Station group (railway)

In the ticketing system of the British rail network, tickets are normally issued to and from individual stations. In some instances, when there is more than one station in a town or other locality—especially where these are on different routes—it may be desirable for passengers to be able to travel to one station and back from another, or more generally to be able to choose which of the stations they wish to travel to. To accommodate this requirement, British Rail introduced a series of station groups: notional "common locations" to which tickets from stations outside that group would be issued.

For example, Penge in South London has two stations: Penge East and Penge West. The former is served by trains from London Victoria to Orpington; the latter is on the route from London Bridge to West Croydon. For a traveller arriving at, for example, a London terminal station and intending to go to Penge, it makes little difference which route is chosen. Both stations are close together and serve the same area. Therefore, a ticket issued specifically to one of the Penge stations would be unduly restrictive—it would remove the opportunity to travel by a choice of equally convenient routes. A notional "Penge group" solves this problem: a ticket issued in this way would be interavailable.^[1]

The concept is explained in the National Fares Manuals (NFMs) issued approximately three times per year by the British Railways Board (and, since privatisation, by the Association of Train Operating Companies) to stations, Rail Appointed Travel Agents and other ticket issuing authorities: "Fares for certain ... cities and towns are shown to and from a notional common station[.] All fares are quoted and all tickets should be issued to and from [these notional group] stations except for local journeys between two stations in the same group. Tickets issued to and from these [notional group] stations are valid to or from any of their associated stations, subject to normal route availability."^[2]