Station names on the UK rail network that you would change

[BeijingDave]

Mine would be:

University to Birmingham University or New Fosse Way
Rationale: I knew several foreign students at (now more illustrious) Warwick University who looked at the local network map and boarded trains in the direction of 'University' from Birmingham International.

London Liverpool Street to London Bishopsgate
Rationale: It is well-known that many tourists have believed Liverpool Street to be the station to board trains to Liverpool, and others who have incorrectly boarded Liverpool Street trains at Cambridge thinking they went to Liverpool.

Wigan North Western to Wigan Queen Street
Rationale: Not even located in the North West part of Wigan, it is in fact the more southerly of the two main Wigan stations.

 

[jfollows]

Wigan North Western is named after the London & North Western Railway, of course.
I agree with the University one, I always found it a bit strange.

 

[BeijingDave]

Oxenholme: The Lake District to Kendal Junction
Rationale: no-one knows where Oxenholme is, most people know where Kendal is, and Oxenholme is basically a suburb of Kendal.

St. Helens Junction to Sutton Leach
Rationale: Conversely, neither in St. Helens nor a junction anymore.

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Wigan North Western is named after the London & North Western Railway, of course.

Yes, but that is no longer relevant to most travellers.

I am all for keeping traditions, but not this one.

 

[Farigiraf]

Colchester Town to Colchester City - I believe this one was looked at by GA but denied on cost grounds. Since Colchester gained city status it's not really accurate to keep it as Town though.

 

[BeijingDave]

Colchester Town to Colchester City - I believe this one was looked at by GA but denied on cost grounds. Since Colchester gained city status it's not really accurate to keep it as Town though.

I am also not in favour of 'City' or 'Town' stations, which give no clue as to which part of the city you arrive in.

'Central' or [street name] is preferable.

Colchester Mainline and a reversion to Colchester St. Botolphs would work better.

 

[D6130]

Weeton to Huby. The station is right in the middle of Huby village....but a couple of miles from Weeton.

 

[brad465]

Sandling to Sandling (for Hythe) and add a bus link, might reduce traffic going between Hythe and Folkestone and make the railway more attractive for Hythe residents.

The Canterbury stations: Canterbury East to become Canterbury South, and West to become North, which is more geographically accurate to the city.

Farningham Road to South Darenth: the station is more or less next to the latter, and Farningham is a smaller village further south. Farningham residents if getting the train may find Eynsford easier anyway.

 

[BeijingDave]

Swinton (Lancashire) to Pendlebury
Rationale: It's actually in Pendlebury and would avoid confusion with the Swinton in Yorkshire.

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The Canterbury stations: Canterbury East to become Canterbury South, and West to become North, which is more geographically accurate to the city.

Agree

 

[D6130]

Witley to Wormley (for the same reason as post #6).

 

[yorksrob]

Oxenholme: The Lake District to Kendal Junction
Rationale: no-one knows where Oxenholme is, most people know where Kendal is, and Oxenholme is basically a suburb of Kendal.

St. Helens Junction to Sutton Leach
Rationale: Conversely, neither in St. Helens nor a junction anymore.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Sep 2025 ==


Yes, but that is no longer relevant to most travellers.

I am all for keeping traditions, but not this one.

I would say, we already have a Kendal station. Why change the name of another station to something similar ?

 

[D6130]

I would say, we already have a Kendal station. Why change the name of another station to something similar ?

Kendal Junction and Kendal Town?

 

[BeijingDave]

I would say, we already have a Kendal station. Why change the name of another station to something similar ?

It was originally called Kendal Junction.

 

[The Planner]

Mine would be:

University to Birmingham University or New Fosse Way
Rationale: I knew several foreign students at (now more illustrious) Warwick University who looked at the local network map and boarded trains in the direction of 'University' from Birmingham International.

London Liverpool Street to London Bishopsgate
Rationale: It is well-known that many tourists have believed Liverpool Street to be the station to board trains to Liverpool, and others who have incorrectly boarded Liverpool Street trains at Cambridge thinking they went to Liverpool.

Wigan North Western to Wigan Queen Street
Rationale: Not even located in the North West part of Wigan, it is in fact the more southerly of the two main Wigan stations.

No one is going to change Liverpool St or Wigan NW. Define "many" not being able to follow a journey planner itinerary from London to Liverpool.

 

[D6130]

A few years ago ScotRail very sensibly renamed Lochside station to Lochwinnoch; the original Lochwinnoch station on the Kilbirnie loop having closed back in the late 1960s. This was a rare, but logical example of a station being renamed after a place slightly further away. There's nothing at Lochside apart from a nature reserve.

 

[The exile]

Sandling to Sandling (for Hythe) and add a bus link, might reduce traffic going between Hythe and Folkestone and make the railway more attractive for Hythe residents.

That one could easily be done as it doesn't actually require a name change and the costs involved. However, unless there is a guaranteed (and ideally integrated both in terms of fares and timetabling) bus link (or similar) between X and Y, or it's no more than about a 10 minutes walk from one to the other along a road with a pavement (or dedicated footpath), calling a station "X for Y" is misleading.

Would definitely concur with the desirability of renaming University. A name like that is OK on a local transport network (provided there is only one in that city or town), but University is now served by long distance trains - and it's not even as if Birmingham only has one University.

 

[PZ 08895]

"Wivelsfield" to "World's End" to reflect where the station actually is. The station is over 2miles away from Wivelsfield.

 

[Magdalia]

Cambridge would be top of my list. It should have had a suffix added when Cambridge North opened, and will be even more confusing when Cambridge South opens next year.

Given that the three letter code is CBG I'd go for Cambridge General or Cambridge Grand.

It is a shame that there is no direct English equivalent of the German hauptbahnhof, which would have been ideal.

And how long ago is it since Audley End should have been renamed to Saffron Walden Parkway?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I'd do something about the number of actual duplicate names on the network as a first priority.

Colchester Town to Colchester City - I believe this one was looked at by GA but denied on cost grounds. Since Colchester gained city status it's not really accurate to keep it as Town though.

It could always go back to St Botolph's; a number of people still refer to it as such after what, twenty years or more since it was changed?

 

[The exile]

It is a shame that there is no direct English equivalent of the German hauptbahnhof, which would have been ideal.

There's nothing to stop us developing one - both "Main" and "General" are available and wouldn't take long to get their meaning understood in the way that "Parkway" has managed it.

 

[45Fox]

Narborough, in Leicestershire, could possibly benefit from the suffix 'and Littlethorpe' as it forms (along with the River Soar) the boundary between the two villages and serves them both.

 

[urbophile]

Not a station yet, but about to be, is Liverpool Baltic. I would rather it were just "Baltic', or 'Baltic Triangle' on the grounds that including the city name implies it is a terminus or at least a significant destination for the city centre. Unlike Italy, and some other countries, we don't have the practice of prefixing all stations within a city's boundaries with the name of the city; if we did, we should be consistent about it.

Clapham Junction should have been called Battersea, but that's a long time ago and the area around it has adopted the name of the station.

 

[steamybrian]

My suggestions-

Bat & Ball change to Sevenoaks North

University change to Birmingham University

 

[brad465]

That one could easily be done as it doesn't actually require a name change and the costs involved. However, unless there is a guaranteed (and ideally integrated both in terms of fares and timetabling) bus link (or similar) between X and Y, or it's no more than about a 10 minutes walk from one to the other along a road with a pavement (or dedicated footpath), calling a station "X for Y" is misleading.

"West Malling (for Kings Hill)" is 2 miles from Kings Hill, which is slightly further than Sandling is from Hythe (1.8 miles). The former definitely has a bus link, but Sandling being renamed/expanded to incorporate the Hythe element would not be unprecedented even for Southeastern.

 

[CMS1]

I am also not in favour of 'City' or 'Town' stations, which give no clue as to which part of the city you arrive in.

'Central' or [street name] is preferable.

Colchester Mainline and a reversion to Colchester St. Botolphs would work better.

Colchester Town fairly clearly implies Town Centre. Describing the part of the town more accurately wouldn't be very good marketing

 

[43096]

Colchester Mainline and a reversion to Colchester St. Botolphs would work better.

"Colchester Hbf" for the main station!

 

[frankmoh]

Change Hayes (Kent) to Hayes Gardens. It also has the benefit of making my local line into the 'Garden Line' which seems much nicer than 'Mid-Kent'.

Change New Beckenham to Cator Park. It's nowhere near Beckenham proper.

Ladywell becomes Ladywell Fields.

 

[Farigiraf]

I am also not in favour of 'City' or 'Town' stations, which give no clue as to which part of the city you arrive in.

'Central' or [street name] is preferable.

Colchester Mainline and a reversion to Colchester St. Botolphs would work better.

That's true, but Town/City does still have a use case. Admittedly 'Central' works better most of the time but there are cases where it works. Harwich is too small of a place to warrant a 'Central' suffix while being called just Harwich would have people confuse it with Harwich International, so 'Town' does work. Colchester (North) is far busier than Town and there isn't a great suffix to show that it's out of the city centre, but still the primary station - so 'Town' (or 'City') works for the much smaller city centre station. To non-railway enthusiasts, a 'mainline' suffix wouldn't mean much.

It could always go back to St Botolph's; a number of people still refer to it as such after what, twenty years or more since it was changed?

Colchester St Botolph's could work, but it isn't a great indicator to non-locals about what it serves.

Cambridge would be top of my list. It should have had a suffix added when Cambridge North opened, and will be even more confusing when Cambridge South opens next year.

Given that the three letter code is CBG I'd go for Cambridge General or Cambridge Grand.
It is a shame that there is no direct English equivalent of the German hauptbahnhof, which would have been ideal.

Cambridge station isn't in the city centre either really, it's more to the east - but still more central than the others - so it's tricky. General is quite archaic nowadays (only Wrexham General uses it now) so a Hauptbahnhof equivalent would be best for it as well as Colchester. Hauptbahnhof means 'Main Railway Station' so we do technically have one in the UK (Farnborough Main) but it doesn't work as well.

 

[D1511]

Curriehill has always bothered me. It's clearly in Currie.....it just happens to be on Curriehill Rd.

 

[Helvellyn]

Would have been easier if done years ago but:

Oxenholme The Lake District - Oxenholme (South Lakes)

• It was never the gateway to the whole Lake District, and since Penrith gained the North Lakes suffix it makes even less sense.

Birmingham International - Birmingham Airport

• Fits in with other Airport stations

University - University of Birmingham

• Just adding suffix at least avoids needing to change the CRS code.

 

[mmh]

London Liverpool Street to London Bishopsgate
Rationale: It is well-known that many tourists have believed Liverpool Street to be the station to board trains to Liverpool, and others who have incorrectly boarded Liverpool Street trains at Cambridge thinking they went to Liverpool.

I firmly believe this to be an, oft repeated, forum myth.