I have been to all the stations in London.
All of them.
It's a lot of stations.
It's hard to be certain precisely how many stations but let's say 'just over 600'.
And I have been to all just over 600 of them.
As of yesterday.
I'm including tube, DLR, Overground, Crossrail and all National Rail services, even trams, and that's why it's quite so many stations. Also when I say 'been to' I mean properly used, not just passed through on a train. At each station I either touched in or touched out, sometimes both.
» What precisely counts as a station is a moot point. Is Canary Wharf one station or three? Is Marylebone one station or a rail terminus plus the tube? I got round this pedantry by going to both of them, just to be sure, also both halves of Shepherd's Bush, both sides of Mitcham Junction and the two Heathrow Terminal 5s. Don't nitpick, just do the lot.
» Also I'm only counting TfL and National Rail stations here, not Eurostar or independent ventures like the Ruislip Lido Railway. If my 60+ Oyster doesn't let me in it doesn't count.
It's not easy to visit all the stations in London, and also not easy to know you have. You need a list and you need excellent record keeping, also patience, drive and time. Are you absolutely certain you've been to Albany Park, Eden Park and Grange Park? Have you really been to West Drayton, Drayton Park and Drayton Green? I'm certain because I made a spreadsheet and ticked everywhere off. I wonder how many others can say the same.
What's more I've been to all the stations in London this year.
And it's only June.
I've been a busy boy.
I broke down the challenge into two halves.
First I visited all the stations in zones 1-3, then all the stations in zones 4-6. At the start of the year I had a z1-3 Travelcard so I used that, then in mid-March I got my 60+ Oyster card so I used that. I have visited all the z1-3 stations in a calendar year before, at least three times, but never gone on to tackle z4-6 because of the cost. The zone 1-6 daily cap is £16.30 which'd be a lot of money to waste just to visit, say, all the stations on the Chessington South branch.
All the stations in London
z1-3
trams
z4-6
about 350 stations
39 tram stops
about 230 stations
January
February
mid-March-mid-June
My very last London station was Sudbury & Harrow Road, the hardest station of all. It only gets eight trains a day, four into London in the morning and four out in the evening, weekdays only, which helps explain why it's London's least used station. Nobody else alighted from the same train as me, unsurprisingly. Nevertheless some workmen had been round giving the metalwork a touch-up, hence there are Wet Paint stickers everywhere to warn hardly any passengers not to brush against long-dried railings. That's London done, I thought, less than three months since my 60+ Oyster arrived.
It turns out visiting all the z4-6 stations is harder than visiting all the z1-3 stations, even though there are fewer of them. That's because they're spread across a much wider area, usually further apart and because train frequencies in outer London aren't so good. There are a lot of half hourly services in zones 4-6 so you can end up waiting for a while, also the next station may be too far to walk, also there may not be a decent bus service connecting the two. The optimum solution is often to bounce back and forth, first two stations forward then one back, but sometimes the timetable conspires not to make that work. Ticking off the ten stations in Bexley took over three hours, for example. Yes I do have a lot of time on my hands.
But I have now visited all the stations in London, including at least 50 I'd never used before. There was Birkbeck with its silly single platform not stolen by a tram, and Brentford which was always one stop beyond the validity of my Travelcard so I never went, and Clock House which has the most appalling non-existent signage in the ticket hall, and Malden Manor which is more monumental than the locality deserves, and Mill Hill Broadway which is proper grim, and Motspur Park with its brand new snazzy lifts, and Mottingham which several weeks later I can barely remember, and Plumstead which is the backwater Crossrail skips, and Selhurst which I was expecting to be Palace-ier, and South Merton which is basically outclassed by Morden on all levels, and St Margarets which is a whole new middle-class magnet I'd previously missed, and Sundridge Park where the lady in the ticket office was so underused she gave me a wave, and Welling which was pretty lacklustre, and that was just zone 4.
I was impressed by the community heritage on the Enfield Chase line where posters and artworks give the place a lift. I was surprised by the masses of nigh empty carriages rattling through the suburbs of Bexley and Bromley. I was amazed by the number of staffed ticket offices in backwaters with even fewer annual passengers than the lowliest tube station. I was mighty glad I don't live on the Hounslow Loop because that is one miserably infrequent service. I discovered that catching a bus is usually quicker than waiting for a train down some of the south Croydon valleys. I checked out the crumbling platforms at Berrylands, the nexus that is Bickley and the massive gap in the middle of Cheam. Basically I caught up on all the outer station knowledge I should have gained over the last quarter century but didn't because I had the wrong ticket.
And I've visited more than that.
I've visited every tube station since the start of the year including the 16 that are outside London. I finished off the tube by exiting Rickmansworth last week.
I've visited every Overground station since the start of the year including the 6 that are outside London. I finished off the Overground by entering Watford High Street last week.
I have in fact been visiting every station in zones 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, even the 41 that are outside London, because my 60+ Oyster card permits that too. Even Swanley and Dartford in Kent, even Elstree & Borehamwood in Herts, also the two Ewells in Surrey, I've done the lot. I didn't just whizz round the Banstead Loop for a laugh, I was station-ticking all the way.
I do in fact have just one zone 6 station left and I intend to put that right this morning. It's one stop beyond the Greater London boundary so I've been leaving it until I do the appropriate One Stop Beyond post and that day has come. I'll put a tick in this box once I've been (some time after ten o'clock) which will also mark the final completion of my Visit Every Station challenge.
All the stations accessible with a 60+ Oyster card
z1-3
trams
z4-6
beyond z6
350 stations
39 stops
230 stations
41 stations
January
February
mid-March-mid-June
I've been to all the stations in London and the numbered zones beyond, basically for nothing, in 24 weeks flat.
