Station Postal Addresses

[CentralTrainer]

Long shot - but hoping that someone here can help.

I'm after a text or CSV file that contains the postal address of every National Rail station active on the network (so VLookup queries can be done from it)

Does such a thing exist at all?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Would unstaffed stations even have a working postal address? They'll likely have a postcode but I imagine if I was to send a postcard to Breich or Ravensthorpe, it'd just sit in the nearest sorting office gathering dust surely?

 

[CentralTrainer]

Would unstaffed stations even have a working postal address? They'll likely have a postcode but I imagine if I was to send a postcard to Breich or Ravensthorpe, it'd just sit in the nearest sorting office gathering dust surely?

It's to generate mapping directions from another location to it

 

[AlterEgo]

It may be available under Rail Open Data principles. I note that all NRE station sites have a postal address.

 

[bluenoxid]

Would unstaffed stations even have a working postal address? They'll likely have a postcode but I imagine if I was to send a postcard to Breich or Ravensthorpe, it'd just sit in the nearest sorting office gathering dust surely?

Depends on the people handling it. They can sometimes end up at the nearest staffed station.

 

[jimm]

Long shot - but hoping that someone here can help.

I'm after a text or CSV file that contains the postal address of every National Rail station active on the network (so VLookup queries can be done from it)

Does such a thing exist at all?

Probably best to ask the Rail Delivery Group - https://www.raildeliverygroup.com - sounds like the sort of thing they would deal with. The postcodes on all the station pages on the National Rail Enquiries site must be held on a database somewhere.

 

[mirodo]

It's to generate mapping directions from another location to it

In which case, would a postcode not suffice?

 

[ooo]

In which case, would a postcode not suffice?

There is more than one address in a postcode

 

[snowball]

There is more than one address in a postcode

For ordinary houses, yes, but large buildings may have a postcode all to themselves. I don't know whether this is always the cse for smaller stations.

 

[mirodo]

There is more than one address in a postcode

Fair enough. Long/lat would be more accurate then; there’s a full list here: http://www.railwaycodes.org.uk/stations/station0.shtm

 

[PeterC]

You have to be careful with postcodes, they are for the delivery point not the physical location.

A postcode for a PO Box number may resolve to the delivery office rather than the street address. This was a regular problem at one site I worked at where visitors ignored the directions they were given and followed their satnavs to a Royal Mail office 2 miles away.

An organisation may have all mail delivered to a central point and give street addresses for the actual location but the postcode for the delivery point.

 

[holyflyer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_railway_stations_%E2%80%93_A

Might be a starter.

 

[Deafdoggie]

A postcode will cover more than one address, unless it is a "large mail user" unstaffed stations are unlikely to be! So they will share a post code. By law, all mail must be delivered as addressed, so unless a redirection is in place, if it can't be delivered as addressed, it will be returned to sender. If there is no sender address, and there is nothing of value, it will be destroyed. However, all stations have addresses and postcodes

 

[kieron]

You have to be careful with postcodes, they are for the delivery point not the physical location.

That's something you can check. The OS open data set includes a set of central points for each postcode, so you can look at where they are on a map in relation to one another.

I don't think asking RDG will be very useful, going by the data on NRE. Looking at some local stations, both Hawarden and Hawarden Bridge are given a postcode associated with Rowleys Drive in Shotton, and Wrexham Central is given a postcode on Hill Street, which is next to the shopping centre by the station, but the road access is on the other side.

(The list on Wikipedia gives a different postcode for Hawarden, but that's not right either, as it's on Station Lane, which has no access to the station, rather than Station Road.)

Staffed stations aren't all that good, either. Shotton has the correct postcode, but Flint is listed with a postcode for the road behind the station, where Royal Mail give the postcode as CH6 5NW.

It may be better to look for a way to do this which doesn't rely on postcodes.

 

[Joseph_Locke]

It may be better to look for a way to do this which doesn't rely on postcodes.

https://what3words.com/?

Shotton is stunt.airless.glorious

 

[jimm]

I don't think asking RDG will be very useful, going by the data on NRE.

I wasn't suggesting for a minute that the National Rail website information is a model of perfection - it isn't - but asking the main co-ordinating body for Britain's rail industry might be an idea - they could just have data on station locations in another form that could be adapted to meet the OP's aims - or know of some organisation that does. No harm at all in asking the question of them.

 

[mmh]

Long shot - but hoping that someone here can help.

I'm after a text or CSV file that contains the postal address of every National Rail station active on the network (so VLookup queries can be done from it)

Does such a thing exist at all?

I couldn't find one, but did find a CSV file of all the station codes on the National Rail site, and each station handily has a station details page on the site with the code in the URL, so I generated one by scraping the addresses off the site. Hope it's of use.

https://github.com/mmhmm/station-addresses/blob/master/output.csv (you can download it from there by clicking the "Raw" button and saving it.)

There are four oddities in it - Elephant & Castle is listed twice, once for underground and once with the NR code, but both with the same postcode. High Street Kensington Underground is in there for some reason, Barbican is listed but hasn't had NR services for a few years, and Cambridge North is missing.

If anyone's interested, there's some more detail and the code I used at https://github.com/mmhmm/station-addresses

(Edit: as others have said, depending on what you need co-ordinates might be better if they can be used. I quite enjoy writing little screenscrapers though

 

[kieron]

I wasn't suggesting for a minute that the National Rail website information is a model of perfection - it isn't - but asking the main co-ordinating body for Britain's rail industry might be an idea - they could just have data on station locations in another form that could be adapted to meet the OP's aims - or know of some organisation that does. No harm at all in asking the question of them.

It's not a completely silly idea. My intention was simply to point out that the addresses on NRE aren't accurate enough for you to be able to you put them into a sat nav and expect it to take you to the right road. The ATW site has station details on it, but the addresses seem to be the same as the NRE ones.

The co-ordinates list mirodo referred to does seem to be more accurate, but it may not be particularly easy to use those to work out how to reach the station by road.

 

[CentralTrainer]

I couldn't find one, but did find a CSV file of all the station codes on the National Rail site, and each station handily has a station details page on the site with the code in the URL, so I generated one by scraping the addresses off the site. Hope it's of use.

https://github.com/mmhmm/station-addresses/blob/master/output.csv (you can download it from there by clicking the "Raw" button and saving it.)

There are four oddities in it - Elephant & Castle is listed twice, once for underground and once with the NR code, but both with the same postcode. High Street Kensington Underground is in there for some reason, Barbican is listed but hasn't had NR services for a few years, and Cambridge North is missing.

If anyone's interested, there's some more detail and the code I used at https://github.com/mmhmm/station-addresses

(Edit: as others have said, depending on what you need co-ordinates might be better if they can be used. I quite enjoy writing little screenscrapers though

That is absolutely superb - thank you very much!

 

[Crossover]

Just a warning on the postcodes, Dewsbury station, at least, which is a manned and reasonable sized station (I would say anyway) has a postcode of WF13 1HF - this is the same as half of the buildings on the ring road in the vicinity! I think the postcode, if entered in satnav, takes you towards the church down the street opposite the station (I'm well versed with this particular postcode for people who aren't looking for the station, ending up at the wrong end of Wellington Road!)