Abbreviations where they aren’t required

[Nova1]

Travelling through Birmingham and it appears that WMR have got a new obsession with abbreviating everything even when it really doesn’t need to be

Smethwick Galton Bridge is “Smethwick G B”

Stratford upon Avon is Stratford U Avon

Even worse Stratford Parkway is Stratford U A Pway

I’ve even just seen Wootton Wawen shorterned to Wtn Wawen.

This seems very un needed, as all of these were on digital displays that were already scrolling or had plenty of space. Why are they doing this?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Travelling through Birmingham and it appears that WMR have got a new obsession with abbreviating everything even when it really doesn’t need to be

Smethwick Galton Bridge is “Smethwick G B”

Stratford upon Avon is Stratford U Avon

Even worse Stratford Parkway is Stratford U A Pway

I’ve even just seen Wootton Wawen shorterned to Wtn Wawen.

This seems very un needed, as all of these were on digital displays that were already scrolling or had plenty of space. Why are they doing this?

It’s a funny one. Charing X for Charing Cross, yet the Southern electrostars display “London Victoria” - data storeage space?

 

[Purple Train]

Travelling through Birmingham and it appears that WMR have got a new obsession with abbreviating everything even when it really doesn’t need to be

Smethwick Galton Bridge is “Smethwick G B”

Stratford upon Avon is Stratford U Avon

Even worse Stratford Parkway is Stratford U A Pway

I’ve even just seen Wootton Wawen shorterned to Wtn Wawen.

This seems very un needed, as all of these were on digital displays that were already scrolling or had plenty of space. Why are they doing this?

There may be a character limit. Ealing Broadway shows up as "Ealing Broadwa" in some places, for example.

 

[Deepgreen]

Probably a large number of different reasons according to the situation. At my local station we have "Gatwick Airp't" despite the screen being twice as wide as the name! SWR has 'Basingstke' on its 444/450s, etc, etc. The list is huge, and so often the space available to display the full name is there but not used.

Travelling through Birmingham and it appears that WMR have got a new obsession with abbreviating everything even when it really doesn’t need to be

Smethwick Galton Bridge is “Smethwick G B”

Stratford upon Avon is Stratford U Avon

Even worse Stratford Parkway is Stratford U A Pway

I’ve even just seen Wootton Wawen shorterned to Wtn Wawen.

This seems very un needed, as all of these were on digital displays that were already scrolling or had plenty of space. Why are they doing this?

Irony - 'unnecessary' being the full term...!

 

[Jimini]

Travelling through Birmingham and it appears that WMR have got a new obsession with abbreviating everything even when it really doesn’t need to be

Smethwick Galton Bridge is “Smethwick G B”

Stratford upon Avon is Stratford U Avon

Even worse Stratford Parkway is Stratford U A Pway

I’ve even just seen Wootton Wawen shorterned to Wtn Wawen.

This seems very un needed, as all of these were on digital displays that were already scrolling or had plenty of space. Why are they doing this?

Imagine if they’d have used “Woolwich A’nal” when the DLR extension opened

 

[snowball]

Imagine if they’d have used “Woolwich A’nal” when the DLR extension opened

Or, equally, Woolwich Arse.

 

[GordonT]

There may be a character limit. Ealing Broadway shows up as "Ealing Broadwa" in some places, for example.

A better option might be Ealing Bdwy

 

[A S Leib]

Stratford upon Avon is Stratford U Avon

Even worse Stratford Parkway is Stratford U A Pway

I'm not sure if it's necessarily more comprehensible, but I think doing what ÖBB does and going for Stratford/Avon looks cleaner (e.g. Bruck/Mur).

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Imagine if they’d have used “Woolwich A’nal” when the DLR extension opened

Or, equally, Woolwich Arse.

There’s an even funnier joke in here I know it.

 

[childwallblues]

A better option might be Ealing Bdwy

Was it tube trains or buses that used to use EALING BDY?

 

[martin2345uk]

The internal screens on the Greater Anglia 720s say "London Liv Street" when there is absolutely room for the full name, or even if not, London Liverpool St. would be better

 

[snowball]

I'm not sure if it's necessarily more comprehensible, but I think doing what ÖBB does and going for Stratford/Avon looks cleaner (e.g. Bruck/Mur).

I suppose you could have Ashton\Lyne and Newcastle\Lyme.

 

[alxndr]

The internal screens on the Greater Anglia 720s say "London Liv Street" when there is absolutely room for the full name, or even if not, London Liverpool St. would be better

London Liv Street looses 6 characters where as London Liverpool St only loses 4 characters. If the problem is a character limit in the software somewhere this might not be enough to fit it in.

You could go with Lndn Liverpool St if you needed to keep the characters down to the same length but didn't want to obscure "Liverpool". The problem might then be that people just see "Liverpool" and think the train is going there!

 

[alistairlees]

Travelling through Birmingham and it appears that WMR have got a new obsession with abbreviating everything even when it really doesn’t need to be

Smethwick Galton Bridge is “Smethwick G B”

Stratford upon Avon is Stratford U Avon

Even worse Stratford Parkway is Stratford U A Pway

I’ve even just seen Wootton Wawen shorterned to Wtn Wawen.

This seems very un needed, as all of these were on digital displays that were already scrolling or had plenty of space. Why are they doing this?

Ironically you seem to have abbreviated "Birmingham Moor Street" to "Birmingham", in a post complaining about unnecessary abbreviation ...

 

[plymothian]

Lympstone Comma. The text to speech announcements at Topsham say Lympstone comma instead of Commando.

 

[jon0844]

The internal screens on the Greater Anglia 720s say "London Liv Street" when there is absolutely room for the full name, or even if not, London Liverpool St. would be better

Those screens are awful and waste all that screen real estate to convey so little useful info. Old systems had character limits but surely that's a thing of the past.

 

[rg177]

Always grates a little when the naff destination screens on Northern services will have stuff with "Nchester Vict" or similar as they're incapable of scrolling...

 

[Uzair]

Was it tube trains or buses that used to use EALING BDY?

Pretty sure the D Stock on the District line displayed this before their refurbishment.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Most appreviations I see are mostly to do with space (Even if it isn't taking up the whole space, it's usually still the longest name on the board)

One of the more notable ones is
Manchester Oxford Road to
Mcr Oxford Rd
which saves about half the length.

Looks like between different software updates of station screen, they've gone from shortening
"Wigan North Western" to
"Wigan North West" and later showed
"Wigan Nth Western"
not sure what the current version shows, I don't see many trains to Wigan North Western anymore.

 

[Dstock7080]

Pretty sure the D Stock on the District line displayed this before their refurbishment.

District and Central trains used “BDY”, previously just EALING.
Central platform indicators used “BDWY”

 

[Buzby]

The converse is also true - for years I travelled through the delightful town of Lancaster. This has now expanded to ‘Lancaster North Lakes’. Since there is no confusion with another area, I’d love to know who even thought this was necessary (unless it was the tourist office).

 

[Sad Sprinter]

The converse is also true - for years I travelled through the delightful town of Lancaster. This has now expanded to ‘Lancaster North Lakes’. Since there is no confusion with another area, I’d love to know who even thought this was necessary (unless it was the tourist office).

Are you sure you’re not thinking about Penrith?

 

[Towers]

Probably a large number of different reasons according to the situation. At my local station we have "Gatwick Airp't" despite the screen being twice as wide as the name! SWR has 'Basingstke' on its 444/450s, etc, etc. The list is huge, and so often the space available to display the full name is there but not used.

Not forgetting Portsm Hbr! In the case of the SWR Desiros, they use a rather dated dot matrix ‘flip dot’ system for the external screens rather than LEDs. When these screens were common on buses, before LEDs took over, it was usual for them to alternate between one display and another, for example to list ‘via’ points and such, but I’ve never seen this on the SWR fleet. Even if it was possible it’d be a clunky solution, as they’d have to switch between the two halves of the required word, rather than actually scrolling as per LEDs.

 

[The exile]

Lympstone Comma. The text to speech announcements at Topsham say Lympstone comma instead of Commando.

Yes, the way text-to-speech copes with abbreviations (and names in general) nicely illustrates the limitations of AI (Artificial Incompetence) - or maybe more accurately that of the people signing these things off. If a human can recognise that “Pky” after “Bristol” is to be pronounced “parkway” - then a computer-based system that doesn’t shouldn’t be employed (or at least paid for!)

 

[Western Lord]

The converse is also true - for years I travelled through the delightful town of Lancaster. This has now expanded to ‘Lancaster North Lakes’. Since there is no confusion with another area, I’d love to know who even thought this was necessary (unless it was the tourist office).

Lancaster North Lakes would be stretching the geographical reality, even for the likes of Ryanair. It's Penrith North Lakes.

 

[contrex]

There may be a character limit. Ealing Broadway shows up as "Ealing Broadwa" in some places, for example.

It was EALING BDY on District R and CO/CP stock (and later on D78) and Central Line 1959/1962 stock when I were a lad, and EALING on the little boards that some Q stock had. They were non-digital, but it shows passengers may be used to abbreviations.

Pretty sure the D Stock on the District line displayed this before their refurbishment.

Yes. And stuff like MORDEN STN on LT buses. (RTs and RTLs in my youth)

 

[geoffk]

"Bristol Temple M" is an odd one seen on Cross-Country sets, when either T. Meads or just TM would be more sensible to me (admittedly as someone who grew up in Bristol).

 

[CyrusWuff]

British Rail - and subsequently ATOC - maintained a list of three shortened versions of each station name for systems that couldn't display the full thing.

Sadly I can't find a recent version, but it'd reduce the chances of seeing things like "London Liverpoo" instead of "London Liverpool Street" if it was resurrected and made mandatory for Customer Information Systems.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

British Rail - and subsequently ATOC - maintained a list of three shortened versions of each station name for systems that couldn't display the full thing.

Sadly I can't find a recent version

Have you managed to find an older version? Would still be interesting to see.

 

[MattSGB]

In this particular case, I don't think it is a character limit - I'm sure that they used to display the full station names on these trains. The simplest explanation is that no thought went into it at all and someone just decided to type them in that way. The punctuation really used to irk me in the past, having spaces before commas, and double-spaces here and there (I know it's trivial). What would actually be useful is to forget about abbreviations and instead increase the painfully slow scrolling rate.
The new colour screens on the 172s irritate me too. They say things like "Change here for connect with Midland Metro".