I have just been reading the accident reports for the two recent (or fairly recent) derailments in Summit Tunnel, and I note that "Up" on the former Manchester & Leeds line is west towards Manchester, whereas "Down" is east towards Leeds. Has this always been the case? It seems odd that trains proceeding towards London should be regarded as down workings, but I suppose it is possible that, in the very early days, Manchester Victoria may have been regarded as a more important destination than London?.
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"Up to Manchester?"
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That is more or less what I was getting at - the analogy with Derby and the Midland is particularly appropriate.
edwin_m
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Except it's not true in respect of the Midland - Derby to St Pancras is "up".
But that after the opening of the London Extension to St Pancras - in the early days, Derby was regarded as the "Up" destination on the Midland system.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
It still is between Bristol and Derby.
Bristol-Leeds trains change from Up to Down at Derby.
There are many other such discontinuities across the network.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
Presumably this includes Thameslink, and soon Crossrail too?
Joseph_Locke
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But not of the Liverpool and Manchester of which the line from Ordsall to Deal Street is a branch; indeed the low mileage end is Liverpool on the Chat Moss, which is the other common choice for Up, e.g. towards low mileage. Mileages between Victoria and Deal Street are complex indeed ...
Presumably the Liverpool Party won the argument over the mileage and acquiesced over "Up" to appease the Manchester group? It all went over my head at the time ...
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
Manchester is 'Up' on both the L&Y (Calder Valley) and the LNWR (Standedge) routes. Strangely this means that (AIUI) a Leeds-Huddersfield via Bradford service is running Up, reverses at BDI but remains Up until Greetland Junction where it becomes Down as far as Bradley Wood Junction. From Bradley Junction to Huddersfield it is Up once more, though I'm not sure what the situation is on the chords at Bradley and Dryclough/Greetland.
Darren R
Established Member
The train in question is actually a Down train from Leeds (ex-GNR line), Up from Bradford Interchange to Greetland, Down to Bradley Wood and then Up again to Huddersfield. (To which may be added that in the days of The Grand Tour, the service was an Up train from Selby as far as Leeds!) That's an impressive number of reversals of direction for a train that only actually changes direction once!
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Though the Liverpool & Manchester wasn't part of the LYR, ending up in the hands of the LNWR, which served the adjacent Manchester Exchange, not Victoria. The LYR had its own route between the two cities, via Aintree and Wigan.
And until the 1929 LMS resignalling, there was no connection at Deal Street between the ex-LNWR lines into Manchester Exchange and the ex-LYR into Victoria, with the end-on junction of the two routes being in Victoria station.
Cherry_Picker
Established Member
Mentioned this before, but Kidderminster - Marylebone trains go "down" to London until they are through Stourbridge. The "up" on that stretch of line is up towards Paddington via Worcester.
D1009
Established Member
Surely Aintree was on the Liverpool to Preston route. The route from Manchester was via Kirkby.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Aintree railway station was opened in 1849 by the Liverpool, Ormskirk and Preston Railway and remained a station of that company for ten years until 1859, when that company then became yet another of the former railway companies that amalgamated with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
I have a theory that the L&M was originally "Up" to Liverpool as per mileposts and company title, but was reversed by the LNWR probably when the Runcorn direct route was opened.
This would be to fit in with Euston mileages/directions which meet the L&M at Ordsall Lane, Earlestown and Edge Hill (where Euston mileage via Runcorn continues to Lime St).
If anybody knows any better, it would be nice to know.
The early accounts of the opening of the L&M and the Huskisson accident don't help.
They talk about "Liverpool-bound" and "Manchester-bound" lines.
There are also strange discontinuities of mileage on the network.
Garston was originally reached from Timperley via Lymm and is at mileage 24.
But the LNWR new line used the same route from Ditton to Speke, using Euston mileages, so now Garston is isolated but still with a short stretch of Timperley mileage from Speke.
Marylebone is the odd one out of the London terminals in not having a zero mileage.
It's 205.77 miles (Up) from Manchester Piccadilly via Woodhead and Aylesbury.
Agreed, looking at map in too much of a hurry...
The early OS maps (see NLS -- and note they have now set to work on the 25" sheets for England to add to the marvellous collection of 6" sheets) shew two sets of mileposts on the Liverpool & Manchester, one from Liverpool and one from Manchester. Neither end of the line serves its original terminus, of course, with Lime Street replacing Crown Street in Liverpool and Victoria (and later Exchange) replacing Liverpool Road in Manchester. I wonder if it became a single set of posts reading from Liverpool some time after that. As for the Down and Up, remember that for a good few years London trains to Liverpool ran via Earlestown. I wonder if that might have anything to do with the Liverpool-bound direction becoming the down line.
The Midland issued a notice on 26 April 1856 listing all its lines with the Down and Up directions. The accompanying text: "As it is convenient in the issue of instruction respecting Signal and Working Arrangements, to distinguish the different Lines of Rails by the terms UP and DOWN, and very essential that no ambiguity or misunderstanding should exist on the subject, the following information is given for the guidance of the Company's Servants." Over time there were some changes, but the final Midland position is reflected by the Edwardian mileposts. Where there is a through route from zero at St Pancras the mileposts read in a continuous series, and the increase in distance is always in the down direction. Branches that cannot be so numbered start from a new zero. In one sense, Derby to the West follows the old tradition, but in another it simply conforms to this pattern -- and note that the zero is not in the middle of Derby station, which would have been the historic location if referring to the HQ, but at London Road Junction, which is exactly the turn-back point one would expect with the Edwardian series.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
That's even crazier than I thought! The Selby section still runs as a through service much of the time, albeit not advertised as such on PIS at Huddersfield/Leeds. The Wakefield leg was separated from the grand tour, though would have involved a switch from up to down with the reversal at Huddersfield along with possibly another when reversing at Kirkgate, though I'm not sure the Wakefield curve ever had an up/down designation as such.
As far as I remember from the very few road learning trips I did on the core it was up from Bedford, up Moorgate as far as Farringdon then down snow hill from there.
Same as the southern vic-London bridge palace rounders are down Brighton and down crystal palace from vic to crystal palace then up Sydenham spur and up London Bridge.
tsr
Established Member
(Up/)Down Crystal Palace now seems to very often be referred to as (Up/)Down Streatham Hill, too, making things just that little bit clearer as to which side of Crystal Palace is which!
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Midland had a wholesale renumbering of its mileposts in about 1907, which probably also involved rationalising Up and Down but I'm not sure about that. Simplifying somewhat, zero was at St Pancras for any through journey that could be made from St Pancras without reversing, but any reversal created a new zero milepost at the junction. This include Derby to Bristol and Bath.
Changes between Up and Down are indeed common on the network - every triangular junction must include one by definition. Usually Up and Down were assigned so the most important trains (at the time the designation was made - which may be different today) kept the same designation. .
hairyhandedfool
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Bedford to Moorgate was Up, Farringdon to Brighton/Sutton was Down. Trains going round the Sutton loop change from Down to Up as they cross between the Portsmouth and St Helier lines.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Just had a look at some of the older box diagrams on the Signal Box website. The dates suggest that the Midland London Extension was Up to St Pancras prior to the re-mileing in the early 20th century. There are none that shed any light on whether Derby to Trent was "up to Derby" at that time.
The same source suggests that the Great Central London extension was "Up to London" from its opening date, despite the mileage ascending from a zero at Manchester London Road to Marylebone.
The same source suggests that the Great Central London extension was "Up to London" from its opening date, despite the mileage ascending from a zero at Manchester London Road to Marylebone.
The Midland had seen the Rugby to Derby line as Up to Rugby and Down to Derby from the early 1850s if not before (I haven't got the evidence to hand). The point about the Edwardian re-mileposting was that it rigidly systemised everything into a completely coherent pattern (which was of course not a re-think from scratch but very much based on what had been there before).
The London Extension was indeed "Up to London" from the opening, and I think the company had viewed the line away from Manchester as Up for quite some time previously. And, of course, once it had got the London line the MS&L changed name and shifted its headquarters to London.
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