Talk:List of railway lines in Great Britain

I took out the closed lines and started the newpage List of closed railway lines in Great Britain, named in line with List of closed railway stations in Britain.Supergolden 07:49, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Waterloo via Weybridge railway service
Just to note, i have put this up for WP:RM as it is not mentioned in the South Western Main Line (except for the talk page saying the same thing). I think this has merit showing it is a commuter line from London waterloo to Woking. Look also at Trent Valley Line nd Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford Line (ignoring the part about the engineering book, sorry). Simply south 20:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Layout and standards of these templates
Editors may be interested in the debate currently ongoing at Template talk:Railway lines in South-East England over the layout, classification and geographical scope of these templates. Pickle 16:45, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Heritage Railways
Whilst I appreciate that there are pages (and lists) for UK Heritage Railways, it would seem to be a nonsense to (apparently) exclude these extant and working lines from a 'List of railway lines in Great Britain' - if they are not railway lines, then what are they?

At the same time some thought needs to be given to the situation where heritage railways share stations with Network Rail and indeed operate over Network Rail. As far as I know there is only one example at the moment but who knows which other heritage railway company will follow where the NYMR leads?

XTOV 18:22, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It should be possible to include such data in the regional templates, see how undefined succesfully incorperates the heritage, freight and disused lines. So be bold and start adding. The only problem comes if you get too good like they did in Scotland and the template becomes somewhat bloated (see undefined. Pickle 18:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Removal of redundant links
I've removed the "See also" links to templates, because all the templates are already transcluded on this page. Editors can still access them via the v. d. e links. Explicit links to template pages ought not to appear within main article space. --Dr Greg 12:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Cheers, IIRC the "see alsos" were there from the time before v-d-e was added ;) Pickle 02:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Definition of regions?
I was surprised to find the Marston Vale Line (Bedford to Milton Keynes [at Bletchley]) not listed under East of England or South-east of England. Scanning down more, I find it under "Central England", which contains neither. Is this an error, or are there Railtrack regions with their own boundaries? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Network Rail do not specify any regions that would correspond with those used in this list, they classify railway lines in their Route Plans as explained here but these do not always match with complete lengths of historical lines or political/historical regions.


 * It is my belief that the railway lines in this list have been assigned regions as a matter of opinion rather than based on any factual classification, especially considering 'Central' and 'Northern' England have no official definition. I believe it would be appropriate to re-organise the railway region templates to follow the nine Government Office Regions of England. Is there any further opinion on this issue/discussion elsewhere? - HelioSmith (talk) 15:25, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessary duplication
I don't see much point in lines appearing twice on this page, once in a bullet-pointed list and once inside a navigation template. One or other ought to go.--Dr Greg (talk) 12:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

What is a line?
Throughout railway articles in WP there are mentions of Lines which appear to be the inventions of editors or just convenient ways for TOCs to group services, rather than defined traces officially named, thankfully the worst examples are not at present listed in this article. That might be grounds for removing references to them.--SilasW (talk) 16:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Can you give some examples of lines you think are problematic? --Dr Greg (talk) 18:01, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Descriptions of lines
I started adding descriptions to some lines - actually just the first 7 in the list. I was thinking that it would clarify the list entries, as I personally don't know where half the lines are. However, I wonder if it just clutters things. Should I continue?--A bit iffy (talk) 23:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)


 * " ... I personally don't know where half the lines are." Perhaps editing an article on something that you admit you do not understand is premature. I think that if you used a table to hold the description that it might avoid the cluttering you mention. Bhtpbank (talk) 07:49, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


 * When I said I "don't know where half the lines are", I perhaps should have said I "do know where all the lines are"! The problem really is the names - e.g., the Golden Valley Line means nothing to me, so presumably means nothing to other non-rail-enthusiast casual readers. Other names are downright misleading - e.g., the North Kent Line, which to my surprise doesn't properly include Herne Bay, Margate etc. I like the idea of a table, so when I get the time I might do that. (It's a pity that tables are such a pain to do in Wikipedia).--A bit iffy (talk) 10:58, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

What a hodgepodge

 * The sections of the article do not have a consistent display format.
 * The layout is not helpful. Boxes and coloured backgrounds do not improve legibility.
 * What seeker after the truth would have a primary focus on the region the line is in?
 * Who defined the regions?
 * If regions are to be used and mapped then one map with a click to the wanted region would be preferable to 15, or however many there are, maps of Great Britain
 * None of the five definitions of a Railway line is selected for the purposes of the article.
 * Does the word "Line" have to be repeated? A few of the lines omit the word for branding purposes and there is a "Link" and a Line-less Branch but those few exceptions could be flagged easily enough.
 * The rail-fan invented "Sutton & Mole Valley Lines" (note plural) appears but its WP article Sutton & Mole Valley Lines begins: "...are a group of lines..."
 * Some lines are given in more than one region (sensibly so if division by region is allowed) but for London the choice inconsistently is either wholly within The Wen or else cast into outer suburban darkness
 * There is no mention of Engineer's Line References (ELRs) which, despite dividing the network into small fragments, give an official basis for some line names.
 * After 500 edits in five years the Kingston Loop Line is still missing.
 * "South London Line" redirects to Inner South London Line but Inner and Outer have been disentangled and have separate articles.
 * There is a turgidity of style (The bulk of..., The majority of.. for "Most")--SilasW (talk) 11:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

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Should Chiltern Main Line be listed as "Terminating in London"?
There is currently an entry "Chiltern Main Line" in the "Central" as well as the "South Eastern" section. Since the terminus of the line is specified as London Marylebone, shouldn't the line be listed in the section of lines terminating in London? Robert Will (talk) 12:04, 4 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Be bold, I say; no reason why not... Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 12:06, 4 June 2023 (UTC)