some systems in 1998, the designation for the Glasgow "group" was quickly changed across the board to GLASGOW CEN/QST, representing Glasgow Central and Glasgow Queen Street (the two main termini in the city). The change was made in mid-April 1998.^[3]
• The London group was changed three times, as described below.

[edit] Summary of existing groups

The following table shows all station groups which are known to exist as of 2007. The table shows NLC allocated to the group, the original rendering of the group name, any subsequent rendering (if the group still exists), and the stations included within it. The "London group" is a special case, described below.

[edit] Table notes

• ^Birmingham  Birmingham Snow Hill was included from NFM 38 (January 1988) following the reopening of the station.
• ^Bootle  The most recently created group, dating from 26 September 1999.^[4]
• ^Colchester  Introduced in NFM 48 (May 1991).
• ^Croydon  Tickets are valid to and from South Croydon as well, but tickets issued at South Croydon usually show that name.
• ^Enfield  Enfield Lock has never been included.
• ^Folkestone  Folkestone Harbour was included until closure in 2001.
• ^Glasgow  Occasionally seen as GLASGOW STATIONS in 1998; a note in National Fares Manual 70 (valid from 27 September 1998) read "Definition of Glasgow Stations: Glasgow Stations becomes Glasgow Cen/Qst. (in practice, tickets had appeared with the new wording earlier that year).
• ^Manchester  Deansgate and Salford Central were included in the group until NFM 41 (January 1989). Deansgate has since been included again.^[5]
• ^Pontefract  Pontefract Tanshelf was included in the group from NFM 67 (September 1997).
• ^Portsmouth  Fratton was included in the group until NFM 40 (October 1988).
• ^Reading  Tilehurst was included in the group until NFM 40 (October 1988).
• ^Southend  Southend East was introduced later.
• ^Tilbury  Introduced in NFM 53 (January 1993). East Tilbury is not included. Tilbury Riverside closed to rail services in 1993, but c2c provide a minibus service between Tilbury Town and the former station to provide a connection with the ferry to Gravesend.
• ^Worcester  Droitwich Spa was included in the group until NFM 40 (October 1988).

[edit] Summary of defunct groups

The following table contains groups which have been used at some time between 1985 and the present, but which are not currently in use. From analysing the stations available in each group, it seems that most groups which are now not used any more contained stations which were on the same route or which could be reached on the same train services; whereas most of the groups which still exist are those where the stations are on different routes and do offer genuinely different travelling opportunities and variability of routes.

[edit] Table notes

• ^Ardrossan  Ardrossan Town was included from NFM 39 (May 1988) following the reopening of the station.
• ^Blackpool  Blackpool Pleasure Beach was included in the group during the period of validity of NFM 39 (May 1988 - October 1988).
• ^Bristol  "Filton" refers to the original Filton station, which was subsequently closed and replaced by Filton Abbey Wood nearby.
• ^Burnley  Rose Grove was included in the group until NFM 41 (January 1989).
• ^Cardiff  "Cardiff Bute Road" was subsequently renamed "Cardiff Bay". Cathays was included in the group until NFM 41 (January 1989).
• ^Exeter  St James Park was included in the group until NFM 41 (January 1989).
• ^Lichfield  This grouping was introduced in NFM 42, but was withdrawn at the next fares change because of the difficulty in allocating revenue correctly between the Intercity sector and the Regional Railways sector.
• ^Newhaven  Newhaven Marine station was in limited use for ferry passengers only.
• ^Rotherham  The dates are, respectively, the opening date of Rotherham Central station and the closing date of Rotherham Masborough station.
• ^Ryde  NFMs indicated that Ryde Pier Head was not included.
• ^{St Helens}  "St Helens Shaw Street" was subsequently renamed "St Helens Central".
• ^{T Wells}  "Withdrawn from" date is the closure date of Tunbridge Wells West station.
• ^Wrexham  Sometimes shown as WREXHAM CLWYD BR.

[edit] Sources

NFM 36 (June 1987) to NFM 68 (January 1998) inclusive have been used to confirm this information. NFM 29 (January 1985) shows some further differences; mainly the exclusion of stations opened subsequently and integrated into the appropriate groups, but others as well:

• South Croydon was "officially" included in the Croydon group
• Droitwich Spa was not included in the Worcester group
• St James Park was not included in the Exeter group, as at that time it was a non-timetabled halt^{[citation needed]}
• A LINCOLN BR group existed to incorporate Lincoln Central and Lincoln St Marks, until the latter closed in May 1985; the group NLC is unknown

[edit] The London group

Main article: London station group

[edit] The status of individual stations within groups

The station group concept only applied to point-to-point travel tickets and tickets directly related to these, such as Season Tickets and Excess Tickets. Other types of ticket issued at a station within a group would show the name of the station itself - selected examples are:

• One Day Travelcards in the London area
• Platform Tickets
• Car Park Tickets
• Rail Rovers and Rangers

Also, for a ticket issued for travel between one station in a group and another, the individual stations' names are shown. This only has practical relevance in situations where group stations are easily accessible from each other - for example, the Liverpool group, where all four stations can be reached directly from each of the others.

[edit] References