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Renaming stations

One have renamed stations in East Anglia. Other operators should consider bringing station names up to date too.

Inappropriate station names still abound, for example Euston Square on the Met isn't on Euston Square (this is in front of Euston mainline station). This would be better as Euston Road - actually correct and the traditional method railways used when their station was nowhere near where it purported to serve!

Major city stations

Major city stations are better with grand sounding names, and this was recognised when Manchester London Road was renamed Manchester Piccadilly. In the same vein, wouldn't Birmingham New Street be better as Central, and London Liverpool Street (that Liverpool is confusing!) London Broadgate? But what would be a better name for London London Bridge?

Junction suffix

The northern terminus of the East London Line is to be called Dalston Junction. Although this was the name of the previous station on this site, it won't be a junction and presumably still won't be after Phase 2. Wouldn't a better name be Dalston Lane? The station will actually be on Dalston Lane, thus, not only including the area name, but also identifying the location.

Similarly the inappropriate Junction subtitles used at Watford, St Helens and Yeovil would be better as Watford Mainline, St Helens South and Yeovil South. Georgemas sometimes does and sometimes doesn't sport Junction. Perhaps Dovey Junction is appropriate as it doesn't serve much else. What about Stourbridge Junction - surely Parkway with its massive expanse of tarmac?

Severn Tunnel Junction: its name doesn't help locate it and what an awful name - everything to do with railway engineering and nothing to do with geography - which side of the River Severn is it?

Surely these suffixes are old-fashioned railway parlance inappropriate on the modern railway. 

International suffix

International as a suffix is slightly confusing as to its meaning. When first applied to the new station alongside the NEC (National Exhibition Centre) and airport to the east of Birmingham it referred to the 'International' airport and Birmingham's aspiration to be seen as a major player on the world stage. Presumably it couldn't be called 'Airport' like Heathrow, Manchester, Stansted etc because of the NEC. But it could be 'Airport & NEC'. I did read that consideration was being given to renaming International because some passengers thought it was the main station for Birmingham.

Eurostar have added International to all their stations, which starts to get a bit tedious. As the new Eurostar station at Stratford is some distance from the existing East Anglia/DLR/LT station, this is to be called 'Regional', although I don't know if that will appear on signage or maps. Isn't this all just a bit silly - the suffix peters out after Ashford International as the French and Belgium's don't use the convention (although the French make the distinction of high speed or out-of-town 'parkway' style stations by using the TGV suffix). There's also Harwich International indicating a ferry port with services to continental Europe.

My other concern is just the difficulty of handling long station names, imagine a scenario where all stations have long names like Tottenham Court Road - stations are better off with short names like Bank, or Oval.

So should Heathrow, Manchester and Stansted be renamed International? One wonders if there is any joined up thinking here, is there a policy or is it at the whim of a marketing executive?

Mainline suffix

The 'mainline' suffix is only used at Acton in west London, but there are a lot of Actons on the tube which probably use up all the other options. The National Rail network was once described as the 'mainline' on London Underground station signs (although I haven't noticed recently how its described). Mainline is probably definable (somewhere between International and Parkway) and could be

better for Watford Junction - Watford Mainline.

Parkway suffix

An exciting name when dreamt up for the first Parkway stations - Bristol I think - in the 70s or 80s? Is it a green and pleasant sward built in to new towns? Or a new kind of green utopia? No, a park-and-ride. Possibly a bit old-fashioned now. Incidentally, I think Bristol Parkway must be one of the few stations to not be in the location of its name. When did Didcot become Didcot Parkway?

Interchange suffix

Recently adopted for a spiced up Swinton station in Sheffield and previously used at Bradford - maybe its a Yorkshire thing. Interchange with what you might ask, don't all stations interchange with something? Probably more to do with the bus station alongside or chosen for its regional hub status.

Unnecessary suffixes

When a place has only one station, should it have a suffix? Surely Dover no longer needs Priory, as its been a long time since there was a Marine, Harbour or Town station. Edinburgh Waverley, you'd never get rid of that. Stranraer Harbour - stuck out at the end of a pier this is very useful information indeed, ditto Fishguard Harbour? Rotherham Central - probably to differentiate with older stations when it was first re-aligned. Telford Central. Milton Keynes Central. Why did Didcot become Didcot Parkway?

Other

At Dorking on the FGW map the Deepdene suffix is in brackets when West is not. The Dorking station is not identified with a suffix. A bit like Farnborough. And Colchester. It makes you wonder if main stations actually need a suffix, do we need St Davids or Temple Meads?

Why has the London Underground got two stations called Paddington? How do you distinguish between them? Surely the Hammersmith & City station should be called either Paddington Bishops Road (as of yore), Paddington West or Paddington Suburban (well why not, now that we've got Ebbsfleet International and Stratford Suburban?).

There are confusing station names south of Glasgow: Pollokshields West, Pollokshields East, Pollokshaws West and Pollokshaws East. It's probably straightforward to Glaswegians.

Street or Road is probably not a good suffix (except Foregate Street, a common name for a roman road), for example, Gainsborough Lee Road. Street or road could mean the station is on the actual road of that name or could be some way from there. Burnley Manchester Road is over-long and confusing. Interestingly, there are two Queen Street suffixes.

The railway has dropped suffix's in the past, for example Norwich Thorpe and Hull Paragon, not used by the railway anymore, but probably used in local conversation. Ditto Carlisle Citadel, Lancaster Castle.

And Wrexham General - generally what? I suspect this was a common Great Western Railway suffix because of the 'G'.

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