Talk:United Kingdom railway station categories

Category unknown

The linked document "Part D: Annexes" claims not to list any Scottish stations (but see below). It does, however, state that there are 25 category A stations, and since 22 are listed (mostly in England), we can hazard a guess that the three other Category A stations are Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central and Glasgow Queen Street. Also omitted from the list are certain English stations, including: Amersham, Chalfont & Latimer, Chorleywood, Greenford, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Heathrow Central, Heathrow Terminal 4, Heathrow Terminal 5, Rickmansworth. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Could the omissions be due to ownership? Greenford is LUL-owned and BAA owns the Heathrow stations. Thryduulf (talk) 18:25, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought of that (and it fits in with stations from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Amersham, which I have just added): but flipping it over, how do you explain Farringdon and South Ruislip, which are in DfT categories E and F1? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:50, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

More omissions, this time definitely not owned by either BAA or LUL: MetroCentre, Rice Lane, Thornton Abbey. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I only see 21 listed in the category. Rich Farmbrough, 15:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC).

This is because both St Pancras International and St Pancras Midland Mainline are classified as category A. Rich Farmbrough, 15:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC).

Absolutely, this is mental. The main section (part A) says: Eighteen of the National Hub ‘A’ stations are operated by Network Rail and generally get high NPS scores. Network Rail also commissions its own more detailed station research through Pragma, and whilst this operates on a slightly higher scale than NPS, it confirms a consistently high satisfaction at the Managed Stations as Figure 5 shows: ... and it then Figure 5 lists the 18 "A" stations owned by Network Rail: Leeds, Glasgow Central, Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool Lime Street, Gatwick Airport, London Liverpool St, London Paddington, St Pancras International. London Euston, Birmingham New Street, Edinburgh, London Charing Cross, London Victoria, London Fenchurch Street, London Kings Cross, London Bridge, London Waterloo, London Cannon Street. That's two of the three the same report refuses to list in Annex D. 146.198.240.71 (talk) 11:28, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Mysterious station

Conon Bridge, Dalcross and Gogar are listed as categories F2, F2 and E respectively, even though they're not open yet. More puzzling, they're in Scotland, and Scottish stations are otherwise ignored. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:03, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Other Scottish stations listed include Armadale, Blackridge, Caldercruix, Laurencekirk, Monifieth, Muirend, North Berwick, which are open - North Berwick for over 150 years, Muirend for over 100 years, the others for less than 2 years. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:35, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I've worked it out. The original DfT document listed all stations in England, Scotland and Wales, and, I believe, included proposed stations as well. I suspect that the person tasked with preparing the "Annex D" document linked in the previous section was given two lists: (i) the full list described in my second sentence; and (ii) a list of railway stations in Scotland which were open at the time. I also suspect that they were instructed to prepare the Annex D list by starting with list (i) and remove from that all stations shown in list (ii). So, once the open Scottish stations were removed, what remained was a list of all English and Welsh stations, and also proposed Scottish stations. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

As for Monifieth, Muirend and North Berwick: I suspect that during the above process, these were on list (ii) but were simply overlooked, so that they remained on list (i). --Redrose64 (talk) 15:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Two categories

Guiseley is listed on p. 102 (Acrobat 14/25) as category D, and also on p. 110 (Acrobat 22/25) as category F1. Some other stations are dual-categorised, but in these cases it's OK because the station has two or more distinct sections, such as the high- and low-level sections of Liverpool Lime Street. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

If our article is correct then it is a staffed station, so shouldn't be in category F - did it change from being unstaffed to staffed during the year perhaps? Thryduulf (talk) 00:33, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The criteria for A vs B and C1 vs C2

A and B are the same in terms of trips per annum, as are C1 and C2. There don't seem to be any other objective criteria that distinguish them. Are there any, which I can't see from reading the references? Or are they entirely subjective? (For example, why is Loughborough C1 but Horsham C2? Needless to say I'm not complaining, only asking :) ) — Smjg (talk) 23:37, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

@Smjg: See ref. particularly pages 19-24. The primary A-F scale is based on the facilities provided rather than passenger usage. The subdivision C1/C2 is main line vs. suburban (but C1 has better facilities than C2); and the subdivision F1/F2 is more or less than 100,000 journeys per annum. There is very little difference between the facilities of F1 and F2: F1 and F2 both require Cycle Parking and Car Parking "Where practical", with F1 (but not F2) having "minimum 4 cycle racks" and "small car park"; both require Seating "On each platform with a scheduled service" - F1 also requires a minimum 8 seats which F2 does not. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:06, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I see. I'll have to have a good look through it some time. I'm still not sure of the definitions of "main line" and "suburban". And I was confused for a moment as the PDF page numbers are out of sync with the page numbers actually displayed on the pages - I take it you meant the latter. Car parking "where practical" - does this mean that there must be a car park somewhere within what somebody considers 'walking distance' of the station, or what?

And so in principle, a small, quiet village station could implement a high level of facilities, such that the DfT gives it an A category? :)

Still, it's somewhat counter-intuitive that, for example, Long Eaton and Crawley are both category D, although the latter has a lot more facilities and is about 4 times as busy. Something else that document doesn't seem to mention is platform length.... — Smjg (talk) 16:39, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I mean the page numbers shown at the bottom of each page; I think that a larger document was split up into several PDF files - this doc (parta.pdf) ends with page 42, and the first page in partb.pdf that is explicitly numbered is p. 44 - this is preceded by a single unnumbered cover page, so assuming that cover page to be p. 43, the numbering runs on from parta.pdf, so presumably there is a doc before parta.pdf whose pages are numbered 1-8.

Anyway, as to definitions and specifics, Page 15 says "The stations were classified into six categories (A – F) at rail privatisation in 1996 on the basis of passenger footfall and annual income. ... The categorisation is owned by Network Rail as landlord and is used to manage asset condition, maintenance and renewals as well as to prioritise customer enhancements", so presumably it was Network Rail who also chose the criteria, so you would need to ask them (not me) why characteristics like platform length were not taken into account. But in the case of two that you mention, "mainline" and "suburban", I would imagine that the vast majority of trains call at a mainline station, but a suburban station is missed by the express trains. But I can't be certain: if these are not explained in parta.pdf, they may be explained in another doc in the same set. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

1996?

Ref [1] (which I can't get into at work) supports the statement that the categories were introduced in 1996. But pp66–67 of The Network SouthEast Story 1982–2014 (Chris Green and Mike Vincent, 2014, ISBN 978-0-86093-653-4) has this: "There was an urgent need to codify more than 900 [Network SouthEast] stations to create a single NSE portfolio. Table 6.2 shows how this was delivered by identifying five station categories that remain the foundation stone of the railway to this day." The table names Categories A–E as "Large London termini", "Other large stations", "Large suburban stations", "Small suburban stations" and "Local unstaffed stations" respectively. Any thoughts on how this should be reflected in the article, if at all? Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 12:18, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Can’t seem to access all the pdfs linked in the refs

Ref [1], [2], [3] all manage to load what I think is the first page of the pdfs - I’m unable to scroll more! Is anyone having the same issues? Trains2021 (talk) 19:46, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

All three  Works for me --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:35, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Strange, I’ll try again on desktop today. Thanks. Trains2021 (talk) 08:17, 1 November 2022 (UTC)