On 23 Aug 2006 06:02:05 -0700, Jonathan Morris wrote:

However, if you are transferring at Moorgate (or Stratford, or West
Ham, etc) from the tube to NR then it does matter, as depending on
where you are coming from the trains leave from completely different
platforms. For example, if you arrived at West Ham on the Jubilee line
to catch a train for Southend, imagine if you followed the signs marked
"National Rail" only to end up on the NLL platforms...

Keep the National Rail bit, but have individual signs saying where the
trains go to.

I don't think that...

leave the signs at Moorgate as "Thameslink" and "Great Northern Electrics" -
even if the franchise holders change names, the train routes and destinations
won't...

...makes sense. *You* and *I* know what Thameslink is/was. *You* know
what Great Northern Electrics was (and then Wagn and then, technically,
GN and now FCC GN) but it isn't as useful as saying 'Trains to
Bedford/Brighton' or 'Cambridge' or however you wish to do it.

I disagree. It's far better to have consistent (and reasonably well
publicised) route names, and use those. Using "Trains to Stevenage"
for the GN at Moorgate (as mentioned in the OP) struck me as
particularly unhelpful, and exemplifies the problems with this
approach.

Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
MIG wrote:

And in any case, the names of the Underground lines haven't changed for
decades.

Fancy coming to Bow Road and trying to find the Metropolitan Line the
building's facade claims is there?

Or even Gloucester Road proclaiming "Metropolitan and District Railways"...

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

In article .com, MIG
writes
And in any case, the names of the Underground lines haven't changed for
decades.

Approximately 15 years.

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In article . com,
writes
Personally I don't see why they didn't leave the signs at Moorgate as
"Thameslink" and "Great Northern Electrics" - even if the franchise
holders change names, the train routes and destinations won't...

Curiously, yesterday I was on a Thameslink route train that the driver
announced, twice, as:

"This is the time First Capital Connect Thameslink service to
St.Albans, calling at City, Farringdon, King's Cross Thameslink, ...".

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In message . com,
Jonathan Morris writes

It's a national railway network, rather than a service that's usually for a
town/city (i.e. the tube or another metro system) and do tourists need to
know it's British Rail, as a reminder of what country they're in?

Really? So which country were they in when they were using dear old
British Rail?

Bob
--
Bob Adams - email: bob55 at ntlworld dot com

Dave Arquati wrote:
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
MIG wrote:

And in any case, the names of the Underground lines haven't changed for
decades.

Fancy coming to Bow Road and trying to find the Metropolitan Line the
building's facade claims is there?

Or even Gloucester Road proclaiming "Metropolitan and District Railways"....



Yee-ees, but those are façades rather than direction signs. I don't
remember seeing signs to the Metropolitan Line when I last arrived at
Bow Church, trying to get to Upton Park. If I had, I don't know WHAT I
would have done. I'd probably still be wandering about lost.

Bob Adams wrote:
Really? So which country were they in when they were using dear old
British Rail?

Very funny. You know what I meant. If you're in England, you're in
Great Britain. If you're in Scotla..

Do we need to call it BRITISH Rail?

Jonathan

asdf wrote:

It's far better to have consistent (and reasonably well
publicised) route names, and use those. Using "Trains to Stevenage"
for the GN at Moorgate (as mentioned in the OP) struck me as
particularly unhelpful, and exemplifies the problems with this
approach.

And this is not helped by the facts that plenty of trains terminate
short of those stations (e.g. at Luton or Hertford North) and there are
no departure screens or route maps (other than for the Underground) in
the Moorgate concourse.

PaulO

Paul Oter wrote:
asdf wrote:

It's far better to have consistent (and reasonably well
publicised) route names, and use those. Using "Trains to Stevenage"
for the GN at Moorgate (as mentioned in the OP) struck me as
particularly unhelpful, and exemplifies the problems with this
approach.

And this is not helped by the facts that plenty of trains terminate
short of those stations (e.g. at Luton or Hertford North) and there are
no departure screens or route maps (other than for the Underground) in
the Moorgate concourse.


Just to follow up my own posting: I checked at Moorgate (Met line
entrance) this morning and there is a big enamel sign listing the
stations on the line to Bedford, but nothing telling you anything about
the line to "Stevenage".

PaulO

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:12:22 GMT, "Jack Taylor"
wrote:

MIG wrote:

And in any case, the names of the Underground lines haven't changed
for decades. If they changed as often as franchises, maybe some kind
of "other lines" would be appropriate.

Not that LUL have ever been particularly competent at maintaining their
signage, in any case. There are still plenty of signs around the system
referring to British Rail (defunct 1996), although AFAIK the last of the
Network SouthEast (defunct 1994) signs have now disappeared.

There is rather a lot of inconsistency in the LU directional signage
to National Rail stations. E.g. I've seen:

"National Rail"
"Trains"
"Rail"
"Mainline Trains"
"British Rail" (!)


Nicholas

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