Editing Rail transport in Great Britain (section)

===Stations===
{{further|:Category:Railway stations in the United Kingdom}}
[[File:Clock and view over concourse, Waterloo Station, London.jpg|thumb|[[London Waterloo station]] is the [[List of busiest railway stations in Great Britain|busiest railway station]] in the UK. It is also the country's largest station in terms of floor space and has the greatest number of platforms.]]
There are 2,585 passenger railway stations on the Network Rail network.<ref name="ORR-infra-2023-24" /> This does not include the [[London Underground]], nor other systems which are not part of the national network, such as heritage railways. Most date from the [[Victorian era]] and a number are in or on the edge of [[town centre|town]] and city centres. Major stations lie for the most part in large cities, with the largest conurbations (e.g.  Birmingham, Bristol, [[Cardiff]], Edinburgh, [[Glasgow]], [[Liverpool]], and [[Manchester]]) typically having more than one main station. London is a major hub of the network, with 12 main-line termini forming a "ring" around [[central London]]. Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol and [[Reading, Berkshire|Reading]] are major interchanges for many cross-country journeys that do not involve London. However, some important railway junction stations lie in smaller cities and towns, for example [[York railway station|York]], [[Crewe railway station|Crewe]] and [[Ely railway station|Ely]]. Some other places expanded into towns and cities because of the railway network. [[Swindon]], for example, was little more than a village before the [[Great Western Railway]] chose to site its locomotive works there. In many instances geography, politics or military considerations originally caused stations to be sited further from the towns they served until, with time, these issues could be overcome (for example, [[Portsmouth]] had its original station at [[Gosport]]).