Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

For that matter why didn't they just retain the Holborn Viaduct name - it
can't have been because they thought passengers might confuse the station
with a Central Line tube could it?!

Possibly because the Ludgate Hill end opened some time *before* the
Holborn Viaduct end - and anyone who's walked the length of those
platforms in a hurry knows how far apart the two are...

Rupert Candy wrote:
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

For that matter why didn't they just retain the Holborn Viaduct name - it
can't have been because they thought passengers might confuse the station
with a Central Line tube could it?!

Possibly because the Ludgate Hill end opened some time *before* the
Holborn Viaduct end - and anyone who's walked the length of those
platforms in a hurry knows how far apart the two are...


And Holborn Viaduct was a name from the past - this was a new station
and thus needed a brand-new name.

Perhaps one of the reasons the even newer name "City Thamelink" won the
day, after "St. Pauls Thameslink" was found to be confusing and
ditched, was to flatter the Corporation of London (i.e. the City of
London local government) who had in part funded it.

Also this flattery might have served Network South-East's purposes even
further - the Corporation of London was also part funding the new 1992
rolling stock for the Waterloo & City line (which was under BR/NSE
ownership until 1994).

Paul Ebbens wrote:

So really it is not a privatised brandname at all, so that means First has
no true reason to get rid of it just because previous company was named so?

Quite so. And when I did a bit of detective work the last time this
question came up, I discovered that the trade mark "Thameslink" was
owned by the SRA (presumably now DfT Rail):

http://tinyurl.com/re2jr

so it has nothing whatsoever to do with past or present franchisees.

Rupert Candy wrote:

Paul Ebbens wrote:

So really it is not a privatised brandname at all, so that means First has
no true reason to get rid of it just because previous company was named so?

Quite so. And when I did a bit of detective work the last time this
question came up, I discovered that the trade mark "Thameslink" was
owned by the SRA (presumably now DfT Rail):

http://tinyurl.com/re2jr

so it has nothing whatsoever to do with past or present franchisees.


Following the link in your past post (so this is no great detective
work on my part) reveals that 'Thameslink' is registered with the
patent Office as a Trade Mark as belonging to the Secretary of State
for Transport (in effect DfT Rail)

AIUI the BR double-arrow device is similarly registered.

Anyway I've been travelling on Thameslink for years, and I'm not about
to stop, no matter what absurd mouthful the franchisee is called.

"Rupert Candy" wrote in message
oups.com...

Roland Perry wrote:

iirc, the Cambridge P&R runs on the basis that the car parking is
provided by the council (and not charged for), and the bus company
keeps
all the fares. York's scheme felt much the same. Nottingham is
slanted
more towards paying per car, to park, and getting a free bus ride
(although you pay the "parking" fee to the bus driver).

and the latter, IMHO, is much more sensible since the cost doesn't
rise
based on the number of passengers in your car. (In Canterbury, for
example, parking costs L2, paid at the site, and you and your
passengers ride for free - making it better value if you are a large
group.

Of all the Park & Ride systems i've used (Oxford, Canterbury,
Maidstone), I much prefer the Canterbury system. Paying before or
after the bus journey is easier and you don't have to worry about
paying the driver... .although interestingly the canterbury Park &
Ride buses do now accept normal paying passengers, costing 2 pounds
for the ability to travel on any of the citiy's 3 P&R services all
day.


Oxford, meanwhile, seems to combine both systems, making you pay a
token fee (50p last time I was there) for parking *and* a bus fare.
But
I think it's otherwise the best example on the country - the buses
don't stop at the end of shopping hours!


That depends on the car park you use. For instance, Thornhill (on the
A40 into Oxford from London), and, I think Water Eaton, car parks are
free, and its just the others that charge.
Also, for Oxford, some of the operating hours on some of the services
has been cut back recently, so although they go beyond "shopping
hours" its not by much.
For instance, the Thornhill site has its last Oxford bound service at
8pm and the last bus to the site is at 8pm, after that passengers can
return to the site on certain specified "Oxford espress" coaches that
operate through on the way to London. In fact, of Oxford;s 5 sites,
the "pear tree" site is the only one with a reasonable evening service
in both directions. Water Eaton finishes at 7, and the other two
finish the same time as Thornhill and then require you to catch a
local bus to get back to the site later on (but again, no city bound
buses listed).