On 1 Sep 2004, Boltar wrote:

"Piccadilly Pilot" wrote in message ...

OK the Piccadilly Line between Holborn and Cockfosters is relabelled
North and South. What about the rest of the line? What about the
Jubillee or the Bakerloo lines, how would you label them?

You label them in whatever direction they're going at that station
according to the map. You don't show it going north on a map then write
"westbound" on all the station signs.

There's also the issue of direction on the map vs direction on the ground,
which aren't always the same; the former corresponds to passengers' mental
model of the network, but it's also subject to change.

Or better yet do what other systems do and label them by their end
stations. Eg towards cockfosters or towards heathrow/uxbridge. This was
also done on the underground years ago. Not sure if it still is these
days.

I find labelling by terminus completely unhelpful - unless you know the
network well enough to know the terminus of every line (which most
Londoners probably do, but visitors certainly don't), it means you need a
map to interpret the signs. And how would it work on lines that branch?
"Towards Edgware, High Barnet and Mill Hill East" is a bit of a mouthful.
How would it work on the circle line? I think Liverpool Street would not
be improved by a platform called "Towards Hammersmith, Uxbridge, Amersham,
Chesham (sometimes), Watford and Liverpool Street (via Baker Street before
Tower Hill)".

I think this is a matter of taste: i like the system where each direction
has one consistent name over the whole line. Some of the problems with
this could be overcome by using 'fractional' compass points: the Picc, for
example, could have North-East and South-West directions (although in the
case of Uxbridge etc, this would be some new meaning of the term
'south-west' of which most people were previously not aware). Don't ask me
how you'd name the Jubilee.

Oh, and the Circle line directions should be Clockwise and Anti-Clockwise.
This is not an opinion - this is a fact, proven by science.

Perhaps (and this is not an entirely serious suggestion) we just need to
pick a pair of names which don't have any specific geographical
connotation and use those consistently along the whole line: Up and Down
come close, are nicely traditional, but can't really be applied inside
London; i suggest Ana and Kata, these being the traditional extra
directions in maths.

Hmm. It would be nice if, wherever two lines shared a platform or had
crossplatform or otherwise parallel interchange, their directions were
coherent (ie at Finsbury Park, Victoria ana and Piccadilly ana were next
to each other). Apart from the circle line (and ignoring Woodford and
Heathrow), would the network support that? Let's see - we can start with
the Metropolitan, declare it to have its kata end at Aldgate, then walk
along and transfer the direction to the lines it runs along with (my
notation is line: kata end (determining line @ interchange
station)):

Met: Aldgate
Picc: Cockfosters (Met @ Rayners Lane)
Jubilee: Stratford (Met @ Wembley Park)
H&C: Barking (Met @ Baker Street)
District: Upminster (Picc @ Ealing Common)
Victoria: Walthamstow (Picc @ Finsbury Park)
Central: Epping (District @ Ealing Broadway)
Bakerloo: Elephant & Castle (Met @ Baker Street - weak)
Northern: Morden (Bakerloo @ Embankment - weak)
W&C: Waterloo (Northern @ Bank - weak)
ELL: has no parallel interchanges
DLR: incoherent (District @ Bank vs Central @ Stratford)
NLL: incoherent (District @ Richmond vs Jubilee @ West Ham)

Have i missed any interchanges in the centre of town? The map doesn't show
any as parallel, but they might be in reality. Anyway, basically, it
works, with 'kata' more or less meaning 'east' - the Northern line is the
only major exception. Funny how all the lines with branches have them at
the ana end.

tom

--
OK, mostly because of Tom, but not only because of his bloody irritating character and songs.