Great Western Coffee Shop

from The Standard (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/hundreds-take-shortest-tube-journey-from-covent-garden-to-leicester-square-every-week-a4271286.html)


What is the shortest journey between stations on GWR, and how many make it??

I'd hazard a guess at Exton <-> Lympstone Commando. Since the two are also connected by a footpath / cycle track alongside the railway I have often wondered (as I pass on the train) if it could be the venue for a 'runner races the train' stunt along the lines of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaMiV3Wus9c (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaMiV3Wus9c).

The public are not allowed to alight / join at Lympstone Commando so I suspect very few passengers have made the journey by train. (Marines would run!)

I wonder if it is possible for someone to leave a southbound train at Exton and run along the path to Lympstone Commando before the train comes to a halt there?

(I reckon it must be nearly 700 metres between the stations, and so it would take someone very much fitter than I to run it in under 2 minutes - a challenge for the Royal Marines?)

Penarth to Dingle Road is just over 600m. I doubt many people travel between the two stations (just as few would take a train from Montpelier to Redland, at somewhere just over 700m) - but I'm sure users of all these stations are glad they are able to railhead that bit more locally.

^{Edit: I keep forgetting that South Wales isn't all GWR these days!}

I always thought Bedminster to Parson Street would be one of the shortest, but it's 73 chains in traditional railway units of mensuration.

1300m - far too far apart! I think lympstone_commuter has it...

Montpellier to Redland is probably slightly closer than Redland to Clifton Down but the latter pair are intervisible – stand on the platform at one and you can see the other. Which could be the subject of another thread...

Whilst longer than Exton to Lympstone Commando, still on the same line and allowing for public alighting/joining at both stations............ how about Exeter Central to St James Park?  38 chains, I believe?

There are several candidates at 35-40 chains officially, but that's between wherever the distance datum happens to have been fixed at each end. I always thought that was generally near the middle of the platforms, but could be anywhere in an individual case due the history of changes (and platforms can move about). Presumably the interpretation most people would put on the distance between stations is between the nearer ends of the  platforms, which is how I read the quote in the OP. So you'd expect Exeter Central-St James' Park to be a lot less than its nominal 760 m because the platforms are so long at Central, but it's still about 630 m.

There is one that's even less officially, at 32 chains - Devonport-Dockyard (though RTT make it 37). With 100+ m platforms, and one of them 180 m, you might expect the distance to measure under 550 m, and it does.  However, it's on a curve, so not intervisible, which has an advantage: if you distract the adjudicators with the offer of a pint of Guinness, you can measure along the inside of the curve and get a bit under 530 m.

Okay, I know I might be being a bit picky here but I'm not sure you can actually see Clifton Down station from the platform at Redland.  I think that what you can see is the Redland side of the bridge over Whiteladies Road just before the station from which the line begins to bend slightly which is enough to obscure the station.
Sometimes, from Redland, you can see the lights of the Temple Meads bound service waiting on the passing loop shortly after it's departed Clifton for the opposite service but I'm sure the train is clear of the station by then.
All of this makes no real difference to the substance of the subject in question though, so I'll just go into the garden for a while now and make myself useful.

And so do I! St Budeaux Vic and Ferry Road are adjacent but not by rail. lympstone_commuter seems to have nailed it!


Do you need a coat?

You can do it by train in the peak, but it runs via Plymouth (North Road) so doesn't win.......

Needs two tickets as well.

As an aside, I notice that there are separate fares / tickets from St Budeaux Ferry Road and St Budeaux Victoria Road (in the example I looked into Plymouth). Does that mean that whichever station you go into Plymouth from, you can't go back put to the other?  Seems to rather limit the options ...

I suspect in practise the train manager might accept an "open jaw" return journey.

Please don't make posts like that when I'm drinking my coffee  :D

That's only because both are part of the cluster of Plymouth stations. If you were going further, there'd only be one fare from all of them. But that's a fares cluster, not a group ... so I don't think it makes the ticket valid at any station, does it?

I was suggesting that the train manager would use his discretion and let you travel out to Ferry Road even if you had a return ticket from Victoria Road, and vice versa - even though it's not really valid.   Can't guarantee that, of course, but GWR would look like silly billies taking someone to court for fare evasion just because they went back to the wrong station. "It's across the road from one station to the other, M'lud".

Indeed. But what officially is allowed?

If you get a ticket from thereabouts to Reading, the destination is "Reading Stations" - Reading and Reading West. That is also Reading routeing group. The same fare applies to Tilehurst, as it's also part of the fares cluster.

At the Plymouth end, there is a Plymouth routeing group - Devonport (Devon), Dockyard (Devonport), Keyham, Plymouth. The cluster includes those plus Ivybridge, St Germans, St Budeaux Ferry Road, St Budeaux Victoria Road, Saltash.

So presumably you never get a ticket to or from Plymouth Stations, in which all members would be valid start or finish points. However, if you can justify going through another routeing group station as part of a normal* routeing process, you can start or finish there (if the ticket type permits it).

*probably not the best word

In case anyone wants to get in training for my challenge(!) I have just timed a journey in the other direction (LYC -> EXT, with the train stopping at both).

Time between doors opening at LYC and doors opening at EXT: 1 minute 45 secs
Time between doors opening at LYC and doors closing at EXT: 2 minutes

Love it ... can I take a "pacemaker" friend in a wheelchair with me and have him on the platform at Exton looking to board the train when we do this?

If we're extending the discussion to South Wales then Birchgrove to Ty Glas must get a mention.  At 17 chains, (or around 350m in foreign money) then it's certainly a distance that a 400m athlete could beat the train over.  Indeed you could even set up a 400m hurdle race alongside the single track and Olympic athletes would still win.  Makes you wonder why it was opened in the 1980s.  Are workers at the factories it serves too lazy to walk that far?   

I remembered to take a look today! You might be right. You can certainly see beyond the Whiteladies Road bridge and you can see a downward sloping shape which I reckon must be the access ramp to the Beach-bound platform. But I couldn't say for sure you can see the actual platform. None of which, of course, alters the actual distance by a centimetre (or 1/2012th of a chain for older readers  ;)) so I'll just go off and make myself useful while avoiding the garden (cos it's dark!).

A total clusterfuss.

Doors close at Penmere to Open at Falmouth Town is 110 seconds. Marginally slower in the reverse direction.