Great Western Coffee Shop

Just a program idea at the moment - perhaps hosted by a former politician or pop star taking two places with similar names and featuring 20 minutes around the first station, 20 minutes on the journey between, and 20 minutes around the destinations.

Starting with the "B" Series ...
Episode 1: Battersea Park to Battersby
Episode 2: Brigg to Drigg
Episode 3: Barry Island to Barry Links
Episode 4: Barrow upon Soar to Barrow in Furness
Episode 5: Beccles to Eccles
Episode 6: Buxton to Bruton

You get the idea ... suggestions for other series?   For presenters?

Perhaps a weak entry: Christchurch to Chichester. Back in the 1970s a colleague had an appointment in the former town but drove to the latter, even though it was outside our region.

Even weaker: Some years ago a delightfully blonde friend of mine wanted to buy a ticket to Takeley where she lived. (There used to be a station there - it "formally closed" in 1961.) One day at Reading Station she heard an announcement for a service that called at Tackley.

Stroud to Strood.
St Helier to St Helens.
Saltaire to Saltash.
And a little bit hopefully...
Salford to Saltford.

Try

Goring and Streatley to Goring by Sea
Bury St Edmunds to Bury
Ascot to Ascott under Wychwood
Lymington to Leamington
Preston to Preston Park

and so on

This was a journey I made a few years back to get to an 80s festival. Kim Wilde was the headliner. Also there were ABC, Nik Kershaw, Chas & Dave and others.

Pre 1969 Hawick and Harwich might have resulted in some unintentionally interesting journeys.

Yarmouth to Barmouth

Love it - really fancy that one (More than Blackwater to Blackpool)

Pinhoe to Pinner;
Wrexham to Wroxham;
Teddington to Cheddington.

Poole to Wool
Fareham to Wareham

Newport to Newport.
Leigh to Lee.

One that can catch the unwary out at Norwich:
Liverpool St or Liverpool Lime St.

And a pre-Beeching one:
Castle Cary to Castlecary

I'd suggest the production team should consider travel from Ware to Howwood to Williamwood or Kirkwood to Wye to Woodend.

Newton Abbot to Newcastle?
Newbury to Newport?

This topic can also have an unpleasant side for the person (s) concerned.

When I was working as ASM?s clerk in Bristol TM one evening in 1979 a tearful young woman came into the office clutching the return half of her day return from Bicester to Birmingham.

Wallington to Wellington to Willington.

Bruton to Luton
Davenport to Devonport
Gillingham to Gillingham
Newcourt to Newport

Midgham to Wolverhampton




(Some readers may understand, others may not)

I read somewhere many years ago that the station at Woolhampton was named Midgham precisely to avoid such confusion

Pilning to Kings Lynn

(Go on, you know you want to!)

I have four more episodes between places that are anagrams of each other ... can members work out any of the pairs?

Rye to Ryde (I have been issued with a ticket for the latter when I asked for the former)

Keighley to Oxenholme

Strood to Stroud

Did it cause you to break into song?

Ely to Lye

Not all in current use; Bramley (Hants) ad Bramley (Surrey). The one I get confused with on this forum, Heathfield and Heathfield (Sussex)

Exactly.    No limit of "one in the first 24 hours" here, Lee, if you can spot any of the other anagram pairs - but this is a really difficult one!

Tonbridge to Bridgeton

Yes - I prematurely celebrated with Forsinard to Rainsford, until I realised it was actually Rainford...

Welling to Welwyn Garden City, both Welling/Welwyn pronouced identically. I lived at Welling in the past and know the confusion it caused.

Mottingham to Nottingham

Oi! I am here, you know.  ;)

Preston to Preston Park, via Prestonpans

Yep, that's another of them.

I have found Reedham to Dereham, but I am guessing that doesnt qualify?

It gets you an honourable mention .... with only 4 National Network anagrams I've found, the Reedham to Dereham show could be a Christmas Special.

Darlington to Aldrington.


I assume How Wood to Howwood counts as only about 0.4 of a proper anagram.

Your Darlington pair is one on the ones I had .. How Wood to Howwood is an interesting case ... I have "How Wood (Hertfordshire)" as the official name - though I doubt the "Hertfordshire" appears on the name board at the station!   On a similar basis, I have not counted London Roads, nor Hopes.

Definitely one for Portillo on both the political and railway fronts - from a former red stronghold turned blue to a former blue stronghold turned red, destinations that mark our changing times.

Exactly: the bracket is part of the station definition, but you could say it's not part of its name - except where the name is of the same town and the bracket gives a locality. There are (surprisingly) only three of those - not including the London Roads, where the added town name is unbracketed.

Most brackets are for duplicated names needing (usually) a bracketed county name to cover their ambiguity. And there are really quite a lot of those - a few of which only have the bracket for one station, one triple (which we've had already) and one "mixed triple" - showing both local and long-distance disambiguation, and one absent bracket.

I see Reedham been mentioned but which one?

Does Reedham to Reedham count?

Lancaster to Ancaster. Episode title: Let's get the L out of here.

Chippenham to Cheltenham
...or, if we'll allow for a narrow gauge excursion, Carmarthen to Caernarfon.

I am aware of an occasion when an expensively-arranged team of professional people set out to participate in an event which started at 9.30 one Monday morning in Caernarfon. They travelled the night before, but a leisurely breakfast in their hotel in Carmarthen suddenly became much less-relaxed when somebody put the postcode of the venue into their satnav...

In similar vein, my cousin, then in the army, used to tell a story about a proposed trip to Washington that had a number of his colleagues getting very excited, until they discovered it was to a New Town in County Durham!

What I said about duplicate station names above is out of date - as is the list of names on this forum (both of which points have been commented on in some thread or other not long ago). Some of the add-on bits that were in brackets now aren't, so must be part of the station name. And some extra counties in brackets were added, for confusible soundalikes. But there are still just four actual anagrams. Of which the fourth - and by far the most anagrammatical - is:

Dalreoch to Rochdale

Yes ... that is the fourth one I had.  I confess I was helped by a bit of programming ... congratulations to those of you who found them by proper means!

Many years ago we travelled from Liskeard TO Sheffield. Couldnt understand why the ticket was less expensive than usual. Discovered we have a single from Liskeard to SHENFIELD

Well, fancy that! Who'd have guessed?

As a byproduct of that search, I now know that there are also only four station names in which the letters are in alphabetical order. One of them we had yesterday, the others ...

A friend was supposed to be going for an activity weekend in the Cotswolds. She was told to get the train to Moreton and then somebody would pick her up at the station. They obviously meant "In Marsh"but didn't say it. It was an issue that only came to a head when I was asked how long it took to get there. I said about 90 mins from Paddington and she said "No Waterloo....."

How many stations can you go through consecutively in alphabetical order?

e.g.
Achanalt
Achnasheen
Achnashellach

(these three are probably still consecutive in the list of stations - they were last time I checked a GBTT printed copy)

The alphabetical station game was fun. I had two original GWR routes

4 stations

Iver
Langley
Slough
Windsor and Eton Central

6 stations (possibly unbeatable)

Falmouth Docks
Falmouth town
Penmere
Penryn
Perranwall
Truro

I could get a couple of 4s and 5s from the Underground map, but alas the East Coast Main line is the winner with 8.

Alnmouth
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Dunbar
Edinburgh Waverley
Haymarket
Inverkeithing
Kirkcaldy
Leuchars

Swindon (Wilts) to Swinton (South Yorkshire) to Swinton (Manchester)
(or as someone unkindly suggested as an alternative - Swindon to Swineshead)

or in the alphabet game

Exeter Central
Exeter St Davids
Exeter St Thomas

But that's missing out loads of stations - Drem, Longniddry, Prestonpans, Wallyford, Musselburgh, South Gyle, Edinburgh Gateway,, Dalmeny, Noth Queensferry, Dalgety Bay, Aberdour, Burntisland, Kinghorn, Markinch, Ladybank, Springfield, and Cupar.

"Go through consecutively" sounds to me like those should be counted - if you can leave stations out to build a sequence it gets too easy, unless you impose something else - like these being stops on one service.

There's a consecutive 6 with no gaps on the Heart of Wales line:

Bulith Road
Cilmeri
Garth
Llangammarch
Llanwrtyd
Sugar Loaf

There is also a consecutive 8 with no gaps in Merseyrail territory:

Bidston
Birkenhead North
Birkenhead Park
Conway Park
Hamilton Square
James Street
Moorfields
Sandhills

If you were allowed to go "wrong way", you could also do a consecutive 8 with no gaps by diverting after James Street to finish with Liverpool Central and Liverpool Lime Street instead.

The best I can see in the south-east is six on the East Coastway Line:

Bexhill
Collington
Cooden Beach
Normans Bay
Pevensey bay
Pevensey & Westham
and if the Willingdon Chord was still there (or you reversed on the line before Hampden Park)
Polegate.

There is a campaign to reinstate the Willingdon Chord, supported by Wealden District Couuncil which has safeguarded it.

Starcross is next in sequence.

Another consecutive 6 with no gaps, this time on Thameslink:

Bedford
Flitwick
Harlington
Leagrave
Luton
Luton Airport Parkway

Does Portishead (Portzed to us locals) to Port Said count ?

The urban legend round here concerns the only manufacturer (Mustad) of horse shoe nails in the UK at that time. They had a consignment that needed to be returned because of quality control. Guess where they ended up ?.......

... or there's:
Beckenham Hill
Bellingham
Catford
Crofton park
Nunhead
Peckham Rye

6 on the Kennet Valley Line - Bedwyn, Hungerford, Kintbury, Newbury, Newbury Racecourse (Ow!) and Thatcham

If you will allow me the luxury of reversals, then there is a very familiar GWR consecutive 6 with no gaps to be had:

Bourne End
Cookham
Furze Platt
Maidenhead
Twyford
Wargrave

Or how about a London Overground/South Western Railway Mashup for this consecutive 6 with no gaps:

Gunnersbury
Kew Gardens
Richmond
St Margarets
Twickenham
Whitton

How about
Ashford to Ashford,
Ones in Kent the other in Middlesex and is possible to do with one change of train at Waterloo.

There is a potential 9 off the back of that one:

Chislehurst
Elmstead Woods
Grove Park
Hither Green
Lewisham
Nunhead
Peckham Rye
Queens Road Peckham
South Bermondsey

That requires a reversal at Peckham Rye, and I doubt if anjy timetabled services use that route!

I refer the honourable gentleman to the reversal derogation I requested in an earlier post  ;D

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Greater_London_House%2C_Camden_Town_-_geograph.org.uk_-_319426.jpg/220px-Greater_London_House%2C_Camden_Town_-_geograph.org.uk_-_319426.jpg)

...to...

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Railway_Footbridge_-_geograph.org.uk_-_332829.jpg/220px-Railway_Footbridge_-_geograph.org.uk_-_332829.jpg)

Images from Wikimedia: Sandy Gemmill / Stephen McKay

There is also Clapham to Clapham Junction - and prior to 1967, the former was also a junction.

Cholsey to Chorley is a journey I have done.  :)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Bondinho_ao_centro_do_P%C3%A3o.JPG/240px-Bondinho_ao_centro_do_P%C3%A3o.JPG)

...to...

(https://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/05/36/80/5368075_039c27a8_original.jpg)

My apologies, derogation noted and suggestion valid!

I'm translating ... suspect that's Sugar Loaf to Sugar Loaf.

It sure is!

Bat and Ball to Oval

...so that just leaves http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=24055.msg294811#msg294811 _{(or is it so obvious as to be infra dig?)}

No-one?

Okay, I'll bite. The top photo is the Carreras cigar factory in Camden. Jose Carreras made his debut in Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona. This is on La Rambla. A rambler is a type of rose. The bridge in the second photo has yellow highlights on the steps and the Yellow Rose of the song was from Texas. Therefore the pictures represent a journey from Camden Road, UK, to Austin, TX.

My journey planner just had a nervous breakdown.

I so want that to be right.

Blimey; I would so like it to be. As Robert Robinson might have said; Would that it were, Lee; would that it were.

Although to be honest I'm not sure Camden Road and Texas are all that similar, as names go.

Anyway you have at least given me the opportunity to move this one on a little: The second one (the footbridge) is at the former Morningside Road (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morningside_Road_railway_station) station, on the old Edinburgh Suburban.

While you are on your journey from one to the other, Bmblbzzz, perhaps you could practice singing 'Yellow Rose of Texas' to the tune of 'Land of Hope and Glory'...

Is this where one should shout "Mornington Crescent" to win?

Indeed. Phew.

I can sing anything you like to the tune of anything else, backwards and forwards, standing on my head in a tub of custard, it all sounds the same when I sing!

I was more expecting Dusty Bin.

Here he comes!



I left me coat in the cab...

That brought a tear to my eye, remembering Jeremy Hardy. As did he, every time he sang.