Tom Anderson wrote:

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

What is this "fact" proven by science? Personally, I find it much
quicker to relate Inner Rail and Outer Rail to a direction than
Clockwise and Anti-Clockwise, which I find unnecessarily indirect. (I
have to remember first which way analogue clocks move, which to a
mathematician is the "wrong" or negative direction. Why people still
want to tell the time by looking at the angles of two sticks is a
mystery to me.)

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.

I think your traditions are rather younger than mine.

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.

Warren Street to Stockwell: via Victoria line ana-bound; via Northern
Line kata-bound.

Similarly, the cross-platform interchanges between the Victoria Line and
the Bank branch of the Northern Line would be between an ana-bound and a
kata-bound train.

An interesting intellectual exercise, but please don't get a job in LU!
:-)
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)