Trivia: Most ridiculously named station in UK

[AC47461]

Acton Main Line - trains don't go further than Hayes, and you might as well call every mainline station that way - Raynes Park Mainline.

Isn't this so called to differentiate it from all the other Acton stations that are on the tube?

 

[acned]

At first glance naming a station after a person - John O' Gaunt - may appear odd. Delve into the history and this station, located on the closed GNR&LNWR Jt, was originally called of Twyford and Burrough on the Hill. It was renamed after the adjacent fox covert located in the Quorn hunt's 'Friday' country.

 

[vic-rijrode]

If we can include ex-stations, how about Verney Junction - not named after any nearby village of Verney(!) but after a local landowner Sir Harry Verney (nee Calvert) who sponsored the Bletchley to Oxford line of the LNWR.
At the time the station was opened, no village was named Verney - however a pub and a handful of cottages was established next to Verney Junction station and there are numerous road signs directing traffic there! Calvert station on the GC London Extension was also indirectly named after him. Calvert hamlet (another handful of cottages) was established to house workers at the nearby brickworks. Recently a new estate called Calvert Green was built dwarfing the original hamlet.

Platforms at both long disused stations still exist - Verney Junction's under considerable undergrowth being cleared for the East West Railway (hopefully) and Calvert's typical island platform which is passed on both sides by the "Binliner" trains carrying refuse to infill the old brickworks quarry. HS2 will pass close by.

 

[Agent_Squash]

Mitcham Eastfields

And don't get me started on East London stns - Maze Hill, Seven Kings, Waterloo East, even Luffboro Jcn which has no relevance to the area. Bristol Parkway should be called Stoke Gifford.

I don't know about the rest, but Waterloo East is named as such as it serves the Southeastern services to Charing Cross.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Belfast 'Central' - in the UK before you object - nope, more like Belfast East. If the Great Victoria Street expansion gets the go-ahead to accomodate the 'Enterprise' hopefully Central will be renamed to avoid trapping the unsuspecting traveller.

 

[B&I]

Belfast 'Central' - in the UK before you object - nope, more like Belfast East. If the Great Victoria Street expansion gets the go-ahead to accomodate the 'Enterprise' hopefully Central will be renamed to avoid trapping the unsuspecting traveller.

But located on the old Belfast Central Railway. There was a Grand Central Hotel on Royal Avenue, behind which was meant to have been built a combined station.

 

[Mag_seven]

Milton Keynes Central - because there is no other Milton Keynes anything.

 

[Howardh]

Ben Rhydding sounds like it should be in Scotland and Wales at the same time.

It's in Yaarkshire.

Meols Cop.....sounds like it should be on an alien planet.

 

[Gathursty]

Llanbister Road as it's not even on the nearby B-road that is direct to Llanbister. That being said, it's not that close to the nearby hamlet of Crug either...

 

[edwin_m]

CHANCERY LANE - ironically situated on the street called Holborn, with Chancery Lane being another insignificant back street, which is some way from the current station entrance, but directly adjacent to the former station entrance disused since the 1930s.

As far as I can see both its original and its current entrances are on High Holborn, which only turns into Holborn at Grays Inn Road.

EDGWARE ROAD - No idea what it could better be, but it often causes confusion with Edgware, and as Edgware Road itself variously runs all the way to Edgware the name could be said to be misleading.

I agree this is a bad one, made worse by having two separate stations with the same name.

HOLBORN - situated at the junction of Kingsway and High Holborn, and nowhere near the street called Holborn which starts some way to the east.

And Holborn was named after the Hole Burn, AKA the River Fleet, so would be better applied to City Thameslink!

 

[Statto]

Hamilton Square, it's not in Hamilton Square but around the corner in Hamilton Street.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Very much at Tattenham Corner. The station derives its name from a feature on Epsom Racecourse which predated the station.

I'm not sure what else you could call the station (other than Epsom Downs of course but that is taken). Arguably that could be called Drift Bridge or perhaps Nork West.

All of a sudden I'm relieved there are no railways in the Orkneys or Shetlands... This is purportedly a family-friendly forum after all!

Though it's now closed, Clayton West is odd as there is no Clayton East, nor plain Clayton- not round there anyway! Though that's really a village with a ridiculous name, and a station that was named sensibly from that point.
On Metrolink Etihad Campus annoys me, as once the Sheikh gets bored the name of the facility served will change eventually.

 

[Dryce]

The Lakes

It's clearly designed to lure foreign visitors who think they are going to the Lake District.

I know for a fact it has succeeded to do this at least once.

 

[AC47461]

I've always liked Bodorgan, in Anglesey. Sounds more like a swedish greeting.....
(i'll get my coat....)

 

[AlterEgo]

Penistone.

 

[W-on-Sea]

Mitcham Eastfields
South Greenford - to the east of G
And don't get me started on East London stns - Maze Hill, Seven Kings, Waterloo East, even Luffboro Jcn which has no relevance to the area. Bristol Parkway should be called Stoke Gifford.

Not sure what the problem with Seven Kings is - it is very definitely in a neighbourhood known as Seven Kings. Maze Hill is at least just off a long road of that name, which forms part of the geographical feature from whcih it takes its name. From a tourist point of view maybe "Greenwich Park" might work better, although it's probably no nearer to one of the main sights there, the Royal Observatory, than Greenwich itself...

On the tube, Dollis Hill strikes me as misnamed - the location it's in is either Dudden Hill or still part of Willesden - Willesden (Church End) even. Most of Dollis Hill itself is uphill, on the other side of Gladstone Park and across the Dudding Hill line....

Preston Road on the tube seems to have a name that is of purely local relevance. On the Overground, Carpenders Park really could do with a reference to South Oxhey being added to its name, as it effectively serves both places, on opposite side of the tracks.

 

[gg1]

Milton Keynes Central - because there is no other Milton Keynes anything.

There are 5 stations in MK of which MKC is the most centrally located and the best served so nothing wrong at all with the name.

 

[JohnRegular]

Isn't this so called to differentiate it from all the other Acton stations that are on the tube?

Acton really takes the biscuit in terms of the stations serving it. All 4 compass points (North, West, and East Acton on the central line, and South Acton on the overground), Acton Town, Acton Central and Acton Main Line.
Renaming Acton Main Line to just 'Acton' would only cause confusion, and there aren't really any sensible names left!

 

[SWTrainspottin]

Rhoose Cardiff International Airport - Why so unnecessarily long? Can't it just be called Cardiff Airport?

Port Talbot Parkway - Why is the "Parkway" there? It's not outside of the town it serves.

Didcot Parkway - Again with the "Parkway". It's irrelevant as it's inside the town it serves.

 

[Matt_pool]

Bath Spa.

No one calls it that. It's Bath!

Then you've got Wavertree Technology Park.

The "technology park" consists of a Barclays call centre and a few other office units, and a Matalan!

 

[Rail Blues]

Edinburgh Waverley - named after a series of crap, twee novels by Walter Scott.

Newhaven Harbour and Newhaven Marine - one is operating and the other is only open on paper. I can never remember which is which due to the similar names. Also two (and technically three) stations in a town of 12,000 people seems like overkill. That said, my mother in law lives in Newhaven and it is always good to know there's a handy escape route should it all get to much.

 

[birchesgreen]

The Lakes

It's clearly designed to lure foreign visitors who think they are going to the Lake District.

I know for a fact it has succeeded to do this at least once.

Well no its named after... wait for it... Earlswood Lakes which are next to it. It was indeed named to lure visitors, but these were from Brum. To be honest if you are going to include visitor foolishness as a criterion for a silly station name then surely Alton as they regularly get people thinking its where Alton Towers is.

 

[Ianno87]

Oldham Mumps always struckly as a ludicrous name, what next, Rochdale Tonsillitis?

Comes from the old term 'Mumper', meaning beggar.

 

[Mag_seven]

There are 5 stations in MK of which MKC is the most centrally located and the best served so nothing wrong at all with the name.

The other four do not have the name "Milton Keynes" in them.

 

[Ianno87]

The other four do not have the name "Milton Keynes" in them.

MKC serves the area of town known as Central Milton Keynes, the business and shopping district.

Wolverton = "Milton Keynes North"
Bletchley = "Milton Keynes South"

 

[Calthrop]

To me, Whifflet -- have no doubt that in Scots, it's a respectable name with a sense-making meaning; but to a Sassenach, it sounds comical. Not helped by the Lord Peter Wimsey murder mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers in which Lord Peter, on an undercover mission, is posing for a time as "a real person with a real job", writing advertising copy for Whifflet cigarettes.

 

[Mag_seven]

MKC serves the area of town known as Central Milton Keynes, the business and shopping district.

Wolverton = "Milton Keynes North"
Bletchley = "Milton Keynes South"

If they were actually named Milton Keynes North and Milton Keynes South then I could see the point of Milton Keynes Central, but they are not so I don't.

 

[Statto]

Bletchley has been called Bletchley long before Milton Keynes ever existed.

 

[Altfish]

Any station that doesn't give the non-local a clue where it is.
So all stations named after the street they are on. My local station is called Navigation Road, a better name would be Altrincham North.

 

[lejog]

Ben Rhydding sounds like it should be in Scotland and Wales at the same time.

It's in Yaarkshire.

Meols Cop.....sounds like it should be on an alien planet.

Ben Rhydding was called Wheatley until the Victorians built a large hydropathic hotel there. Wiki repeats a local tale that Ben Rhydding was the ancient name for Ilkley Moor, but as there is apparently no other evidence for this it is likely to be a name invented by the hotel to compete with the Scottish hydro hotels. It was even built apparently built in grand "Scottish baronial style", there's a picture on Wiki. The hotel paid for the station, but was demolished in the1950s.