Clapham station is on the Bentham line between Leeds and Morecambe, beside the former junction with the Ingleton branch that joined the WCML at Low Gill. This northern Clapham Junction may have caused some amusement in days gone by.
Fun fact. Clapham station in Yorkshire opened in 1849. Whereas the Clapham Junction station in Battersea didn't open until 1863.
Think the last big round of simplifications came in 1974. Whether it is coincidental that that was also the year in which the timetable went “national” I have no idea.
As a resident of Paisley I can confirm this is pretty normal. Obviously Paisley Gilmour Street gets shortened to Gilmour Street when talking with locals, but that's just obviously the same pattern as for lots of places.
It's still referenced on platform 7, which I think is a nice touch
View attachment 185053
(Image of a Reading General sign on P7, source here for reference.
Indeed. Would be very nice to see a green totem with a picture of an N, U or even a Schools and three coaches.
Ah yes, I've heard Padd
There's nowt so queer as [railway] folk.
People in Luton will refer to the station as Parkway, but a high proportion of visitors refer to it as Luton, with a lot seeming surprised that there is another station, and a town, of that name.
Conversely, Worle station has always just been Worle. yet a lot of local people call it "Worle Parkway", which is merely the name of the adjacent business park!
Possibly to distinguish from the better known Tooting Bec and Tooting Broadway, which are actually in Tooting (Tooting Thameslink is actually just over the border in Mitcham)
Oxenholme's name was extended at around the same time. I assume it was a marketing thing to help guide tourists to the right station
Nearby Abbey Road (DLR) also gets a few lost tourists looking for a zebra crossing
I have heard Western Region staff refer to Bristol Parkway as just "Parkway", even on a train also calling at Didcot and Port Talbot. Of course, Bristol Parkway, the original Parkway, was the first built specifically as a P&R station. It was named after a road, but the suffix has come into common usage to mean a P&R station.
I think it will have been quite helpful for many railway staff as well.
This is why it is important to be careful with using shorthand names of stations - the unsuspecting can find themselves some distance from their intended destination.
My grandmother, who lived until 1987, always referred to Waterloo East as Waterloo Junction, a suffix it lost in 1935 (although it had ceased to be an actual junction 24 years earlier). She also called what is now "Standard" Class "Third Class", which was changed in 1956 to Second Class.
Shame it’s the wrong typeface though.
Yes, after nationalisation. Prior to that it was just Reading, but probably referred to as the Great Western station.
Was just that between 1924 and 1969. Another one that changed that May after having become the last remaining station in town.
I had the same thought, and looked up Edinburgh, no "Waverley" then indeed.
Yes I refer to East Midlands Parkway as just 'Parkway'.
Even going on holiday to Conwy we would refer to it as Junction. I would of thought Abergele would be more common than Pensarn.
And that name for the road, the M32, (correct me if I am wrong) was the winner of a competition organised by the Bristol Evening Post. I think the winner did not originate the word because motor roads named 'parkways' leading out of cities to leafy green (park-like) suburbs were a thing in the USA since (very) roughly the early 20th century. Nobody in Bristol actually uses the name, and the only use I know of now is the Parkway Methodist Church, built near the city end of the M32 in 1971, to replace two earlier churches demoilished to make way for the road.
Nobody in Bristol calls it Bristol Parkway?
Nobody in Bristol calls the M32 road by its 1971 'official' name ('The Parkway') after which the station was named as the person I was replying to mentioned. I sometimes perversely call it the 'Hambrook Spur' just to annoy petrolheads. I still think of the M50 as the Ross Spur.
Among staff and others who don't live there, "Abergele" is more common. But if you look at a map, you'll see why locals usually call it "Pensarn" as Abergele is on the other side of the A55
I thought you were referring to the station.
That dates from when there was also a station at Balloch Pier.
Birmingham Grand Central!
I sometimes hear "Pembrey" for Pembrey & Burry Port (the station is in Burry Port).
That reminds me of the story my mum used to tell, of when she arrived in the country in 1962 and then had to get the train from London up to Leeds. In those days you could leave from Kings Cross or St Pancras and arrive at Leeds City or Leeds Central. Of course, she arrived at one and the welcoming party was at the other...
Whereas Newtown to me is Newtown (Powys)!
The same situation as Pembrey & Burry Port but in a different area.
Ah, so Leeds City used to be one of the stations, which may explain why Leeds is still sometimes called Leeds City.
Balloch Central is the name used when the line continued to Balloch Pier.
To be honest it would be quite strange for people from and in Birmingham to call it Birmingham New Street and not just New Street.
