Station group (railway)

In the ticketing system of the British rail network, tickets are normally issued to and from individual stations. In some instances, when there is more than one station in a town or other locality—especially where these are on different 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.
For 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 West Croydon. 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 issued specifically to one of the Penge stations 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.
The concept is explained in the National Fares Manuals issued approximately three times per year by the British Railways Board to stations, Rail Appointed Travel Agents and other ticket issuing authorities: "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 stations except for local journeys between two stations in the same group. Tickets issued to and from these stations are valid to or from any of their associated stations, subject to normal route availability."

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.

Each station group was also allocated its own National Location Code —a four-digit code used for accounting and to attribute revenue to locations on the railway network. Most station group codes were between 0250 and 0500. This 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 tickets from the APTIS system and its replacements 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. A new designation had to be created which still took up little space on a ticket 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.

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. As a result the Gainsborough group is simply shown as GAINSBOROUGH.
As GLASGOW STATIONS could have been mistakenly interpreted by passengers as referring to the whole of the Glasgow suburban rail network, it was used only briefly before being changed in mid-April 1998 to GLASGOW CEN/QST, specifically representing Glasgow Central and Glasgow Queen Street stations.

Additionally, the London group is treated as a special case. It was created in April 1970 by BR's Southern Region as a grouping of their nine terminal stations named LONDON S.R., before being expanded in May 1983 to include all BR terminals under the name LONDON BR, and then LONDON BRIT RAIL from January 1989 until 1997. Rather than receiving the standard new name of LONDON STATIONS it was referred to simply as LONDON before becoming LONDON TERMINALS in April 1998, even though four of the eighteen stations included in the group are not technically termini.

Existing groups

, 38 station groups are known to exist. The table shows the NLC allocated to each group, the pre- and post-privatisation renderings of the group name, and the stations included within it.

Current name	Former name	NLC	Stations Included	Notes	Refs
BEDFORD STATIONS	BEDFORD BR	0410	Bedford, Bedford St Johns
BICESTER NTH/VIL	—	7934	Bicester North, Bicester Village	The most recently created group, dating from 28 July 2015
BIRMINGHAM STNS	BIRMINGHAM BR	0418	Birmingham Moor Street, Birmingham New Street, Birmingham Snow Hill	Birmingham Snow Hill was included from January 1988 following the reopening of the station.
BOOTLE STATIONS	—	1780	Bootle New Strand, Bootle Oriel Road	Introduced 26 September 1999.
BRADFORD YK STNS	BRADFORD YKS BR	0424	Bradford Forster Square, Bradford Interchange
CANTERBURY STNS	CANTERBURY BR	0428	Canterbury East, Canterbury West
CATFORD STATIONS	CATFORD BR	0258	Catford, Catford Bridge
COLCHESTER STNS	COLCHESTER BR	0254	Colchester, Colchester Town	Introduced in May 1991.
CROYDON STATIONS	CROYDON BR	0449	East Croydon, West Croydon	Tickets are valid to and from South Croydon as well, but tickets issued at South Croydon show that name.
DORCHESTER STNS	DORCHESTER BR	0429	Dorchester South, Dorchester West
DORKING STATIONS	DORKING BR	0416	Dorking, Dorking Deepdene, Dorking West
EDENBRIDGE STNS	EDENBRIDGE BR	0259	Edenbridge, Edenbridge Town
ENFIELD STATIONS	ENFIELD BR	0263	Enfield Chase, Enfield Town	Enfield Lock has never been included.
FALKIRK STATIONS	FALKIRK BR	0431	Falkirk Grahamston, Falkirk High
FARNBOROUGH STNS	FARNBOROUGH BR	0260	Farnborough, Farnborough North
FOLKESTONE STNS	FOLKESTONE BR	0432	Folkestone Central, Folkestone West	Folkestone Harbour was included until closure in 2001.
GAINSBOROUGH	GAINSBOROUGH BR	0415	Gainsborough Central, Gainsborough Lea Road
GLASGOW CEN/QST	GLASGOW BR	0433	Glasgow Central, Glasgow Queen Street	Occasionally seen as GLASGOW STATIONS in 1998; officially renamed GLASGOW CEN/QST from 27 September 1998.
HELENSBURGH STNS	HELENSBURGH BR	0404	Helensburgh Central, Helensburgh Upper
HERTFORD STNS	HERTFORD BR	0413	Hertford East, Hertford North
LIVERPOOL STNS	LIVERPOOL BR	0435	Liverpool Central, Liverpool James Street, Liverpool Lime Street, Moorfields
LONDON TERMINALS	LONDON BR	1072	Blackfriars, Cannon Street, Charing Cross, City Thameslink, Euston, Fenchurch Street, King's Cross, Liverpool Street, London Bridge, Marylebone, Moorgate, Old Street, Paddington, St Pancras, Vauxhall, Victoria, Waterloo, Waterloo East
LONDON THAMESLINK	—	4452	Blackfriars, City Thameslink, Euston, London Bridge, St Pancras, Farringdon, Kentish Town, Elephant & Castle
MAIDSTONE STNS	MAIDSTONE BR	0437	Maidstone Barracks, Maidstone East, Maidstone West
MANCHESTER STNS	MANCHESTER BR	0438	Deansgate, Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Victoria	Deansgate and Salford Central were included in the group until January 1989. By 2005, Deansgate was included again. MANCHESTER CTLZ includes the same stations and also Manchester Metrolink Central Zone tram stations.
NEWARK STATIONS	NEWARK BR	0441	Newark Castle, Newark North Gate
PENGE STATIONS	PENGE BR	0262	Penge East, Penge West
PONTEFRACT STNS	PONTEFRACT BR	0268	Pontefract Baghill, Pontefract Monkhill	Pontefract Tanshelf was included in the group from September 1997, but by 2005 was no longer included.
PORTSMOUTH STNS	PORTSMOUTH BR	0440	Portsmouth & Southsea, Portsmouth Harbour	Fratton was included in the group until October 1988.
READING STATIONS	READING BR	0403	Reading, Reading West	Tilehurst was included in the group until October 1988.
SOUTHEND STNS	SOUTHEND BR	0411	Southend Central, Southend Victoria	Southend East is no longer included in this group.
THORNE STATIONS	THORNE BR	0271	Thorne North, Thorne South
TILBURY STATIONS	TILBURY BR	7468	Tilbury Riverside, Tilbury Town	Introduced in January 1993. East Tilbury has never been 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.
TYNDRUM STATIONS	TYNDRUM BR	0443	Tyndrum Lower, Upper Tyndrum
WAKEFIELD STNS	WAKEFIELD BR	0444	Wakefield Kirkgate, Wakefield Westgate
WARRINGTON STNS	WARRINGTON BR	0445	Warrington Bank Quay, Warrington Central
W HAMPSTEAD STNS	WEST HAMPSTD BR	0265	West Hampstead, West Hampstead Thameslink
WIGAN STATIONS	WIGAN BR	0446	Wigan North Western, Wigan Wallgate
WORCESTER STNS	WORCESTER BR	0447	Worcester Foregate Street, Worcester Shrub Hill	Droitwich Spa was included in the group until October 1988.