A Challenge
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That would be interesting - someone who just knows there are a lot of stations in Acton turns up at Euston and assumes that Acton Bridge is one of them, and boards using oyster...
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passenger confusion over trains going to similar sounding destinations
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VT 390
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Monument can be more confusing in that the lines on both maps serving Monument are both Yellow and Green.
Or someone who puts London Waterloo to Redbridge into the National Rail journey planner and is directed to go via Southampton Central.
If you put the same journey into the TfL journey planner it does at least give you the option of Redbridge (Hants) and Redbridge Underground Station. But someone who is not familiar with the system may not know the difference between the two.
Another one which has been mentioned earlier in this thread is Chester and Chester Road. Starting from London you would use the same station (Euston) to get to them both.
Finally you could mention Wallington , Wellington and Willington.
A bus related one - when I was a conductor in Leeds, a passenger stood in the shelter in City Square for the Beeston bus and asked whether the bus went to the Malvern, a pub in Beeston. I assured her it did. She was very cross with me a few minutes later as she actually wanted to go to the Melbourne, a pub on York Road which could be reached from the adjoining stand. Wouldn't happen any more, both have closed down.
xotGD
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A more likely cause of confusion in Newcastle is Haymarket. Two stops on the Metro downstairs or a trip to Scotland upstairs.
Killingworth
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In South Yorkshire there are suggestions of a new station at Waverley. That's Orgreave as was, renamed after all traces of mining and the coking plant had been cleared; a place so much in the news at the time of the miners strike. The battle of Orgreave, rather different from around Edinburgh Waverley.
A few years back when the works were being carried out at New Street, and as many of three trains were occupying one platform, Network Rail staff were directing passengers for Chester onto our Cross City service for Chester Road. We managed to intervene and get them on the right train, which was just as well given that it was getting late and the prospect of people being stranded was a likelihood.
As a thought, perhaps the possibility of confusion was why Vauxhall and Duddeston (B'ham) is now simply Duddeston.
As for air travel it is not unknown for people to book flights to Sydney and find they have paid for a trip to Sydney, Canada. And I remember that when Ryanair launched flights to Santiago with a £1 (plus tax) promotion, people were miffed to find themselves in Spain, rather than Chile. Mind you, knowing Ryanair's penchant for finding out-of-the-way airports, nowhere near the advertised destination (back in 2006 they advertised flights from Oslo to London (Prestwick)), they probably had intended to grab passengers for Chile.
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paddington
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Not exactly confusion but I can't ever remember which of Willington or Wilnecote is closer to Derby (when looking out the window of an XC train).
Mitch in Notts
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Pronunciation. I once boarded a Northern Rail at Gainsborough Lea Road and asked for a single to Bulwell (simple change at Worksop). Conductor sold me a single to Wombwell. I realised he had charged me wrongly and he changed it.
I saw a video the other day of services in Essex being promoted as the Gainsborough line (after the painter). Sheer madness!
Sounds a bit contrived. If you're trying to catch a flight, surely you would ask for directions to the airport, not to your ultimate destination? So even if she didn't have a clue where she was going but was presumably somewhere in London, she would have asked for the train to Heathrow (or at least "the airport"), not Turkey?
Only one station involved here, but I once got off a train at Hindley station and was asked by a woman who had also got off the train how to get to the prison.
HMP Hindley is not anywhere near Hindley. It's in Bickershaw, two bus journeys or an hour's walk away. In fact I have no idea why they ever called it Hindley in the first place.
HMP Hindley is not anywhere near Hindley. It's in Bickershaw, two bus journeys or an hour's walk away. In fact I have no idea why they ever called it Hindley in the first place.
starlightEXPRESS
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Likewise on more than one occasion passengers wanting Bexhill on the south coast, ended up at Boxhill in rural Surrey (roughly 65 miles out). This is one of the reasons why Box Hill (or better Box Hill and Westhumble) is preferred for the latter.
I remember back in Thames Trains days (was it the summer of 2001?), getting off the train at Stratford-upon-Avon and overhearing a couple asking for directions to the Central line!
nlogax
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That's great!
Springs Branch
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I wonder whether any incoming airline passengers using Luton Airport Parkway have boarded a train shown as calling at Loughborough Junction, when they really wanted one going in the opposite direction to Loughborough?
(You could ask the same question about plain old Luton, but likely to be fewer overseas students or academics arriving for that conference at Loughborough University passing through LUT)
(You could ask the same question about plain old Luton, but likely to be fewer overseas students or academics arriving for that conference at Loughborough University passing through LUT)
61653 HTAFC
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Apocryphal unfortunately. The late Sue Townsend made reference to it in one of the later Adrian Mole novels in which her hapless protagonist sends a poor Japanese lady on an unintended tour of the English Riviera!
45669
Member
Indeed so!
I Like It... (not Beatles, but at least there's a Liverpool (Lime Street?) connection.)
edwin_m
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Maybe referencing one of the more well-known long term guests of Her Majesty?
The posters at Abbey Road DLR were I believe put up more as a joke for journalistic interest at opening (which it certainly got), than because of misdirections, as I think they were there on opening day, and have been ever since. There's been more than one version, with different songs referenced.
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Springs Branch
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Hope you didn't answer the woman's question with the old chestnut..... "rob a bank, punch a policeman, steal a car, ......"
Probably the reason it's called HMP Hindley is that when it was built in the 1960s the land was technically located in the former Hindley Urban District Council area - even though the access road, Gibson Street, is in Bickershaw.
A quick glance at old Ordnance Survey maps on the National Library of Scotland site shows the southern boundary of the old Hindley U.D.C was surprisingly close to the line of Bickershaw Lane. Boundaries may well have changed with the coming of Wigan Metropolitan Borough in the 1974 reorganisations.
I only wish I'd had the presence of mind!
Thanks - I didn't realise Hindley UDC extended that far. Off the top of my head I suppose I'd have put that area under Abram. But I've had a quick look at the OS map that you mentioned and it looks like the prison is indeed just about inside the Hindley boundary. I suppose you've always got to draw a line somewhere!
father_jack
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I've had an American navy officer in full garb at Bristol Temple Meads after using a TVM asking why is it "90 bucks" just for a one stop ride to "Abbey Wood' which is what the MOD site is called...... He needed Filton Abbey Wood not east London.
Perhaps it would be worth modifying TVMs to indicate the destination's approximate distance, journey time, or geographical proxmity (e.g. county) to reduce ambiguity.
A Challenge
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I think a disambiguator for Abbey Wood would be a good idea, in response to the post you quoted.
DynamicSpirit
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They could've avoided the problem altogether by just keeping the name 'Filton' for the Bristol station when they moved it. Mutter mutter.
70014IronDuke
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That's really funny. Thanks for posting!Indeed so!
70014IronDuke
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Would have been even more confusing before they changed the name of the uni - it used to be called Loughborough University of Technology.
70014IronDuke
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And if they ever get round to opening the so-called central section of the E-W line and it goes on the old trackbed to Sandy, you might get a second Willington if they re-open the former station east of Bedford
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