Trivia: Most connected UK station

[najaB]

Okay, this may well have been done before but I couldn't see it so apologies if it's a duplicate...

Is Kings Cross St Pancras Underground station the 'most connected' point in the UK? By which I mean is it the point from which it's possible to reach the most places in the world with the fewest number of changes of scheduled public transport?

From there you have direct trains to three airports (Heathrown, Gatwick and Luton), and one change gets you to Stanstead, Edinburgh and Glasgow. You get direct trains to Paris and Brussels from where one change gets you to at least two other major airports.

Is there anywhere else in the UK that beats it?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Manchester airport - but would need two changes - Euston and Manchester Piccadilly or Stockport

 

[NSE]

I reckon Birmingham New Street would have some legs, but I don't think it'll come that close.

 

[JamesRowden]

Okay, this may well have been done before but I couldn't see it so apologies if it's a duplicate...

Is Kings Cross St Pancras Underground station the 'most connected' point in the UK? By which I mean is it the point from which it's possible to reach the most places in the world with the fewest number of changes of scheduled public transport?

From there you have direct trains to three airports (Heathrown, Gatwick and Luton), and one change gets you to Stanstead, Edinburgh and Glasgow. You get direct trains to Paris and Brussels from where one change gets you to at least two other major airports.

Is there anywhere else in the UK that beats it?

Heathrow Airport

 

[JW16]

Not that I can think of!

 

[najaB]

Heathrow Airport

You can get from Kings Cross to Newcastle in one step, but it takes at least two from Heathrow Airport.

Heathrow will likely be nearly as connected, but there are probably destinations served from Gatwick that require more than one extra step to get to from Heathrow... thinking leisure destinations.

 

[westcoaster]

Okay, this may well have been done before but I couldn't see it so apologies if it's a duplicate...

Is Kings Cross St Pancras Underground station the 'most connected' point in the UK? By which I mean is it the point from which it's possible to reach the most places in the world with the fewest number of changes of scheduled public transport?

From there you have direct trains to three airports (Heathrown, Gatwick and Luton), and one change gets you to Stanstead, Edinburgh and Glasgow. You get direct trains to Paris and Brussels from where one change gets you to at least two other major airports.

Is there anywhere else in the UK that beats it?

Don't forget to add east Midlands airport to the direct list.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Okay, this may well have been done before but I couldn't see it so apologies if it's a duplicate...

Is Kings Cross St Pancras Underground station the 'most connected' point in the UK? By which I mean is it the point from which it's possible to reach the most places in the world with the fewest number of changes of scheduled public transport?

That would impossible to answer precisely without a more precise definition of 'most connected'.

For example, which of these (imaginary) stations would you consider to be 'most connected'?

• From station A you can get to 2000 places directly and 8000 further places with one change.
• From station B you can get to 6000 places directly and 4000 further places with two changes.

If you only consider direct routes, then station B is better connected. If you allow for one change, then station A is better connected. If you allow for two changes, then they are both as well connected as each other. So you how you measure connectivity will drastically affect your answer.

Also, have you considered that the walk from St Pancras underground station to some of the mainline platforms is probably longer than the walk between some entirely separate stations that happen to be close together. How does that factor into connectivity?

(Having said that, I suspect that if you go with gut feeling and ignore the question of how you measure connectivity, you're correct that somewhere like St. Pancras probably comes close).

 

[najaB]

Having said that, I suspect that if you go with gut feeling and ignore the question of how you measure connectivity, you're correct that somewhere like St. Pancras probably comes close.

I was going for gut feeling rather than hard facts. I was on a Northern Line tube train heading for Kings Cross St Pancras today, when the 'Change here for...' PA played I realised it could say 'Change here for everywhere!' Oh for a fresh passport and credit card with no limit.

 

[JamesRowden]

You can get from Kings Cross to Newcastle in one step, but it takes at least two from Heathrow Airport.

Heathrow will likely be nearly as connected, but there are probably destinations served from Gatwick that require more than one extra step to get to from Heathrow... thinking leisure destinations.

There is a frequent coach service between Heathrow and Gatwick.

 

[najaB]

There is a frequent coach service between Heathrow and Gatwick.

Is there no-change coach service to, for example, Peterborough or Northallerton?

 

[thenorthern]

I think its Birmingham New Street.

Many large places with a single main station have a large amount of services to other stations compared to other large city stations. Such as Leeds has services to more destinations than Manchester Piccadilly as Leeds is the only main line station in the city but in Manchester there is Piccadilly, Victoria and Oxford Road.

 

[JamesRowden]

Is there no-change coach service to, for example, Peterborough or Northallerton?

Looking quickly I saw services to a wide range of destinations including Brighton, Plymouth, Poole, Woking, Victoria, Reading, Bristol, Cardiff, Oxford, High Wycombe, Birmingham, Derby, Bradford and Cambridge. There's many London Bus routes as well.

 

[JW16]

With one change at Liverpool Street you can also get from Kings Cross to Southend Airport!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Heathrow Airport

That was my first thought. But there are some issues with naming Heathrow. Firstly, Heathrow Airport isn't one place. If you're at Terminal 5 and you need to get to Terminal 3 or Terminal 4 then I think you need to use public transport to get there. Is that different in principle from being at St Pancras and needing to use public transport to get to Heathrow T3?

Also, although a lot of flights depart from Heathrow, each flight only really goes to one place - as opposed to a train that might call at 10 or 20 places enr route. The destinations list claims there are around 180 destinations. At a guess, perhaps 120-130 of them can be reached by flights from T123. I suspect there are some large railway stations that can claim direct services to more places than that.

Set against that, the destinations reachable from Heathrow are mainly large cities in very different places - not local stops along individual lines, which would make Heathrow seem more connected - by the 'gut-feeling' measure that the najaB is using.

Another point is that no one here has thought about bus services. Heathrow would do quite well by that measure, St. Pancras slightly less so. I wonder if counting buses would favour somewhere like Victoria, which not only has trains and tube, but a significant hub for bus routes right outside the station, and a coach station just down the road with coaches to destinations across not just the UK but Europe.

Of course in about 5 years time, Farringdon could be a significant contender for trains, also with 2 airports directly reachable from it, and one more (Southend) with what would be little more than a cross-platform change of trains. And Stansted reachable with one change of trains, though not sure if it would be a simple cross-platform change.

 

[AnonymousUser1]

Don't forget to add east Midlands airport to the direct list.

i'm guessing you've not been to Ratcliffe on Trent power station station then ( East Midlands Parkway)

 

[JamesRowden]

That was my first thought. But there are some issues with naming Heathrow. Firstly, Heathrow Airport isn't one place. If you're at Terminal 5 and you need to get to Terminal 3 or Terminal 4 then I think you need to use public transport to get there. Is that different in principle from being at St Pancras and needing to use public transport to get to Heathrow T3?

Also, although a lot of flights depart from Heathrow, each flight only really goes to one place - as opposed to a train that might call at 10 or 20 places enr route. The destinations list claims there are around 180 destinations. At a guess, perhaps 120-130 of them can be reached by flights from T123. I suspect there are some large railway stations that can claim direct services to more places than that.

Set against that, the destinations reachable from Heathrow are mainly large cities in very different places - not local stops along individual lines, which would make Heathrow seem more connected - by the 'gut-feeling' measure that the najaB is using.

Another point is that no one here has thought about bus services. Heathrow would do quite well by that measure, St. Pancras slightly less so. I wonder if counting buses would favour somewhere like Victoria, which not only has trains and tube, but a significant hub for bus routes right outside the station, and a coach station just down the road with coaches to destinations across not just the UK but Europe.

Of course in about 5 years time, Farringdon could be a significant contender for trains, also with 2 airports directly reachable from it, and one more (Southend) with what would be little more than a cross-platform change of trains. And Stansted reachable with one change of trains, though not sure if it would be a simple cross-platform change.

I quantified the question to be the station which has the lowest sum of changes by public transport required to get everywhere in the world (without using private transport except for waking).

Traveline shows walking between Heathrow terminals to be an option when I input just walk when less than 60 minutes.

Heathrow is one stop less to any region across the world that Heathrow has a direct connection to and Central London does not (with Central London having services to France/Belgium).

One might say that one should use public transport when it's faster than walking. I would say that it would fair to make such a point. In which case I'd think the question should be quantified as the sum of the average total journey time (which makes service frequency important) to get everywhere in the world. This quantification better relates to stations since it provides an advantage to using its own services rather than another a mile down the road.

This question is more complicated to find the answer to.

 

[Deerfold]

I quantified the question to be the station which has the lowest sum of changes by public transport required to get everywhere in the world (without using private transport except for waking).

Traveline shows walking between Heathrow terminals to be an option when I input just walk when less than 60 minutes.

Unless you are airport staff I don't believe you can legally walk between Heathrow Terminals (except between 2 and 3).

 

[JamesRowden]

Unless you are airport staff I don't believe you can legally walk between Heathrow Terminals (except between 2 and 3).

Walk along the roads.

Traveline shows the following route via the northern perimeter of the airport:

 

[JamesRowden]

Routes between the other terminals:

 

[cornishjohn]

Walk along the roads.

Traveline shows the following route via the northern perimeter of the airport:

I think the tunnel out is in fact "no pedestrians". I'm not sure pedestrian access at T5 is practicable either.

 

[Deerfold]

Walk along the roads.

Traveline shows the following route via the northern perimeter of the airport:

As has been said, the tunnel out of T2,3 is vehicle access only except in case of evacuation of the airport - both ends of the tunnel have CCTV.

Routes between the other terminals:

Terminal 1 to 3 is particularly odd - Terminal 1 is not currently in use - you really don't want to be found there.

 

[Bedpan]

I don't think that you'd be able to beat Kings Cross/St Pancras for being the station two people could end up furthest apart from by getting on a single train, ie Inverness in the north and Marseille in the south, about 1070 miles apart as the crow flies.