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Liverpool St James - reopening - new name will be Liverpool Baltic

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Meerkat

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So anyway, all that waffle aside, "The Baltic" sounds a bit less odd than just "Baltic", but "Liverpool Baltic" not only sounds odd but also breaks Merseyrail's existing naming convention. There are already two other stations starting "The" so it is not ground breaking.
The problem with starting a name with "The" is that dropdowns and other alphabetical lists aren't always consistent how they treat it, and also people look for Baltic and can't find it because they don't know whether to look under 'the' (if you are told to go to "The Baltic" station you can't tell if they mean 'the Baltic station' or 'the The Baltic' station.
Putting city names in front of station names is confusing unless it is the terminus/main station, particularly if none of them are 'central' or other equivalent which denotes it is the best for the long distance traveler.
 
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John Luxton

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There are none on Merseyrail. But I think prefixing the main station for the centre with the city name (which it is) makes sense. If you want to go to "Liverpool" and your train serves it, it is the default.
Yes but if booking from outside the area there needs to be some differentiation Wrexham Central is not far away.
 

mrd269697

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Birkenhead Central is on the Merseyrail network. I often have to ask which central they mean when people buy tickets to ‘central’. Also not too far away is St Helen’s Central and Wrexham Central.
In my opinion, Liverpool Parliament Street as an official name, but just ‘Parliament Street’ on signages and how it’s known colloquially. Similar to James street - it is officially ‘Liverpool James Street’ - as is ‘Birkenhead Hamilton Square’. It’s the main road in the area.

I just like tradition, I guess. Baltic Triangle doesn’t sound very ‘railway station’ to me.
 

alistairlees

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The problem with starting a name with "The" is that dropdowns and other alphabetical lists aren't always consistent how they treat it, and also people look for Baltic and can't find it because they don't know whether to look under 'the' (if you are told to go to "The Baltic" station you can't tell if they mean 'the Baltic station' or 'the The Baltic' station.
Putting city names in front of station names is confusing unless it is the terminus/main station, particularly if none of them are 'central' or other equivalent which denotes it is the best for the long distance traveler.
There are a few other Central stations around which it needs differentiating from.
There are none on Merseyrail. But I think prefixing the main station for the centre with the city name (which it is) makes sense. If you want to go to "Liverpool" and your train serves it, it is the default.
"Central" is actually very confusing for people who are not at all familiar with a city (such as Liverpool), and assume that "Liverpool Central" is the main station and that "Liverpool Lime Street" is just some trivial station.

I have had customers travelling from London who insisted they wanted tickets to Liverpool Central, and were very unhappy with Liverpool Lime Street. Even though the latter was the same distance to their hotel.
 

Bletchleyite

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"Central" is actually very confusing for people who are not at all familiar with a city (such as Liverpool), and assume that "Liverpool Central" is the main station and that "Liverpool Lime Street" is just some trivial station.

I have had customers travelling from London who insisted they wanted tickets to Liverpool Central, and were very unhappy with Liverpool Lime Street. Even though the latter was the same distance to their hotel.

Were they Dutch? The Netherlands uses Centraal to mean Hauptbahnhof, which doesn't mean it is closest to the centre!

Probably doesn't help that we don't have a word for Hbf, but Liverpool Central is definitely correctly named as being (only just) closest to what people would regard as the centre, which is probably to most people the Church Street-Paradise Street cross. Probably even more so in the past when Bold St was more important.
 

8A Rail

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"Central" is actually very confusing for people who are not at all familiar with a city (such as Liverpool), and assume that "Liverpool Central" is the main station and that "Liverpool Lime Street" is just some trivial station.

I have had customers travelling from London who insisted they wanted tickets to Liverpool Central, and were very unhappy with Liverpool Lime Street. Even though the latter was the same distance to their hotel.
May be we should rename Liverpool Central as Liverpool Ranelagh Street or Liverpool Bold Street just to confuse them all the more! :lol: The clue of the centre of the location for passengers is the name of the city in the title, just like it is for Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Victoria and Manchester Oxford Road (with also not having a Manchester 'Central' anymore), so what passengers do then?:lol: So in reality, there is no problem to begin with, just passengers need more educating!
 

Bletchleyite

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May be we should rename Liverpool Central as Liverpool Ranelagh Street or Liverpool Bold Street just to confuse them all the more! :lol: The clue of the centre of the location for passengers is the name of the city in the title, just like it is for Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Victoria and Manchester Oxford Road (with also not having a Manchester 'Central' anymore), so what passengers do then?:lol: So in reality, there is no problem to begin with, just passengers need more educating!

Near enough all walk-up tickets to Liverpool are issued to Liverpool Stns and thus valid for a change onto Merseyrail anyway if someone actually did want to go to Central (though you'd likely have to explain yourself at both gatelines unlike Manchester where you can continue to Oxford Road, Deansgate or Victoria without passing one), or with trains stopping at South Parkway (as Avanti will in due course) you can change onto the Northern Line there if you want to. Or an Anytime Day Single is £2.25, or a return £2.40 if you have a TOC specific Advance. This is rather expensive for 5 minutes' walk, but if someone was insistent and wasn't sold by showing them a map I'd just sell it.

Liverpool Central is the most central of the Liverpool stations, and is thus correctly named, there are no grounds to rename it. Not by much, but it is.

Talking of just calling it Central (I forgot Birkenhead!) some German U- and S-Bahn systems that have different stations from the mainline (like Merseyrail) just call the Hauptbahnhof that, there's usually no need to specify the city unless two are on the same U- and S-Bahn network.
 

8A Rail

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Near enough all walk-up tickets to Liverpool are issued to Liverpool Stns and thus valid for a change onto Merseyrail anyway if someone actually did want to go to Central (though you'd likely have to explain yourself at both gatelines unlike Manchester where you can continue to Oxford Road, Deansgate or Victoria without passing one), or with trains stopping at South Parkway (as Avanti will in due course) you can change onto the Northern Line there if you want to. Or an Anytime Day Single is £2.25, or a return £2.40 if you have a TOC specific Advance. This is rather expensive for 5 minutes' walk, but if someone was insistent and wasn't sold by showing them a map I'd just sell it.

Liverpool Central is the most central of the Liverpool stations, and is thus correctly named, there are no grounds to rename it. Not by much, but it is.

Talking of just calling it Central (I forgot Birkenhead!) some German U- and S-Bahn systems that have different stations from the mainline (like Merseyrail) just call the Hauptbahnhof that, there's usually no need to specify the city unless two are on the same U- and S-Bahn network.
My post was not to be taken seriously, sort of said in jess, hence the laughing smilies. I would expect Liverpool Central to remain as Liverpool Central because that how it has been since beginning.

Just for info, I lived in and around Liverpool ALL my life and for over 10 years lived around the corner from Edge Hill Shed too so I think I know Liverpool / Merseyside very well indeed :smile:.
 

Djgr

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Near enough all walk-up tickets to Liverpool are issued to Liverpool Stns and thus valid for a change onto Merseyrail anyway if someone actually did want to go to Central (though you'd likely have to explain yourself at both gatelines unlike Manchester where you can continue to Oxford Road, Deansgate or Victoria without passing one), or with trains stopping at South Parkway (as Avanti will in due course) you can change onto the Northern Line there if you want to. Or an Anytime Day Single is £2.25, or a return £2.40 if you have a TOC specific Advance. This is rather expensive for 5 minutes' walk, but if someone was insistent and wasn't sold by showing them a map I'd just sell it.

Liverpool Central is the most central of the Liverpool stations, and is thus correctly named, there are no grounds to rename it. Not by much, but it is.

Talking of just calling it Central (I forgot Birkenhead!) some German U- and S-Bahn systems that have different stations from the mainline (like Merseyrail) just call the Hauptbahnhof that, there's usually no need to specify the city unless two are on the same U- and S-Bahn network.
I have never found any gateline issues at Liverpool stations. Manchester on the other hand!
 

Bletchleyite

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I have never found any gateline issues at Liverpool stations. Manchester on the other hand!

I do know for a fact that Birmingham International causes confusion, because it sounds more like the Hbf than New St. There was a plan to rename it as part of the Avanti franchise but it seems to have been forgotten.

It's such a shame there isn't a snappy sounding translation of Messe, as all the proposals favoured one of the two things it serves and one including both sounds clunky.
 

Chester1

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I do know for a fact that Birmingham International causes confusion, because it sounds more like the Hbf than New St. There was a plan to rename it as part of the Avanti franchise but it seems to have been forgotten.

It's such a shame there isn't a snappy sounding translation of Messe, as all the proposals favoured one of the two things it serves and one including both sounds clunky.

Birmingham International is an odd name. St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford have the International suffix because of Eurostar. Stratford International should have been dropped once Eurostar decided not to run to it. Birmingham International is "International" only in the sense that it is the airport station. It does beg the question of why it isn't just called "Birmingham Airport"?

Merseyrail has a good record of sensible names. Maghull North is what it says on the tin. Liverpool South Parkway is an interchange and Park and Ride in the south of Liverpool. The Parkway suffix doesn't really fit any station but I guess that park and ride is the closest it has to a meaning. Headbolt Lane will be built on Headbolt Lane. I guess that is also a road vs area battle (Kirkby North as the alternative).
 

Mikey C

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Birmingham International is an odd name. St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford have the International suffix because of Eurostar. Stratford International should have been dropped once Eurostar decided not to run to it. Birmingham International is "International" only in the sense that it is the airport station. It does beg the question of why it isn't just called "Birmingham Airport"?

Merseyrail has a good record of sensible names. Maghull North is what it says on the tin. Liverpool South Parkway is an interchange and Park and Ride in the south of Liverpool. The Parkway suffix doesn't really fit any station but I guess that park and ride is the closest it has to a meaning. Headbolt Lane will be built on Headbolt Lane. I guess that is also a road vs area battle (Kirkby North as the alternative).
I think at one time the airport itself was named Birmingham International, so the station was named after the airport's previous name!
 

Lloyds siding

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I fear Merseytravel have given us some bad choices here. The city prefix 'Liverpool' implies to me that it is
a) a Principal station/interchange
b) in the city centre
c) probably a terminus

You only have to think Manchester Victoria, Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Oxford Road as an example of this.

Bletchleyite is right that the underground Merseyrail station is known simply as 'Lime Street', but the 'big' station is Liverpool Lime Street.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Liverpool_Lime_Street_sign.jpg

It's only recently that this area has become known as the Baltic Triangle (1990s onwards?). There are Baltic and Scandinavian connections, and the 'Baltic Fleet' pub is at the apex of the triangle, and I guess that has produced the name. The road layout is a triangle, but has been modified, so that, when I frequented this area in the 1980s it was much more industrial and if I wanted to describe it I would probably have said 'round Jamaica Street'.
As others have remarked the 'seed' money that Heseltine initiated through the Merseyside Development Corporation and many other organisations has taken root here: it's now a cultural/bohemian quarter, and up to COVID, thriving.
My choices would have been:
Baltic
Parliament Street
Bohemia

Perhaps it is thought that Baltic will expand from its triangular shape!

Well perhaps if that is where Headbolt Lane comes from. Is it a well known thoroughfare in the district? Like Penny Lane? Or Champs-Elysees?

I, for one, have never heard of it and would argue that in general there are benefits in stations having names that are better at informing people where they are located.
If you want station names to reflect their location then you'll be disappointed on Merseyrail:
Moorfields, Sandhills, Freshfield, Hillside, Town Green could be anywhere.
There's probably several other roads in the UK called Manor Road, Hall Road, James street too.
Old Roan is named after a pub.
Further confusion could arise from Conway Park, Waterloo and Edge Hill.

If you don't know where they are why worry?
 
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Bletchleyite

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I think at one time the airport itself was named Birmingham International, so the station was named after the airport's previous name!

It isn't just an airport station. It also serves the NEC, which is an international grade conference and exhibition centre, plus that Resorts World thing (though that won't have influenced the name).

Therein lies the problem. Birmingham Airport would be obvious, but the two other places served by it wouldn't approve.

Giving a German example as I like to, over there I am sure it would be called "Birmingham Flughafen-Messe" but all variations of that in English seem to sound clunky.

Old Roan is named after a pub.

It is indeed, though I grew up there in the 80s (Bradfield Avenue) and everyone I knew called the area "the Old Roan", with "Aintree" used to describe the area of terraced housing on the other side of the racecourse that is probably technically split between Walton and Fazakerley. "Aintree Village" signs appeared in the 90s but back in the 80s nobody called it that. They may do now because of said signs, though.

Except for Milton Keynes etc where things are clearly split, city district names are always a bit flexible and shift over time.

Further confusion could arise from Conway Park, Waterloo and Edge Hill.

I bet at least some tickets to Edge Hill get sold to people seeking the university which is actually in Ormskirk. To be fair, the reason for the name is that it was actually started near Edge Hill station and moved to Ormskirk later.
 
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urbophile

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If the station name becomes known it will influence what the area is called. Think Clapham Junction.
 

Djgr

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I fear Merseytravel have given us some bad choices here. The city prefix 'Liverpool' implies to me that it is
a) a Principal station/interchange
b) in the city centre
c) probably a terminus

You only have to think Manchester Victoria, Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Oxford Road as an example of this.

Bletchleyite is right that the underground Merseyrail station is known simply as 'Lime Street', but the 'big' station is Liverpool Lime Street.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Liverpool_Lime_Street_sign.jpg

It's only recently that this area has become known as the Baltic Triangle (1990s onwards?). There are Baltic and Scandinavian connections, and the 'Baltic Fleet' pub is at the apex of the triangle, and I guess that has produced the name. The road layout is a triangle, but has been modified, so that, when I frequented this area in the 1980s it was much more industrial and if I wanted to describe it I would probably have said 'round Jamaica Street'.
As others have remarked the 'seed' money that Heseltine initiated through the Merseyside Development Corporation and many other organisations has taken root here: it's now a cultural/bohemian quarter, and up to COVID, thriving.
My choices would have been:
Baltic
Parliament Street
Bohemia


If you want station names to reflect their location then you'll be disappointed on Merseyrail:
Moorfields, Sandhills, Freshfield, Hillside, Town Green could be anywhere.
There's probably several other roads in the UK called Manor Road, Hall Road, James street too.
Old Roan is named after a pub.
Further confusion could arise from Conway Park, Waterloo and Edge Hill.

If you don't know where they are why worry?
Freshfield and Town Green are certainly places in their own right. Waterloo and Edge Hill ditto.

Moorfields is a street and I wonder why it was chosen as the station name, given that one of its exits (the main one?) is a fair distance away. Agree that the other examples are obscure.

That said, given that new stations come but once a blue moon I still feel that we can come up with a better name than Headbolt Lane, which nobody has heard of and is famous for nothing.
 

Bletchleyite

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Freshfield and Town Green are certainly places in their own right. Waterloo and Edge Hill ditto.

Town Green is an area of Aughton. I don't know if it had that name before the coming of the railway, though. It's a slightly odd name, as while there is a village green there, it isn't a town, and when the railway first came Aughton won't have been joined to Ormskirk by housing as it is now. Furthermore the area on the map that looks like it was a separate village (to the east) is all 1960s-70s development.

What there is, to add confusion, is a slightly separate-ish village called Holt Green (on an OS map) a bit further down, but most people just call that (and St. Michael's church) part of Aughton. And then you have got Aughton Chase a bit further down which I think is named after a pub which is no longer called that (and the pub probably named after the local hunt who no doubt drank there afterwards).
 

Matt_pool

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I live in Liverpool and never refer to the area as the Baltic Triangle. In fact, I still call the Baltic Market Cains Brewery!
 

S&CLER

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Freshfield and Town Green are certainly places in their own right. Waterloo and Edge Hill ditto.

Moorfields is a street and I wonder why it was chosen as the station name, given that one of its exits (the main one?) is a fair distance away. Agree that the other examples are obscure.

That said, given that new stations come but once a blue moon I still feel that we can come up with a better name than Headbolt Lane, which nobody has heard of and is famous for nothing.
Headbolt Lane makes me think of Boris Karloff. The area may be in the civil parish of Simonswood, a pleasant name, but to add to the risk of confusion it's pronounced Simmonswood according to the spelling on old maps. One of my aunts lived in Kirkby Northwood, and her telephone exchange was officially called Simonswood. There used to be a set of sidings known as Simonswood Sidings as well, I think installed in the war to relieve pressure on Aintree or possibly as a back-up if Aintree yard was bombed.

Moorfields is the main entrance, if only because it's open 7 days a week while Old Hall Street is closed on Sundays.
 

Bletchleyite

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Headbolt Lane makes me think of Boris Karloff. The area may be in the civil parish of Simonswood, a pleasant name, but to add to the risk of confusion it's pronounced Simmonswood according to the spelling on old maps. One of my aunts lived in Kirkby Northwood, and her telephone exchange was officially called Simonswood. There used to be a set of sidings known as Simonswood Sidings as well, I think installed in the war to relieve pressure on Aintree or possibly as a back-up if Aintree yard was bombed.

It evokes thoughts of industrial Kirkby in me, and is also accurate in terms of its location on said road.

I can see that it could do with prefixing, i.e. "Kirkby Headbolt Lane", though, with a prefix adding to the other one too, "Kirkby Westvale" has been suggested. "Kirkby West" would be a bad plan as it could be confused with West Kirby (at least until you got there, one is posh and one is fairly rough).

I'd not oppose "Kirkby Northwood", though, nor "Kirkby Tower Hill".

As it's a traffic source, why not just ask the locals what they want it to be called?
 

Djgr

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It evokes thoughts of industrial Kirkby in me, and is also accurate in terms of its location on said road.

I can see that it could do with prefixing, i.e. "Kirkby Headbolt Lane", though, with a prefix adding to the other one too, "Kirkby Westvale" has been suggested. "Kirkby West" would be a bad plan as it could be confused with West Kirby (at least until you got there, one is posh and one is fairly rough).

I'd not oppose "Kirkby Northwood", though, nor "Kirkby Tower Hill".

As it's a traffic source, why not just ask the locals what they want it to be called?
If they are holding a competition for Liverpool St James why not one for Headbolt Lane? Or did I miss that one? Hate to think what the losing entries were.

Headbolt Lane makes me think of Boris Karloff. The area may be in the civil parish of Simonswood, a pleasant name, but to add to the risk of confusion it's pronounced Simmonswood according to the spelling on old maps. One of my aunts lived in Kirkby Northwood, and her telephone exchange was officially called Simonswood. There used to be a set of sidings known as Simonswood Sidings as well, I think installed in the war to relieve pressure on Aintree or possibly as a back-up if Aintree yard was bombed.

Moorfields is the main entrance, if only because it's open 7 days a week while Old Hall Street is closed on Sundays.
Yes a major source of annoyance. If open would probably generate more usage than most suburban stations. Ditto the secondary entrance to James Street.
 

John Luxton

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The irony being that there are a fair few Merseyrail stations close to sand hills (aka dunes) but this is not one of them!
Takes is name of the former Sandhills Estate much of which was sold for expansion of the docks. Info is on the relevant Wikipedia page. There probably were sandhills at Sandhills once!
 

D821

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The irony being that there are a fair few Merseyrail stations close to sand hills (aka dunes) but this is not one of them!
You could perhaps argue Meols has the same name, just in a different language. :)
 
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