Junction Names

[delt1c]

Looking at some junction names got me wondering how they got their names. The one that got me thinking was " Polkemmet Junction just to the West of Bathgate by Whiteside. I remember this junction in its last days, what is strange as how it got its name, the line went to Fauldhouse, where there was a junction to Polkemmet which was named Benhar Junction as the sour served mines in the Benhar district including Polkemmet pit. Why was the junction at Bathgste called Polkemmet when it was a long circular ( and reversal) to reach Polkemmett. There must be many others where the reason for the name is strange

 

[Springs Branch]

I'm not familiar with the local geography, but with a quick scan of the internet, I'd guess the naming is just a local coincidence, and Polkemmet Junction at Bathgate didn't have any direct relationship to the Polkemmet Colliery near Whitburn which supplied Ravenscraig's coking coal by rail.

The sequence of opening of railway lines around West Lothian looks quite complicated and convoluted, and generally was concerned with extracting & transporting minerals from the area. A good place to start with the history is the Polkemmet Junction page on the RailScot website.

Long before the railways, Polkemmet country house and estate (now Polkemmet Country Park) had been a feature of the area. It had been the home of local landholders, the Baillie family, since the early 1600s.

The RailScot website says the first railway through the site of Polkemmet Junction was opened in 1850 by the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway. This line approached Bathgate from the Longridge & Bathgate Chemical Works direction, not from Airdrie.

Then the Monklands Railway's Torbanehill & Bathgate branch opened in 1855, connecting to various coal and ironstone mines just west of Bathgate. This joined and left the existing E&G line at Polkemmet Junction, creating a 4-way junction. Presumably the Torbanehill mines were owed by the Baillie family, so maybe this is how the junction got its name. This 1856 map (available at the National Library of Scotland website) shows the various Torbanehill mineral lines in the area.
https://maps.nls.uk/view/74427801

The mineral line from the Torbanehill area was extended west in stages, reaching Airdrie in 1860 and subsequently was doubled in 1904.

The large colliery on Polkemmet Moor was only sunk at the time of the First World War and went into production in the 1920s, so long after Polkemmet Junction at Bathgate had opened.

 

[delt1c]

I'm not familiar with the local geography but, with a quick scan of the internet, I'd guess the naming is just a local coincidence, and Polkemmet Junction didn't have a direct relationship to the Polkemmet Colliery near Whitburn which supplied Ravenscraig's coking coal by rail.

The opening of railway lines around West Lothian looks quite complicated and convoluted, and generally was concerned with extracting & transporting minerals from the area. A good place to start with the history is the Polkemmet Junction page on the RailScot website.

Long before the railways, Polkemmet country house and estate (now Polkemmet Country Park) had been a feature of the area. It had been the home of local landholders, the Baillie family, since the early 1600s.

The RailScot website says the first railway through the site of Polkemmet Junction was opened in 1850 by the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway. This line approached Bathgate from the Longridge direction (Bathgate Chemical Works), not from Airdrie.

Then the Monklands Railway's Torbanehill and Bathgate branch opened in 1855, connecting to various coal and ironstone mines just west of Bathgate. This joined and left the existing E&G line at Polkemmet Junction, creating a 4-way junction. Presumably the Torbanehill mines were owed by the Baillie family, so maybe this is how the junction got its name. This 1856 map (available at the National Library of Scotland website) shows the various Torbanehill mineral lines in the area.
https://maps.nls.uk/view/74427801

The mineral line from the Torbanehill area was extended west in stages, reaching Airdrie in 1860 and subsequently was doubled in 1904.

The large colliery on Polkemmet Moor was only sunk at the time of the First World War and went into production in the 1920s, so long after Polkemmet Junction at Bathgate had opened.

Know the Polkemet country house, it was the home of my Headmistress many years ago. However this was approx 5 miles south of Polkemmet mine. In the 70's spent most of the school holidays searching out the disused railways in the area and long abandoned mines, all of this now long gone, wish i had photographed it

 

[Springs Branch]

Looking at some junction names got me wondering how they got their names........... There must be many others where the reason for the name is strange

Large scale Ordnance Survey maps (either old or current) can sometimes be useful in working out why oddly-named junctions have the names they do.

One example is Crow Nest Junction, just east of Hindley on the Wigan - Manchester route.

I often wondered where this name came from, until I bought a 1:25,000 OS map of the area and noticed an adjacent farm (in the fork of the railway junction) is named Crow Nest Farm.

Ordnance Survey maps tend to be much more useful for this kind of detective work than Google Maps, Open Street Map etc. See, for example, this 6-inch-to-a-mile map, published in 1909 & available on National Library of Scotland website.

But admittedly they don't explain how Crow Nest Farm got its name!

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Bo-Peep Junction in Kent.

The name "Bo-Peep" derives from the action of "looking out for" where the cliffs between Hastings and Bexhill offered fantastic (and interrupted) view of the coastline and well-known smuggling haunts. There is an Inn that carries the same name

 

[Railwaysceptic]

So, who were Joan Croft and Dr. Day? And was there really a sheet store near Sheet Stores Junction?

 

[CW2]

Junction Road Junction. Which came first, the road or the junction?

 

[Calthrop]

Bo-Peep Junction in Kent.

The name "Bo-Peep" derives from the action of "looking out for" where the cliffs between Hastings and Bexhill offered fantastic (and interrupted) view of the coastline and well-known smuggling haunts. There is an Inn that carries the same name

Am being an irritating nitpicker, I know; but the locations concerned are in Sussex, not Kent.

I've heard it said (in the commentary on an open-topped-bus tour of Hastings and environs) that the nursery rhyme "Little Bo-Peep" is actually an allegory about "hide-and-seek" as carried on between smugglers with their illicit goods, and Customs officers. I tend to be sceptical about this business of nursery rhymes being, really, on historical / political topics: wonder whether in fact they often originated just as nonsense dreamed up by children and their carers -- the "topical commentary" thing having been invented after the fact, by clever-dicks wishing to impress...

Large scale Ordnance Survey maps (either old or current) can sometimes be useful in working out why oddly-named junctions have the names they do.

One example is Crow Nest Junction, just east of Hindley on the Wigan - Manchester route.

I often wondered where this name came from, until I bought a 1:25,000 OS map of the area and noticed an adjacent farm (in the fork of the railway junction) is named Crow Nest Farm.

Ordnance Survey maps tend to be much more useful for this kind of detective work than Google Maps, Open Street Map etc. See, for example, this 6-inch-to-a-mile map, published in 1909 & available on National Library of Scotland website.

But admittedly they don't explain how Crow Nest Farm got its name!

Junction names inspired by various wildlife -- and their nests -- would seem to be / have been far from rare on Britain's railways. There is Throstle Nest Junction on the Cheshire Lines system just outside Manchester; and Stoats Nest Junction near Purley. The Midland & Great Northern Joint system had Cuckoo Junction, where the avoiding line to the south of Spalding diverged west of that town; and not very far distant, there's Pyewipe Junction (with its attendant locoshed) just outside Lincoln; where the lines of the northbound Great Northern & Great Eastern Joint route, and the Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast, diverged. ("Pyewipe" is the local name for the green plover or lapwing.) It would seem likely, in my opinion, that as with Crow Nest: the names are more likely to have been taken from nearby farms or pubs, rather than being direct tributes to the assorted creatures.

 

[John Webb]

So, who were Joan Croft and Dr. Day? And was there really a sheet store near Sheet Stores Junction?

Yes, there was a Sheet Stores near the Junction of that name. It was set up by the Midland Railway to prepare and repair the tarpaulin sheets that were used to cover goods in open wagons. Carried on working into BR days; I don't know when it closed. There were several sidings associated with the stores.

 

[edwin_m]

Large scale Ordnance Survey maps (either old or current) can sometimes be useful in working out why oddly-named junctions have the names they do.

One example is Crow Nest Junction, just east of Hindley on the Wigan - Manchester route.

I often wondered where this name came from, until I bought a 1:25,000 OS map of the area and noticed an adjacent farm (in the fork of the railway junction) is named Crow Nest Farm.

Ordnance Survey maps tend to be much more useful for this kind of detective work than Google Maps, Open Street Map etc. See, for example, this 6-inch-to-a-mile map, published in 1909 & available on National Library of Scotland website.

But admittedly they don't explain how Crow Nest Farm got its name!

For anyone that isn't aware, Bing Maps includes current 25000 OS coverage if you zoom in far enough, and is easier to use than NLS if you just want current mapping at this scale.

And was there really a sheet store near Sheet Stores Junction?

Yes, the adjacent buildings that are still there were part of the Midland Railway's storage facility for wagon tarpaulins. As, I think, is the concrete pad with inset narrow-gauge rails that you see when looking down and to the left from a Derby-bound train. The pad must have been the base of a building and the rails must have gone underneath the main line, but wouldn't have been used by anything more interesting than a pushable trolley.

Junction Road Junction. Which came first, the road or the junction?

I recall reading somewhere that the road was named after a nearby canal junction. Unfortunately I can't think of any junctions named after chickens or eggs, though as mentioned nests seem quite common for some reason.

 

[Mag_seven]

So, who were Joan Croft and Dr. Day?

@Dr Day is a poster on here.

 

[Dr_Paul]

Point Pleasant Junction between Putney and Wandsworth is named after a street called Point Pleasant. It's possible that there may previously have been a farm of that name, but I haven't seen a map old enough to show this. Longhedge and Pouparts Junctions are both named after farms in the Battersea area; Poupart was a well-known fruit and veg farmer.

There's a page on the Sheet Store here: I'd not come across it before reading the post above. I imagine that all sizeable railway companies had something similar. Just to muddle things, however, this map shows a Sheetstore Farm by the railway: perhaps in this instance the farm was named after the junction.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The Bristol Railway Archive says that Dr Days Junction was named after Dr Willam Edward Day who lived in Barrow Road. The area was named after him when the bridge at Barrow Road needed to be cut for the railway to pass.

Barrow Road crosses the present railway and joins on to Barton Hill Road on the other side. Days Road runs from a roundabout on Barrow Road in the general direction of Temple Meads Station, although it doesn't actually get there.

 

[swt_passenger]

Junction Road Junction just does your head in...

 

[Bevan Price]

So, who were Joan Croft and Dr. Day? And was there really a sheet store near Sheet Stores Junction?

There is an area called Joan Croft, and a Joan Croft Lane near that junction:

Georeferenced Maps - Map images - National Library of Scotland

A "croft" is a type of small farm / agricultural enclosure:

Croft (land) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Ashley Hill]

Junction Road Junction just does your head in...

Like Box Signal Box (not a junction)

 

[Dr_Paul]

Junction Road Junction just does your head in...

Rather like Green Street Green in Kent. Sadly, that was never the name of a station, but Southfleet station on the Gravesend branch could have been called Green Street Green Road as it's on the road to that village.

 

[Calthrop]

Rather like Green Street Green in Kent. Sadly, that was never the name of a station, but Southfleet station on the Gravesend branch could have been called Green Street Green Road as it's on the road to that village.

In the "facetious" department (indulgence craved): this "Green thoroughfares" flight of fancy, puts me in mind of a location in Norfolk -- which never had a station, but is within a mile or two of North Wootton on the one-time Hunstanton branch. The village of Castle Rising, which does indeed possess a castle: called, logically enough, Castle Rising Castle. Someone commenced therefrom, one of these "this way madness lies" word-strings: a seemingly endless sequence of "castle"s and "rising"s, predicated on a chap named Castle, leader of a peasant revolt or "rising" against the feudal lord who ruled from the castle...

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Yes, there was a Sheet Stores near the Junction of that name. It was set up by the Midland Railway to prepare and repair the tarpaulin sheets that were used to cover goods in open wagons. Carried on working into BR days; I don't know when it closed. There were several sidings associated with the stores.

The Bristol Railway Archive says that Dr Days Junction was named after Dr Willam Edward Day who lived in Barrow Road. The area was named after him when the bridge at Barrow Road needed to be cut for the railway to pass.

Barrow Road crosses the present railway and joins on to Barton Hill Road on the other side. Days Road runs from a roundabout on Barrow Road in the general direction of Temple Meads Station, although it doesn't actually get there.

There is an area called Joan Croft, and a Joan Croft Lane near that junction:

Georeferenced Maps - Map images - National Library of Scotland

A "croft" is a type of small farm / agricultural enclosure:

Croft (land) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Thank you everyone. My further education continues to make progress.

 

[xotGD]

I know there is a song about Upthe Junction, but I've never been able to find it in a rail atlas.

 

[edwin_m]

I know there is a song about Upthe Junction, but I've never been able to find it in a rail atlas.

There's a film of that name where it refers to Clapham Junction. That's the one in London (but not in Clapham), not in North Yorkshire...

 

[43096]

I know there is a song about Upthe Junction, but I've never been able to find it in a rail atlas.

Somewhere around Clapham Jct, I expect.

 

[Taunton]

Dr Day's signalbox used to have an enormous brass plate on the outside in normal GWR style, completely spelling out "DOCTOR DAY'S BRIDGE JUNCTION SIGNAL BOX". It was a good thing it was quite a large building.

Day, incidentally, is a very common Bristol-area name.

 

[Tio Terry]

I wonder how Halifax Junction, just south of Ipswich Tunnel, got it's name?

 

[swt_passenger]

I wonder how Halifax Junction, just south of Ipswich Tunnel, got it's name?

Seems to have been a place name, and according to NLS maps there was also a “Halifax Chemical Works”:

Side by side georeferenced maps viewer - Map images - National Library of Scotland

Probably buried under reclaimed land in the port area nowadays?

 

[ian1944]

Skelton Junction in Timperley wasn't named after any local farm etc, or a fanciful local name for a ferret, but prosaically after the local landowner John who sold some for railway use in the 1860s.

 

[pdeaves]

Skelton Junction in Timperley wasn't named after any local farm etc, or a fanciful local name for a ferret, but prosaically after the local landowner John who sold some for railway use in the 1860s.

Similar to 'Verney Junction' in Buckinghamshire.

 

[CarltonA]

And another with "Dolphin Junction" near Slough. Not named after marine mammals but the Duke of Leeds who had property in the area. His surname was Godolphin-Osborne. There's a Dolphin Road nearby.

 

[LAX54]

With Junctions named after local places / people, maybe we could rename Hunwick Junction at Colchester, either Humpty Junc, or Dumpty Junction ?