Trivia : Furthest station from London/Highest Frequency Combo

[GordonT]

Which station is the furthest away from its London terminal or terminals with the highest number of trains per hour in a typical hour to/from London? I've probably not phrased that as well as I should have. What I'm meaning is the furthest distant station from London with the highest frequency to/from London if that explains it better.

 

[The Middle]

Which station is the furthest away from its London terminal or terminals with the highest number of trains per hour in a typical hour to/from London?

Edinburgh surely at 2 or 3 TPH?

 

[Peter0124]

Probably doesn't answer your question properly but I just had to mention this.

Between 10:50 and 11:31 on Sundays, Edinburgh has FIVE trains to London with one being Avanti, one being Lumo and the other three LNER.

The Avanti is not currently running weekends due to Carstairs being blocked but is back in June.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Edinburgh between 1050 and 1131 on 25/06/2023

Train information at Edinburgh between 1050 and 1131 on 25/06/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Birmingham New Street is somewhat closer than Edinburgh Waverley, but has 4 TPH to/from London, during most of the day, each and every hour and not just for any one (un)typical hour on a Sunday morning.

 

[duncanp]

Birmingham New Street is somewhat closer than Edinburgh Waverley, but has 4 TPH to/from London, during most of the day, each and every hour and not just for any one (un)typical hour on a Sunday morning.

Two of which are stopping trains via Northampton, which get overtaken by later Avanti services.

Manchester Piccadilly, with three fast trains per hour to Euston, must be one of the contenders for this thread.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Birmingham New Street is somewhat closer than Edinburgh Waverley, but has 4 TPH to/from London, during most of the day, each and every hour and not just for any one (un)typical hour on a Sunday morning.

Two of which are stopping trains via Northampton, which get overtaken by later Avanti services.

Manchester Piccadilly, with three fast trains per hour to Euston, must be one of the contenders for this thread.

Don't think the divergent route South of Rugby automatically excludes the "slow" services to/from New Street, as per the OP's stated criteria. In any event, isn't one of the regular 3TPH Manchester->London services routed via Crewe, the other two via Stoke-on-Trent?

 

[Horizon22]

An odd question because on this criteria is 2tph 300 miles from London or 4tph 150 miles away, better, equal or worse?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

An odd question because on this criteria is 2tph 300 miles from London or 4tph 150 miles away, better, equal or worse?

Quite! More succinctly put than I'd have ever managed.

 

[Magdalia]

Which station is the furthest away from its London terminal or terminals with the highest number of trains per hour in a typical hour to/from London? I've probably not phrased that as well as I should have. What I'm meaning is the furthest distant station from London with the highest frequency to/from London if that explains it better.

No, you haven't explained this.

Generally speaking, as distance from London increases, frequency decreases. It is a trade off.

For example:

place A is 50 miles from London and has 4 trains per hour
place B is 100 miles from London and has 2 trains per hour

What criterion do you use to decide which of those is "higher"?

To have a "highest" when varying both distance and frequency you need to define a variable V that is some function of distance from London D and frequency of service F.

For sake of argument, that could be V=D*F. On that definition places A and B above are equal at V=200.

 

[GordonT]

Would it be a more meaningful question if I prefixed it with the words "Within a 100 mile radius of London"?

 

[PGAT]

100 miles measured as the crow flies or by the route of the track?

 

[zwk500]

Would it be a more meaningful question if I prefixed it with the words "Within a 100 mile radius of London"?

It depends what you're trying to find out!

 

[Magdalia]

Would it be a more meaningful question if I prefixed it with the words "Within a 100 mile radius of London"?

No.

For example "within a 100 mile radius of London" includes both Clapham Junction and Leicester. Is that meaningful?

What would be meaningful would be to ask what is the station that is furthest from London that has at least a specified number of trains per hour.

But you then have to say which trains count and which do not. For example are you including slow trains that are overtaken by fast trains? Are you including multiple termini? Are you including trains that run through London and out the other side, such as Thameslink?

 

[GordonT]

No.

For example "within a 100 mile radius of London" includes both Clapham Junction and Leicester. Is that meaningful?

I was meaning the furthest station from London terminals but not exceeding 100 miles. Not every station within 100 miles.
In the case of Thameslink, good point, take the mileage from City Thameslink.

 

[Dr Hoo]

So, Leicester is 99 miles from St Pancras International and has four trains in a typical hour on weekdays.

 

[alistairlees]

To get to an "answer" you could multiply the number of services by the distance in miles. However miles are measured (straight line, track, to one London station only etc.) I would have thought the answer will be Edinburgh (33 services today over 393 miles = 12,969). Reading also does pretty well, at 36 miles * 260 services = 9,360 (this will actually be slightly higher as 35 services go to Waterloo). Clapham Junction has over 900 services, but is less than 3 miles away.

 

[zwk500]

To get to an "answer" you could multiply the number of services by the distance in miles. However miles are measured (straight line, track, to one London station only etc.) I would have thought the answer will be Edinburgh (33 services today over 393 miles = 12,969). Reading also does pretty well, at 36 miles * 260 services = 9,360 (this will actually be slightly higher as 35 services go to Waterloo). Clapham Junction has over 900 services, but is less than 3 miles away.

But this answer could be utterly meaningless to the OP, who could just as easily be asking for generalised journey times to London.

 

[PGAT]

But this answer could be utterly meaningless to the OP, who could just as easily be asking for generalised journey times to London.

But the question is directly asking about frequency, not journey times.

 

[zwk500]

But the question is directly asking about frequency, not journey times.

The OP was asking for a function of Frequency (a form of time) and Distance. Generalised Journey Time would be as potentially useful as anyhting suggested in the post I quoted.

 

[GordonT]

My interest would probably be better served by asking which of the London daily commuting outliers of the likes of Cambridge, Peterborough, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Reading, Brighton has the best frequency to/from London and is there anywhere further from London, with a rail connection to/from London with the same or better frequency.

 

[AM9]

Which station is the furthest away from its London terminal or terminals with the highest number of trains per hour in a typical hour to/from London? I've probably not phrased that as well as I should have. What I'm meaning is the furthest distant station from London with the highest frequency to/from London if that explains it better.

So are you scoring each occurrence, e.g. number of train miles per hour?
That would bring a whole lot of shorter but busier routes, e.g. Bristol Parkway, Brighton, even Reading!

 

[zwk500]

My interest would probably be better served by asking which of the London daily commuting outliers of the likes of Cambridge, Peterborough, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Reading, Brighton has the best frequency to/from London and is there anywhere further from London, with a rail connection to/from London with the same or better frequency.

Brighton (50 miles) has 4tph Thameslink direct to London Bridge, if you change at East Croydon you also then have large number of Victoria services.
MK (50 miles) has 1tph stopping, 2tph Buzzard semifasts, 1tph Crewe fast, and (used to?) Have 3tph Avanti fast. So 6tph that will do the journey without being overtaken.

 

[AM9]

I was meaning the furthest station from London terminals but not exceeding 100 miles. Not every station within 100 miles.
In the case of Thameslink, good point, take the mileage from City Thameslink.

So is it focused on the London Terminal of the Country destination? For example Brighton would have Victoria and Thameslink sources, whereas Reading would be Paddington and Waterloo.

 

[GordonT]

So is it focused on the London Terminal of the Country destination? For example Brighton would have Victoria and Thameslink sources, whereas Reading would be Paddington and Waterloo.

So is it focused on the London Terminal of the Country destination? For example Brighton would have Victoria and Thameslink sources, whereas Reading would be Paddington and Waterloo.

To/from any London terminal or City Thameslink without change of train in either case.

 

[sk688]

Swindon has the Cheltenham service , the 2 Bristol via Baths and the 2 South Wales services per hour into London IIRC

 

[AM9]

To/from any London terminal or City Thameslink without change of train in either case.

Then Reading would have the Lizzie trains from Abbey Wood?

 

[GordonT]

Then Reading would have the Lizzie trains from Abbey Wood?

I had overlooked that, but yes!