ECML & WCML - do "up" and "down" reverse at border?

[dcsprior]

For some reason I have it in my head that the "up" and "down" directions reverse at the Scotland/England border (e.g. if you're at Reston then "up" is towards Edinburgh, but if you're at Chathill, "up" is towards London) but googling it I can't find any mention of this. Have I imagined it?

 

[Railsigns]

Up direction is towards London throughout, on both routes.

 

[yorkie]

For some reason I have it in my head that the "up" and "down" directions reverse at the Scotland/England border (e.g. if you're at Reston then "up" is towards Edinburgh, but if you're at Chathill, "up" is towards London) but googling it I can't find any mention of this. Have I imagined it?

You may be thinking of Derby! This is where a train from (say) Edinburgh to Plymouth would change from heading "Up" to "Down".

 

[Efini92]

For some reason I have it in my head that the "up" and "down" directions reverse at the Scotland/England border (e.g. if you're at Reston then "up" is towards Edinburgh, but if you're at Chathill, "up" is towards London) but googling it I can't find any mention of this. Have I imagined it?

If it’s on a line of route to London it will always be down from London and up to London.

 

[Peter0124]

It's silly that Down is away from London, considering most places are north or west of it!

So a 'Up' direction train on the WCML is actually one travelling south towards London for example.

Therefore it makes me wonder if the whole system was based around London and the South East.

 

[Halish Railway]

Therefore it makes me wonder if the whole system was based around London and the South East.

For a lot of, if not all former Midland Railway routes, the centre mileage point is Derby. For me in Selly Oak for example, up is northbound.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

For a lot of, if not all former Midland Railway routes, the centre mileage point is Derby. For me in Selly Oak for example, up is northbound.

Similar situation at Manchester Victoria for the ex L&Y/L&NW routes.

In some European countries lines are referred to as odd or even with train reporting numbers to match meaning long-distance services involving a reversal having two (consecutive) numbers to fit the system. This certainly used to happen in France and Poland (and Italy too I think).

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It's Down from Euston all the way to Aberdeen (LNWR/Caledonian), with possibly some complication east of Glasgow where the route used a portion of the rival North British Railway (and before the closure of the Forfar direct line).
There's no change at the Welsh border either.

It's complicated in countries where borders were redrawn over the years, with distances rebased on the new capitals.
That's just happened in Ukraine, where zero will now be in Kyiv rather than Moscow.

 

[43066]

It's silly that Down is away from London, considering most places are north or west of it!

So a 'Up' direction train on the WCML is actually one travelling south towards London for example.

In a railway context the three busiest stations in the country (London Waterloo, London Victoria and London Bridge) all carry people into London predominantly from South of London (LBG has some coming from the north on Thameslink, but the majority come from Kent and Sussex). It would be interesting to know exactly how many are carried by rail south of London versus north of it - it might well be more evenly balanced than people imagine.

Therefore it makes me wonder if the whole system was based around London and the South East.

If you’re going to have one reference it makes sense for it to be the capital city.

 

[CAF397]

It's silly that Down is away from London, considering most places are north or west of it!

So a 'Up' direction train on the WCML is actually one travelling south towards London for example.

Therefore it makes me wonder if the whole system was based around London and the South East.

Historically it was always 'Up' towards the railway companies' head quarters. Thinking that up and down is to do with London is not the main reason. As was stated by @Shaw S Hunter , the L&Y HQ was Manchester Victoria, which is why it's Up from Liverpool to Manchester, but Down to Leeds.

The WCML to Edinburgh is Down all the way to Haymarket East Jn, where the Down becomes the Up (because then it becomes part of the ECML and Up to London).

EDIT : corrected the Haymarket junction.

 

[dcsprior]

Thanks all, I must've imagined it (or as @yorkie suggests, got confused with some other place on some other line)

 

[hexagon789]

Similar situation at Manchester Victoria for the ex L&Y/L&NW routes.

In some European countries lines are referred to as odd or even with train reporting numbers to match meaning long-distance services involving a reversal having two (consecutive) numbers to fit the system. This certainly used to happen in France and Poland (and Italy too I think).

Certainly France uses pair and impair - even and odd. Even is towards Paris - nicely starting with P.

Italy uses pari and dispari - again even and odd. However, in Italy, pari is North or West-bound, impari is South or East. Ironically, Parigi is generally North West of Italy...

 

[driver9000]

The WCML to Edinburgh is Down all the way to Haymarket West Jn, where the Down becomes the Up (because then it becomes part of the WCML and Up to London).

Haymarket East Junction.

 

[edwin_m]

For some reason I have it in my head that the "up" and "down" directions reverse at the Scotland/England border (e.g. if you're at Reston then "up" is towards Edinburgh, but if you're at Chathill, "up" is towards London) but googling it I can't find any mention of this. Have I imagined it?

As mentioned, this isn't correct. What you may be thinking of is that the mileposts north of the border are from a zero at Edinburgh, so start decreasing when crossing the border in either direction. Most often the mileage increases in the Down direction, but not always.

For a lot of, if not all former Midland Railway routes, the centre mileage point is Derby. For me in Selly Oak for example, up is northbound.

This is true, but it isn't because the Midland decided to take its mileage from Derby. All Midland routes were re-numbered in the early 20th century starting from a zero at St Pancras. Where the junction for a branch was trailing when travelling from St Pancras, that branch had its own zero at the junction and mileage increased going away from it. The line from Derby all the way to Bristol was treated in exactly the same way as any other trailing branch.

Historically it was always 'Up' towards the railway companies' head quarters.

Not always, see above. The Midland was Down from St Pancras to Derby and the Scottish lines were Down from the English border. Generally an attempt was probably made to minimise the flipping of Up and Down for the principal routes, which avoids confusion when many trains are also described as up or down. This may or may not explain why the L&Y was Down in all directions from Victoria - this was their HQ but it also happened to avoid up/down reversal for the main routes at junctions with other companies such as Stalybridge, Wigan and Euxton.

Certainly France uses pair and impair - even and odd. Even is towards Paris - nicely starting with P.

Italy uses pari and dispari - again even and odd. However, in Italy, pari is North or West-bound, impari is South or East. Ironically, Parigi is generally North West of Italy...

You'll probably find that the signal numbers are also even and odd for the appropriate directions. More recent British signalling schemes do this too with even numbers in the Up direction, but many older ones don't.

 

[zwk500]

Therefore it makes me wonder if the whole system was based around London and the South East.

AIUI 'Up' and 'Down' came about because railways were obliged to produce linear maps of their lines (not sure if it was a legal or operational requirement) that specified distances between places for the purposes of calculating fares. These survive as the Sectional Appendix Table A diagrams. The diagrams would usually start from London as the railway headquarters and location of the largest traffic, as you wanted the distance to London to be as simple to calculate as possible. Cardinal compass directions were irrelevant on linear maps, hence the use of Up and Down.

It should be noted that in the US, lines are usually described as either East-West or North-South in their entirety, which can lead to situations where a 'northbound' train is travelling southwards or vice versa.

 

[CAF397]

Haymarket East Junction.

Thanks. Typo

 

[Ken H]

Thanks. Typo

Isnt it complicated round Greenhill junctions. 4 lines paired by use but the 2 pairs have the up/down in opposite directions. With a junction in the middle.

 

[Railsigns]

Historically it was always 'Up' towards the railway companies' head quarters.

Obviously that wasn't true in every case, or else there would be a change of direction at the Scotland/England border.

 

[L401CJF]

Holyhead-Warrington-Manchester is Up as far as Chester as you're heading toward London, from Chester to Earlestown it's down as it joins onto the northbound WCML, then at Earlestown you're Up again once you join the chat moss toward Manchester.

If I remember rightly (not a route I sign) the Welsh Marches is Up from Newport to Shrewsbury (as youd be heading toward London from Newport), then at Shrewsbury you're heading down again toward Wrexham/ Chester. Correct me if I'm wrong on that one, just something I was once told.

 

[stuving]

It's silly that Down is away from London, considering most places are north or west of it!

So a 'Up' direction train on the WCML is actually one travelling south towards London for example.

Therefore it makes me wonder if the whole system was based around London and the South East.

I think you'll find that the notion of "up" being to the top of a map, which is always north, is quite recent, at least in use of language terms. Looking at newspapers for 1800-09 I can find lots of examples of people going "up to London" and "down to the country". Of course they also went down to specific places in the "country", and "down to Scotland" was common then too. So the railway was just reflecting what everyone said when the first ones were built, and as well as "up and "down" still has that old sense of "country" in a station's "country end".

 

[zwk500]

Do the Welsh Valley lines still use the more 'topographically correct' orientation of 'up' and 'down' lines?

 

[Railsigns]

AIUI 'Up' and 'Down' came about because railways were obliged to produce linear maps of their lines (not sure if it was a legal or operational requirement) that specified distances between places for the purposes of calculating fares. These survive as the Sectional Appendix Table A diagrams.

The origin of Up and Down directions predates the railways themselves. It derives from the timetables for stagecoach routes having the principal location printed at the top, a practice followed by the early railway companies.

 

[zwk500]

The origin of Up and Down directions predates the railways themselves. It derives from the timetables for stagecoach routes having the principal location printed at the top, a practice followed by the early railway companies.

Ah, Interesting!

 

[Wynd]

Going up to London fits badly with the vernacular in Aberdeen, and most of Scotland, when we say going Down South, ie, to England.

Do people in London say they are going Down to Aberdeen? Surely not!

That being said, few of the general public are talking from a tack and signals perspective.

 

[Dave_Cardboard]

Occasionally I've mused on whether it was anything to do with "up" to town, "down" to the country ("town" in this instance of course being London back in the day.)
Similar language is also used in higher education in the UK; traditionally one went "up" to university and got sent "down" if one got kicked out.

Interesting to note (for those not familiar with the subject) signal numbers often reflect this also in some areas - odd number in one direction, even numbers in the reverse.

 

[zwk500]

Similar language is also used in higher education in the UK; traditionally one went "up" to university and got sent "down" if one got kicked out.

Nowadays it's more common to say you're going 'on' to university from Sixth Form, or at least was in my experience. Not sure if that's got something to do with the massive expansion in student places.

 

[vic-rijrode]

Obviously that wasn't true in every case, or else there would be a change of direction at the Scotland/England border.

Actually on the ECML, before the Grouping in 1923, the North Eastern owned the line from Newcastle to Berwick where Down was going north. The North British owned the line from Edinburgh to Berwick and Down was going south. So the change wasn't at the border but at Berwick Station.

 

[Rescars]

Occasionally I've mused on whether it was anything to do with "up" to town, "down" to the country ("town" in this instance of course being London back in the day.)
Similar language is also used in higher education in the UK; traditionally one went "up" to university and got sent "down" if one got kicked out.

Interesting to note (for those not familiar with the subject) signal numbers often reflect this also in some areas - odd number in one direction, even numbers in the reverse.

If you start from say Worcester, then you will of course go up to Oxford!

Do London-bound trains from Exeter St Davids leave by going up to Paddington, but down to Waterloo?

 

[waverley47]

The WCML to Edinburgh is Down all the way to Haymarket East Jn, where the Down becomes the Up (because then it becomes part of the ECML and Up to London).

Of course this means that a train from Glasgow Central to Waverley via Carstairs will change their direction twice on the journey.

Is there anywhere else this happens in such quick succession?

 

[Lemmy99uk]

I seem to remember that if you go from Birmingham New Street to Gravelly Hill you change at least twice in the space of a few miles.