Naming express trains for both marketing and navigation

[eldomtom2]

I made this post in another thread, but I feel it deserves its own thread. I feel the UK should imitate Japan and name all express trains, adding numbers where there are multiple trains with the same service pattern. For example, the London-Edinburgh LNER services that only stop at York/Darlington/Newcastle/Berwick could all be branded as "Flying Scotsman"; 1E01 would become Flying Scotsman #1, 1S05 would become Flying Scotsman #2, 1E05 would become Flying Scotsman #3, and so on. I think this would both help marketing and navigation.

 

[Iskra]

I'm all for named trains, but having multiple named trains would then devalue that name and make them less special, defeating the point of naming them in the first place. And some aren't particularly informative- The Golden Hind or Master Cutler may mean nothing to someone from outside the Anglosphere. I don't see how the 1000 from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh is difficult to follow, all the important information is contained in that title.

 

[bluenoxid]

Completely agree if we use Japanese-style approaches

Inverness - Faraway
Weymouth - Dinostar

 

[eldomtom2]

I'm all for named trains, but having multiple named trains would then devalue that name and make them less special, defeating the point of naming them in the first place.

I don't think the general public sees a name as being devalued because multiple services use it. And at the moment names have no value because they're only rarely used, because being used for a single service and not other identical services that run at different times isn't helpful.

And some aren't particularly informative- The Golden Hind or Master Cutler may mean nothing to someone from outside the Anglosphere.

The informative part is that they're named, not what the name is. The Elizabeth line means nothing on its own, but as a designation for a group of services it's useful.

I don't see how the 1000 from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh is difficult to follow, all the important information is contained in that title.

- so one can, for instance, say "take the Flying Scotsman from London to Edinburgh", which gives more precision than "take an LNER train from London to Edinburgh" but doesn't require a specific time to be specified.

 

[vuzzeho]

- so one can, for instance, say "take the Flying Scotsman from London to Edinburgh", which gives more precision than "take an LNER train from London to Edinburgh" but doesn't require a specific time to be specified.

Does that give more precision? That gives you the name of the service and the origin and destination. The current option gives you the operator and the origin and your destination. Additionally, the current option also doesn't just lean on one specific KGX-EDB service, but allows space for someone to take any train that goes to/through Edinburgh. I think naming services could be good for marketing, but introduces unnecessary clutter onto services in an operational position.

 

[Uncle Buck]

I understand the romance of train names, but aren’t numbers better? So if 1 is King’s Cross to Waverley then 1A runs on to Aberdeen and X1 calls only at York and Newcastle.

Also, while some names like “Flying Scotsman” or “the Golden Hind” have panache, I dread to think of what dismal names will be thought up in these stultifyingly conformist and in-creative times!