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People Mis-Naming Railway Station/Companies - Habit?

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Mugby

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Something which has long since disappeared was the branch line from Paisley to Kilmacolm.

A great many (English?) people used to think it was called Kill Malcolm.
 

Gwenllian2001

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Well into the 1950s Cardiff Corporation buses had destination blinds displaying 'GWR Station', rather than Cardiff General, to distinguish it from the former Taff Vale station at Queen Street, which had been GWR since the grouping.
 

stut

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St Alban's City is one of those is it isn't it ones. Plenty railway signs refer to it.

See also Bedford Midland.

Newcastle is known locally as Central Station, to the point that the metro station serving it is called that.
 

Terry Tait

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I have heard people ask for tickets to Tunbridge Wells Central quite recently.
I have also heard people referring to Ponders End as Pondas Endz.
 

LowLevel

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"Birmingham Grand Central" - Drives me absolutely mad, in my opinion, a successful plot of a commercial shopping centre to confuse people into naming the station by their entity mistakenly.
I was speaking to someone about it once, who called it Grand Central. I challenged them on it, they said they thought New Street was the old name and they were being cautious because they knew I was into trains.
I do wonder if ticket offices/guards get people asking for tickets to Grand Central.

What doesn't help is the inappropriately named tram stop. It is on the same level as the station concourse.... Just call it New Street.

(Yes, New Street isn't really on New Street, but it is it's official name...)

I believe that it was intentional on the part of the authorities - when the station was being rebuilt there was a theory it could be renamed to Grand Central but it was discounted for various reasons - it was considered that New Street had become a toxic name associated with the old station.
 

duncanp

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"Birmingham Grand Central" - Drives me absolutely mad, in my opinion, a successful plot of a commercial shopping centre to confuse people into naming the station by their entity mistakenly.
I was speaking to someone about it once, who called it Grand Central. I challenged them on it, they said they thought New Street was the old name and they were being cautious because they knew I was into trains.
I do wonder if ticket offices/guards get people asking for tickets to Grand Central.

What doesn't help is the inappropriately named tram stop. It is on the same level as the station concourse.... Just call it New Street.

(Yes, New Street isn't really on New Street, but it is it's official name...)

This isn't helped by the fact that the tram stop outside New Street Station is called Grand Central (for New Street Station) It should be renamed to New Street Station (for Grand Central)
 

Sprinter107

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My grandmother, who lived in the Coseley area for all of the 82 years of her life, always called the local station "Deepfields".
My grandad always called Sandwell and Dudley Bromford Lane, as it was called Oldbury & Bromford Lane. He also used to refer to Smethwick West as Smethwick Junction. Old habits die hard I suppose. Still quite a few of my passengers ask for Blackheath, when travelling to Rowley Regis.
 

krus_aragon

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Another oddity is some Welsh station names on station signs and Welsh announcements are different. If you board a train to Valley, it's announced as 'Y Fali' in Welsh at stations, but when you alight the train there, it's 'Y Dyffryn' on the station name plates.
There's been some argument over what exactly the name is: the placename didn't seem to exist before the arrival of the railways.

I believe the current theory is that the name comes from the Irish Baile (or Bally), possibly when Irish navvies were based in the area. The idea that the Welsh name should be a literal translation of the English "Valley" was met with derision by locals, who use the "Fali" name instead, and point out that there is no vellay there, as the land's completely flat. The "Dyffryn" sign at the station seems to have popped up during this period.

If and when the sign is renewed, the official line from the Welsh Language Commissioner is in favour of "Y Fali" .
 

Domeyhead

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In older times when people travelled less some mispronunciation was understandable. As a (very) young train spotter at what was Andover Junction, I recall the porter who tended to do the announcing would always pronounce "Cosham" as "Cossam" when locals actually pronounce it as spelled yet just a few stops along the coast "Bosham" is pronounced "Bossam" by its inhabitants! This same announcer also greeted every train arrival by yelling "AndoverANdoverAndoverJunctionnnnnn" over the tannoy but having said it so many thousands if times it just slid into something Germanic and unintelligible that sounded like "HanoverJungshernnnn". I miss those quirky days.
 
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gg1

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Class! Never knew that. Do people still use Oldbury for Sandwell & Dudley? S&D it must be said is a damned stupid name.

My 88 year old dad still does, he also still refers to Wolverhampton station as Wolverhampton High Level.
 

duffield

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I think Meridian is still currently in use. I continue to think of it as Southern Television, which was the licence holder for the region from 1958 to 1981!

Blast from the past! I watched the closedown of Southern (lived in Reading back then), and remember they did a special animation of the 'Southern star' spinning off into darkness and disappearing forever. It was rather sad!
 

duffield

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Living in Nottingham I still used to refer to 'the Midland station' for years after the establishment at Victoria was closed.

I moved to Nottingham in 1985, long after Victoria closed, but so many people, including my late wife, called it 'Midland Station' that I still think of it as that today. Of course, I do travel on the heritage GCR (and GCR(N)) a lot so that tends to keep the distinction alive!
 

dcsprior

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In older times when people travelled less some mispronunciation was understandable. As a (very) young train spotter at what was Andover Junction, I recall the porter who tended to do the announcing would always pronounce "Cosham" as "Cossam" when locals actually pronounce it as spelled yet just a few stops along the coast "Bosham" is pronounced "Bossam" by its inhabitants! This same announcer also greeted every train arrival by yelling "AndoverANdoverAndoverJunctionnnnnn" over the tannoy but having said it so many thousands if times it just slid into something Germanic and unintelligible that sounded like "HanoverJungshernnnn". I miss those quirky days.
That reminds me of being on an southbound EC service which had come from Aberdeen. There were some oil workers on board who'd had a couple of beverages by the time I boarded at Edinburgh.
At Berwick there ensued a loud discussion between them as one had pronounced it as "Berr-wick" rather than "Behrick" and the others mocked him. A lot.
The argument he was failing to make in response to it was that the way he said it was in line the correct pronunciation of Lerwick.
 
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Not railway related, but I like the fact that Newport County fans refer to their ground as 'Dave Parade'...



not 'Rodney Parade'.
 

PeterY

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The older generation of Hemel Hempstead often refer to Hemel station as Boxmoor station.
 

tpjm

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Calling things by the wrong name is a dangerous game, especially for tourists. We recently had a young chap on a service to Liverpool Lime St with a ticket to Liverpool Street.

He’d somehow got himself to Manchester and boarded a service to LIV and it would seem nobody had bothered to check the ticket on the way up!
 

whhistle

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I think that sometimes it's just a case that people don't realise they are saying something wrong as no-one has ever corrected them, and even if they are corrected they find it difficult to actually move away from what they've always thought it to be.
This is the answer but I don't understand why people who know they're doing it wrong, continue to do so and sometimes get all uppity when corrected!
Reminds me of the conversation with another user on here harking back to cave man days. If they didn't get mauled by a tiger taking that route, it's seen as safer than another so people continue to do the same.
I see this with cards. People specifically (and some take a fair amount of time to do so) turn their card so the chip points to the machine. Perhaps they are unaware it doesn't matter which way you hold your card.
 

mrcheek

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Nobody local refers to Bath Spa as that and I don't know why GWR calls it that, as there is no Queens Square (or Green Park) any longer. Well there is, but it's not a station now. Nobody says Weston Super Mare either, unless you want to earn unfortunate comments.

Nobody says "Weston Super Mare" because there is no such place. But plenty of people would say "Weston-super-Mare"
 
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