Shouldn't Jubilee be East / Westbound instead of North / Southbound?

[swt_passenger]

Referring to the thread title, is the Jubilee not already referred to as East/Westbound on way-finding at all the stations where it appears as such on the tube map. E.g. Waterloo or Canary Wharf. At stations like Wembley Park it’s then referred to as North/Southbound.

Yes, and it was was also explained that way in post #2

 

[tomuk]

Just like London, there's the majority case and exceptions. The 8th Avenue line, north/south, has the A train running south, at the bottom of Manhattan it turns through Brooklyn into Queens. The E train meanwhile runs north, the opposite way, then turns through the 53 Street tunnel directly into Queens. At the far end of Queens, in Jamaica, they actually are quite close. As normal in New York City the signage is inconsistent, there's certainly the expression Queens used for both directions at different points. Both connect at different points for the Airtrain shuttle to JFK airport.

I believe you are wrong about that although A train does run through Brooklyn to Queens the signs indicate the borough the train will be travelling into when it leaves Manhattan so 8th Avenue services are signed Uptown & The Bronx or Uptown &Queens and Downtown & Brooklyn.

 

[bramling]

I want to take the Jubilee going East / West but the board says northbound / southbound which I find confusing (either from Kilburn or Waterloo, Stratford is in the East - there is nothing South going to Stratford).

Is it a mistake?

Not really. I suspect it comes down to the naming of the traction current sections. Firstly it’s good practice for the Jubilee sections to be consistent with the Met Line, but even if not it wouldn’t have been worth the bother of changing them when the extension opened.

Changing the passenger-facing language from the internal stuff is of course possible, but does risk confusion.

It is outwardly odd, but it’s understandable how the situation has arisen.

Having said all that, it’s hard to consider Stanmore as being in west London, whichever way one looks at it. Then again, same applies to Cockfosters.

 

[jopsuk]

Why not use north-west bound and south-east bound for Jubilee.

because the idea is to use cardinal directions- which are all single words

 

[Basil Jet]

because the idea is to use cardinal directions- which are all single words

Writing all the signs in Finnish would solve that problem. (Finnish has 8 cardinal directions, i.e 8 directions whose names are not compounds of each other.)

 

[Busaholic]

I regard the Piccadilly Line as running West London to North London via Central London, so westbound and northbound would be the directions, though I appreciate that might cause problems at Acton Town!

 

[trebor79]

I often find these directions confusing. It would make more sense for it to say "towards <end of line> via <major point in zone 1>.

That's what the Paris metro does and it's a pain. If you're not familiar with the termini then you have to consult the map to work out which one is the direction you want.

It's easier to use directions if I'm not familiar with the whole of London, especially as some termini are in remote locations.

There is absolutely no need to trace the map to the end of the line to find the terminus when I am navigating the city using a map.

The only line where using "towards <end of line>" is more useful is the Waterloo & City.

Agree.

 

[philthetube]

I don't think it matters, north/south or east/west, what matters is that the signing is consistent.

 

[Wolfie]

I want to take the Jubilee going East / West but the board says northbound / southbound which I find confusing (either from Kilburn or Waterloo, Stratford is in the East - there is nothing South going to Stratford).

Is it a mistake?

The Jubilee line pre-extension ran from Stanmore to Charing Cross. That was clearly north-south. I suspect that was never changed despite the extension running towards the east.

 

[Basil Jet]

The Jubilee line pre-extension ran from Stanmore to Charing Cross. That was clearly north-south.

Landscape, mate. Measure it. Stanmore is very close to being directly northwest of Charing Cross, but it is slightly further west (using OS grid squares, which admittedly are probably sufficiently misaligned with True North to mess this up, but I can't be bothered to try and work it out any other way.)

 

[FormerBritInMe]

Interesting discussion. For New York I don't think using the Borough names are that confusing, given that there are only 5 of them, and for a tourist they are unlikely to go to Staten Island and no subways go there directly anyway, so only 4 really matter, Contrast this with a tourist trying to use the TfL London bus spider maps and trying to figure out which of the 33 boroughs their origin or destination is in.

In Boston where I grew up, they tend to use "Inbound" and "Outbound" which works much of the time except for lines that branch where they also use the destination (I don't see any way around that). Inbound and Outbound does have the drawback of being ambiguous when you are going between stations in the downtown area (e.g. South Station to Park St.) Fortunately for Boston the downtown is a relatively small area.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Along those lines, outside Zone 1 and at outer zone 1 stations like Victoria, Paddington and Euston, "towards central London and <end of line>" and "towards <other end of line>" would probably work best. Almost anyone randomly rocking up at an unknown Tube station including the main mainline termini wants to go to central London.

 

[Broucek]

I regard the Piccadilly Line as running West London to North London via Central London, so westbound and northbound would be the directions, though I appreciate that might cause problems at Acton Town!

Yes, this! I live at the Northern end of the Picc Line and I STILL have to consciously think when I see an "Eastbound" sign

 

[Basil Jet]

Yes, this! I live at the Northern end of the Picc Line and I STILL have to consciously think when I see an "Eastbound" sign

It always used to be Northbound and Westbound at Holborn, and N/S N of there and E/W west of there. I suppose the platform for Aldwych was probably Southbound, but I'm guessing there. Many Central London stations still have "For Finsbury Park" and "For Hammersmith" in faux cartouches on tiling patterns from before the 1930s extensions.

 

[Busaholic]

It always used to be Northbound and Westbound at Holborn, and N/S N of there and E/W west of there. I suppose the platform for Aldwych was probably Southbound, but I'm guessing there. Many Central London stations still have "For Finsbury Park" and "For Hammersmith" in faux cartouches on tiling patterns from before the 1930s extensions.

Aldwych was just Aldwych, no mention of direction, when I worked on London Underground in the early 1970s.

 

[Route115?]

I was at Ruislip Manor yesterday where the indicator showed 'northbound' & 'southbound' trains. This is slightly complicated as the terminii in both directions are southbound. No problem of course if the destination is shown. However one train was shown as 'Metropolitan line' & one as 'Northbound train' (rather than its destination Uxbridge). A casual visitor might have been a bit confused.

 

[321over360]

I also get very confused on the Jubilee line with North/West. But going by destination also has its problems, especially when I was on a Northern line train where the driver had forgotten to reverse the onboard announcement system when he reversed at Morden. To be on a north bound train when it kept saying 'this is a northern line train terminating at Morden' was most odd especially since it correctly worked out each time what station it was actually at but the 'next station is' was the one you had just got on at. Lots of confused passengers.

I've been on a Central Line from Newbury Park going London bound and the driver hadn't updated the announcement system as it had been a Newbury Park terminator so until Leytonstone it kept saying "this is a central line train to Newbury Park". Was kinda funny hearing it announcing the wrong way

 

[Mojo]

I was at Ruislip Manor yesterday where the indicator showed 'northbound' & 'southbound' trains. This is slightly complicated as the terminii in both directions are southbound. No problem of course if the destination is shown. However one train was shown as 'Metropolitan line' & one as 'Northbound train' (rather than its destination Uxbridge). A casual visitor might have been a bit confused.

This will have been an error because the station is signed and operationally is considered East / West.