Trivia: Journeys that take the same time with different routings

[Gathursty]

I'm planning a Wigan to Bath Spa journey and was intrigued to find that going via Birmingham or via the Marches line returned the same journey time of about 4 hours and a few minutes. Also going via London gave 4 hours and 10 minutes. I was expecting the Marches routing to be a longer journey time than via Birmingham. In fact both options get you on the same train leaving Bristol Temple Meads.

Are there any other journeys with different routings that end up being the same time or within a few minutes either side?

 

[Kilopylae]

There are several journeys from London to the Great Northern lines where you can get on a direct train at Moorgate or take Thameslink to Finsbury Park to pick up the same train out of Moorgate.

Likewise, to stations on GWR's Greenford line, there are lots of different ways to reach the same departure from West Ealing. For instance, from London Bridge to Castle Bar Park, it doesn't matter if you reach West Ealing via Thameslink to Farringdon and EL from there or Underground to Bond Street and EL from there.

 

[D1537]

Leeds-Glasgow is always a good one. for example, you can have seven different itineraries in 85 minutes

09:45 change at Manchester Oxford Road and Preston arriving 14:05 (4h20)
10:10 change at Edinburgh only arriving 14:34 (4h24)
10:18 change at Lancaster only arriving 14:39 (4h21)
10:30 change at York and Edinburgh arriving 14:34 (4h04)
10:49 change at Carlisle only arriving 15:01 (4h12)
10:58 change at Preston only arriving 15:17 (4h19)
11:10 change at Newcastle and Edinburgh arriving 15:38 (4h28)

Later in the day there's also
change at York,Newcastle and Edinburgh (4h08)
change at Bolton and Preston (4h16)
change at Manchester Oxford Road and Lancaster (4h18)
direct train - 17:10 XC (4h12)

Ironically the fastest is to get the 17:10 XC to Edinburgh and then jump on the 20:15 Scotrail to Glasgow (3h55)

 

[brad465]

Dartford-London Bridge via any of the trio of lines west sees journey times with only a few minutes at most variation.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Waterloo to Strawberry Hill and return. Whilst it's inevitable on a circular service that there will be a halfway point which trains take the same time to reach either way round, the departures are almost simultaneous, resulting in two trains every half hour instead of a regular 15 minute interval service

waterloo xx57/xx00 (and the same on the half hour)
Strawberry Hill xx38/xx37

Strwaberry Hill xx37/xx38 (and the same on the half hour)
waterloo xx19/xx16

(Times via Kingston shown first)

 

[mlambeuk]

York to Blackpool North 2 hrs 40 mins direct via Burnley.
2hrs 44 mins via Manchester with 2 changes.

 

[A S Leib]

I suspect there's a lot of cases with infrequent services where this happens, such as Whitby to Oban. Leaving Whitby at 08:44 tomorrow, it's possible to get to Oban for 19:42 (with the previous train being four hours earlier, making an earlier connection by any route impossible) changing at

• Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Haymarket and (via Falkirk High) Glasgow Queen Street
• Middlesbrough, Darlington, Haymarket and (via Falkirk High) Glasgow Queen Street
• Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Haymarket and (via Airdrie) Glasgow Queen Street, Dalmuir or Dumbarton Central
• Middlesbrough, Darlington, Haymarket and (via Airdrie) Glasgow Queen Street, Dalmuir or Dumbarton Central
• Middlesbrough, Carlisle, Glasgow Central and Dalmuir

Worcester (Foregate Street, in this example) to Shrewsbury can have very similar times, e.g. 08:53-10:54 via Hereford, 08:54-10:56 via Birmingham New Street, or 08:40-10:56 via Stourbridge and changing at Smethwick Galton Bridge.

 

[vlad]

Not sure if this is what the OP was after but there are three routes between Manchester and Stafford (via Styal and Crewe, Stockport and Crewe, Stockport and Stoke) which all take pretty much the same time. You don't really get the choice of which route to take on a through train as almost all go via Stoke but it's handy in case of disruption as you don't lose time going via a different route.