Station names on the UK rail network that you would change

[Topological]

I also object on the general principle that the University of Birmingham isn't illustrious enough to carry the name 'University' for its station, when it's not even the best university in the West Midlands.

Isnt that an objection to the name University?

A new suggestion for the name of the formely named University station?

 

[SoloSR334022]

Uphall to Uphall Station as the station better serves the village of the latter name and is closer.

 

[zwk500]

Uphall to Uphall Station as the station better serves the village of the latter name and is closer.

So it becomes Uphall Station station?

 

[SoloSR334022]

So it becomes Uphall Station station?

Yep.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

So it becomes Uphall Station station?

And presumably if there's a new development near the station the in the same way as there's a settlement called Uphall Station the new development could be called Uphall Station Station. And then the station would have to be renamed again to Uphall Station Station Station. And presumably if there was then a further new development....

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Having scanned through the whole thread, I have to say, University is probably the only station anyone has mentioned that really needs to be renamed. Lots of others that you could rename to make them a bit more accurate of their geographical area, but really they are OK as they are. And set against renaming, once a station has been established with one name and people have got to know it as that name, renaming can itself be confusing and disruptive. And in some cases the name has become so much a part of our national heritage that renaming would seem totally inappropriate (London Liverpool Street is the most obvious example there).

The other ones I would be most sympathetic to are:

• Bakerloo line Charing Cross -> Trafalgar Square, which is not only more accurate but was in any case its original name.
• Remove 'International' from Stratford International, Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International - since with no international trains the suffix is misleading, and to my eyes just looks like self-important marketing-speak that if anything devalues the stations. Stratford International could just become Stratford North or something. To be honest I'd probably rename St Pancras International back to plain, St Pancras, as it's not like you need the 'International' bit to know Eurostar goes there. And the French seem to manage perfectly well without sticking 'International' on their Eurostar-served stations (or for that matter, any other station that serves cross-border trains).
• Canterbury East/West -> North/South (or something more reflective of their immediate environs), and Edenbridge/Edenbridge Town to something geographically better.

 

[SargeNpton]

Farringdon is ZFD. And more recently, most of the new Elizabeth line core stations have CRS codes starting with Z.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Oct 2025 ==



Out of interest, would a station in Germany be called an Hbf even if it's not reasonably centrally located for the town?

Stations controlled by London Underground all have CRS codes beginning with Z, as a special case. Non-rail locations such as bus stops are, mostly, in the X-- series.

 

[swt_passenger]

Farringdon is ZFD. And more recently, most of the new Elizabeth line core stations have CRS codes starting with Z.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Oct 2025 ==

Z is the normal prefix for LU owned/managed stations with ‘National Rail’ platforms.

 

[zwk500]

Stations controlled by London Underground all have CRS codes beginning with Z, as a special case. Non-rail locations such as bus stops are, mostly, in the X-- series.

Z is the normal prefix for LU owned/managed stations with ‘National Rail’ platforms.

Railwaycodes.org.uk lists many LU and DLR stations without National Rail Platforms as also having Z** codes, so I expect it's TfL rather than just LU.

 

[Trainlog]

• Bakerloo line Charing Cross -> Trafalgar Square, which is not only more accurate but was in any case its original name.
• Remove 'International' from Stratford International, Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International - since with no international trains the suffix is misleading, and to my eyes just looks like self-important marketing-speak that if anything devalues the stations. Stratford International could just become Stratford North or something. To be honest I'd probably rename St Pancras International back to plain, St Pancras, as it's not like you need the 'International' bit to know Eurostar goes there. And the French seem to manage perfectly well without sticking 'International' on their Eurostar-served stations (or for that matter, any other station that serves cross-border trains).
• Canterbury East/West -> North/South (or something more reflective of their immediate environs), and Edenbridge/Edenbridge Town to something geographically better.

Again, it's best not to give Eurostar ideas on that one . I would quite like Eurostar to return to Ashford International.

As for the Canterbury and Edenbridge ideas, at this point, most people here are used to the names, regardless of whether they are misleading or not geographically speaking, it would just cause uneccessary confusion and there would be the constant 'waste of money' articles turning up in newspapers if it was genuinley proposed.

I could get behind the Trafalgar Square idea or at least a reference on the train announcements on the approach to Charing X as to its close proximity.

 

[Man of Kent]

Canterbury East/West -> North/South

Then you would have to remember which is in Station Road East and which is in Station Road West....

 

[xotGD]

University (no, not Aston!)

 

[leytongabriel]

Wanstead Park is really not near the park but is just by Wanstead Flats

Theobalds Grove is a bit obscure. Waltham Cross North?

If the football club agreed ( I believe they paid for the name change) Arsenal could go to Highbury Hill ( which it used to have in brackets)

Millbrook station in Southampton is nearer to Freemantle

North Dulwich station is south of East Dulwich. Dulwich Village?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2025 ==

I don't live there but I've visited many times spread over half a century. The ordnance survey map is not misleading, it correctly reflects the distinction between Parliament Hill Fields and Hampstead Heath.


The station called Hampstead Heath is near to the bottom end of East Heath Road. It is much nearer to Hampstead Heath than the station called Gospel Oak, and nearer to Hampstead Heath than any other station.

100% agree. You can see easily enough too that there is a different management and mowing regime on Parliment Hill Fields and Hampstead Heath. 'The Heath' which people say is maybe a bit more general.

 

[Mikey C]

Hendon should really be called West Hendon to reflect where it is.

Kilburn on the Underground is really in Brondesbury. It's near enough the Overground station that both could share the same name, as the neighbouring stations at West Hampstead do. Or failing that it could revert back to its previous name of Kilburn and Brondesbury.

Strictly speaking Harrow-on-the-Hill should be called Harrow-at-the-bottom-of-the-Hill

 

[izvor]

As for the Canterbury and Edenbridge ideas, at this point, most people here are used to the names, regardless of whether they are misleading or not geographically speaking, it would just cause uneccessary confusion and there would be the constant 'waste of money' articles turning up in newspapers if it was genuinley proposed.

Agree with Canterbury (despite this being probably the most frequently listed here!) but definitely not Edenbridge. Of course locals know the difference, but visitors do not, as I have experienced multiple times when working there. Passengers assume they are the same station and can interchange between lines; taxi drivers frequently get it wrong, as do sat-navs (or their operators...). I could go on.

Of course on the same line you have Godstone and Penshurst which are 2-plus miles from their respective villages but Edenbridge is in a confusion class of its own imho. Simple: Edenbridge > Edenbridge North or Edenbridge Upper.

 

[BeijingDave]

It's not necessary to write 'revert back' , only 'revert' (much like many people who also say 'I reversed [the car] backwards')

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Agree with Canterbury (despite this being probably the most frequently listed here!) but definitely not Edenbridge. Of course locals know the difference, but visitors do not, as I have experienced multiple times when working there. Passengers assume they are the same station and can interchange between lines; taxi drivers frequently get it wrong, as do sat-navs (or their operators...). I could go on.

Of course on the same line you have Godstone and Penshurst which are 2-plus miles from their respective villages but Edenbridge is in a confusion class of its own imho. Simple: Edenbridge > Edenbridge North or Edenbridge Upper.

Yeah, I guess to my mind, a single station whose name doesn't reflect the immediate environs, but where it's the only station for miles around (your two examples of Godstone and Penshurst), while not ideal, is in most cases not too confusing - especially because those stations often serve small villages so they are mostly going to be used only by locals. But when you have two stations in a town whose names don't reflect where they are - either in absolute terms, or relative to each other - that's a whole new class of confusion that could easily lead to people going to the wrong station. In the cases of Canterbury and Edenbridge, that's particularly egregious because the stations in each town are on completely different lines with no interchange between them, so as a passenger you really do HAVE to get the station right. Edenbridge has a further source of confusion in that one of the station names looks like a plausible informal contraction of the other name - which I suspect is why you report even taxi drivers and people using satnavs get it wrong.

Even though I'm fairly familiar with Canterbury, I still have to look up which station is which whenever I go there because calling the stations East and West is so totally confusing, whereas if they had been called North and South, I'd have no trouble knowing which is which - which is why I personally would rate both Canterbury and Edenbridge as ripe for having their stations renamed.

 

[321362]

North Dulwich station is south of East Dulwich. Dulwich Village?

Yes

Godstone and Penshurst which are 2-plus miles from their respective village

That whole line is silly just because it was built in a dead straight line. Doesn't need it, as it doesn't see any fast trains today.

I think South Godstone instead of Godstone, and Chiddingstone Causeway instead of Penshurst

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Canterbury East/West -> North/South

Then you would have to remember which is in Station Road East and which is in Station Road West....

Having resorted to Google maps, I'm unsure if this is just a piece of British eccentricity to be treasured, or downright unhelpful.

The thing is, my expectation of 'Descriptor Road East' and 'Descriptor Road West' is that they join up somewhere in the middle - see, for example Blundellsands Road East & West (Merseyside) at https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...try=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAwNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==, or Huntercombe Lane North & South (Bucks and Slough) at https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...try=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAwNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==.

So the street names in Canterbury suggest to me that there's one Station Road, with east and west portions. But that's not the case. Wouldn't it be more intuitive, when changing the station names (because the Forum Has Spoken, so the railway will surely comply) to change Station Road East to North Station Road, and Station Road West to South Station Road?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

North Dulwich station is south of East Dulwich. Dulwich Village?

I thought Dulwich was just a hamlet...

 

[RUK]

Southend East (which does now say “for Southchurch Village” on the station name boards) to just Southchurch - there isn’t any other place called Southchurch, so there’s no need for disambiguation, and no-one else calls that area Southend East, or refers to the East of Southend, really - the electoral ward is called Southchurch. Southchurch isn’t really a village - there was a manor house/is a hall, and it became a parish, before it became a suburb of Southend, but I’ve never seen anything else refer to it as a village, either.

 

[duffield]

You'd probably have to call it Stratford Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park if doing that. I don't think the International name is a particular problem, as you have to book International trains in advance so will know to go to St Pancras.

If we were renaming trains to reflect whether they had accurate services we'd have had to rename Ebbsfleet and Ashford when COVID started and then back again if they ever restart.

If there is a problem with "International" it's not that international passengers go there, since as you say they have to book. The problem (if it exists) is non-international passengers who want one of the non-international destinations served by International *not* going there (and going to Stratford instead) because the International suffix deters them.

 

[JKF]

Severn beach to (more accurately) Severn Muddy Shoreline

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Severn beach to (more accurately) Severn Muddy Shoreline

Hahaha!

If we're being like that about the name changes, can we do something about all the names along the Bethnal Green->Cambridge Heath->London Fields->Hackney Downs corridor? 4 stations in a row whose names give the impression of lush greenery all around, but which actually run through an area of densely packed 'working class style' housing, much of it I would assume ex-council housing, and with a very busy main road running through it all.

 

[JKF]

I wonder if anyone ever got off at St Andrews Road expecting to find a branch line service to St Andrews sat in the non-existent bay platform?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I wonder if anyone ever got off at St Andrews Road expecting to find a branch line service to St Andrews sat in the non-existent bay platform?

There are occasional (possibly apocryphal) reports of people turning up at Alton (Hants) hoping to ride roller-coasters, or arriving at Leeds and asking for directions to the castle, so I suppose it's possible. I look forward to the same people who mistakenly went to Alton also rocking up at a suburban station in Leeds if and when it opens.

We could rename all these stations to try and make things completely idiot-proof... but nature would just invent a better idiot!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

If we're being like that about the name changes, can we do something about all the names along the Bethnal Green->Cambridge Heath->London Fields->Hackney Downs corridor? 4 stations in a row whose names give the impression of lush greenery all around, but which actually run through an area of densely packed 'working class style' housing, much of it I would assume ex-council housing, and with a very busy main road running through it all.

I suspect that area probably was lush and green when the stations were first built... so maybe inserting the word "former" in the middle of each name might be appropriate...

 

[yorksrob]

Yes

That whole line is silly just because it was built in a dead straight line. Doesn't need it, as it doesn't see any fast trains today.

I think South Godstone instead of Godstone, and Chiddingstone Causeway instead of Penshurst

The Tonbridge-Ashford section can be done in 23 minutes. Good bit of infrastructure.

 

[Cach17]

The Tonbridge-Ashford section can be done in 23 minutes. Good bit of infrastructure.

True, but it's too bad there are no limited-stop trains between the two towns.

That is unless Kent Rail Strategy 2021 (specifically page 37) was ever realised...

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Hahaha!

If we're being like that about the name changes, can we do something about all the names along the Bethnal Green->Cambridge Heath->London Fields->Hackney Downs corridor? 4 stations in a row whose names give the impression of lush greenery all around, but which actually run through an area of densely packed 'working class style' housing, much of it I would assume ex-council housing, and with a very busy main road running through it all.

There'll no doubt be exceptions, but there's a jokey "rule of thumb" that's been said about suburban stations around both Manchester and Glasgow (possibly other cities too): that the desirability of an area is inversely proportional to how pleasant the station name sounds!