Stations unsure of their name

[geoffk]

Cross Gates/Crossgates, at least back in the 90s.

Also Broad Green (station) and Broadgreen (hospital); New Hey and Newhey until Metrolink adopted the one-word version.

 

[YorksLad12]

Although the Midland reached Carlisle via Leeds, I don't think there were any "Midland" monikers north of Sheffield?
Places like Rotherham, Leeds, Bradford, Kirby Lonsdale and Appleby were given other names (local or "East/West").
I don't think any stations on the Bristol-Birmingham-Derby line had Midland in their names either.
Rugby was for a time Rugby Midland, though it wasn't a Midland Railway-owned station.

I think Sheffield was just called Midland to distinguish it from Victoria, they didn't seem to generically add the company or a 'brand' name to their stations. Leeds was Leeds until it moved and became Leeds Wellington (the original being Leeds Hunslet Lane) for example. Barnsley was Barnsley until it became Barnsley Low Town. I can't immediately spot any former "Midlands", anyway!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Also Broad Green (station) and Broadgreen (hospital); New Hey and Newhey until Metrolink adopted the one-word version.

Slightly off-topic, but the A640 road from Huddersfield to Rochdale is named New Hey Road from about 2km out of Huddersfield up to beyond Outlane near junction 23 of the M62. I assume this refers to the settlement served by Metrolink, despite its insignificance.

 

[adrock1976]

Darlington Bank Top

To differentiate from Darlington North Road.

And is it Kings Cross or King's Cross?

Darlington Bank Top/ Darlington

( i don't think it has been known, officially, as Bank Top since about the 1930's!)

On the occasions when I have been to Darlington, I have noticed that there is a plaque on the wall next to the entrance of the British Transport Police office, which states the address being Bank Top Station, Darlington, DL3 nxx.

 

[Purple Orange]

"Royal" Leamington Spa (main station for Warwick) is one of my favourites.

I think traditional, longer names are often good, for example for people who knew the place and return after many years away.

Who on earth would confuse Leamington Spa as another town just because ‘Royal’ was removed?

 

[bramling]

In Welsh, a well (spring) is Ffynnon (as in Ffynnongroyw or Pontyffynnon or Treffynnon).
So it's odd that the 3 "spa" stations on the Central Wales line don't use it in their name.

TfW serve Cheltenham Spa but don't use a Welsh name for the place (unlike Gloucester - Caerloyw).

I guess it could be a case that they started off with the names in isolation, then the railway came and made a point of using Wells (as done with places like Bath Spa), with the intention of attracting tourists especially English ones, the towns then increasingly adopted this, only for the railway to drop it in relatively recent years. This is only a hypothesis though.

The oddity is that only Llandrindod is really a resort - the other two are much less developed; which is why I find it surprising Llandrindod doesn’t have it on the station signs but the other two do!

 

[507020]

The station at Heysham isn’t sure if it’s Heysham Port or Heysham Harbour. I believe the current station should be Heysham Port and that Heysham Harbour was a previous one, but the name Heysham Harbour is still used in some places.

 

[D6975]

There’s a whole bundle of them in Ireland.

Dublin Connolly, Dublin Pearse and Dublin Heuston are always named as such but the rest are only occasionally used. The last one, Limerick Colbert is an odd one as back in my baby GM bashing days I often heard announcements at the Junction that the shuttle was bound for Limerick City.

Galway Ceannt
Cork Kent
Sligo Mac Diarmada
Dundalk Clarke
Drogheda MacBride
Waterford Plunkett
Tralee Casement
Limerick Colbert

 

[janb]

The station at Heysham isn’t sure if it’s Heysham Port or Heysham Harbour. I believe the current station should be Heysham Port and that Heysham Harbour was a previous one, but the name Heysham Harbour is still used in some places.

Yep was going to mention that. It's been Heysham Port since 1992, but I've seen it as Heysham Harbour on the CIS at Lancaster (at least when Virgin were in charge).

 

[Old Yard Dog]

When I last visited Nelson in 2015, it had name boards on its platforms variously proclaiming it to be "Nelson", "Nelson Interchange" and "Nelson Station".

 

[NorthOxonian]

Perhaps the newest station to have some confusion over its name is Horden. It may have been fixed by now but I recall some of the automated systems of Northern trains still listed it as "Horden (Peterlee)" or "Horden Peterlee".

It would probably be a more sensible name - Peterlee being much bigger, and a bit more well known, than Horden. However, there may be other considerations here. One of the station's main aims was to regenerate Horden, which is a particularly hard-up community, even by local standards. The County Council may have pushed for it to have sole billing in the name to emphasise this point.

 

[johnnychips]

Dore. Or Dore and Totley. It’s in Totley.

 

[FFB6C1]

I’ve often heard Haymarket station announced as “Edinburgh Haymarket” and it appears on the boards at Kings Cross as such (although abbreviated); although station signs, National Rail website, and the ticketing system has it as just plain Haymarket.

Conversely, the main station in Edinburgh is just called “Edinburgh” according to National Rail and on tickets, but signs at the station and manual announcements often call it “Edinburgh Waverley.”

In this case, I guess the distinction is rather important in that there is Edinburgh Waverley, Edinburgh Haymarket and then either Edinburgh Park or Edinburgh Gateway depending on the line you are on.

 

[Royston Vasey]

HUL

Officially Hull
Initially Hull Paragon Street
Then Hull Paragon
Officially Hull since the dawn of British Railways
Paragon Interchange since redevelopment (though officially still Hull)
Colloquially still "Paragon" or Paragon Station or Hull Station or the station

And technically the town isn't even called Hull... as the full postal address even on the National Rail website reveals:

Hull (HUL), Hull Paragon station, Ferensway, Kingston-Upon-Hull.

So I think we have an identity crisis winner

 

[urbophile]

Sheffield “midland” seems odd given that Sheffield is generally considered to be in the north of England.

It's definitely in the midlands if you ask a Geordie!

 

[py_megapixel]

I'm surprised this post managed several threads earlier about Southampton Central without talking about the other station named after Southampton.

Officially I believe it's Southampton Airport Parkway, but the displays on trains seem to call it Southampton Airport (Parkway). At Chandler's Ford (or is it Chandlers Ford? that's another discussion in and of itself) there is signage which refers to it simply as Parkway, and I believe in the past it's been called Southampton Parkway for Southampton Airport.

 

[Kingston Dan]

Southampton Central - to prevent confusion with Airport Parkway

That is perfectly sensible, but Network Rail continue to use Edinburgh, Edinburgh Park and Edinburgh Gateway. There seems to be little consistency.

 

[THC]

There’s a whole bundle of them in Ireland.

Dublin Connolly, Dublin Pearse and Dublin Heuston are always named as such but the rest are only occasionally used. The last one, Limerick Colbert is an odd one as back in my baby GM bashing days I often heard announcements at the Junction that the shuttle was bound for Limerick City.

Galway Ceannt
Cork Kent
Sligo Mac Diarmada
Dundalk Clarke
Drogheda MacBride
Waterford Plunkett
Tralee Casement
Limerick Colbert

Indeed - I visit Cork city often and taxi drivers still refer to Glanmire Road station, although Cork Kent is also used quite widely.

Kilkenny station was named for Thomas MacDonagh in 1966. While his name may not be used often in that context, it has been picked up by the neighbouring shopping mall, which is called MacDonagh Junction.

THC

 

[24Grange]

I'm assuming a lot of stations changed names, when other stations in the towns and cities closed ( I'm looking at you Dr B.)

Plymouth North Road, became just Plymouth when the SR Station closed. Tavistock North & Tavistock South - both closed now, but did Tavistock North revert to just Tavistock after South closed - or didn't they bother ? Five years between. Sidmouth Junction seems to have had a personality disorder changing names several times from variations of Sidmouth Junction to Feniton.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Canterbury East and Canterbury West were both originally called Canterbury, and would be better described as South and North...as East is only about 100m east of West and West is about 1000m north of East!

 

[24Grange]

Yes , I always thought that was funny - used West a lot 18 months ago, and East for diversions 9 East was nearer work

 

[Taunton]

Edinburgh Waverley has to be the ultimate. Even rail signage refers to it universally as Waverley. It is something that you get with unique station names. Temple Meads is a similar though not quite so pronounced case in Bristol. They both spill over to the name of the surrounding district. You need to get to over about 100 miles away before it's Bristol T M or Edinburgh Waverley, in fact anywhere in Scotland for the latter. This same applied in Bristol before Parkway was even built.

 

[southern442]

As a part-time Southampton resident, Southampton Central is usually referred to as 'central station' or just 'the station', and Southampton Airport (Parkway) is referred to as 'Parkway station', or 'Airport Parkway'.

Bristol is an odd one as they only have the one main station, but everyone from there I've met insists on calling it 'Temple Meads' rather than 'the station' or what have you.

Adding to a previous conversation, growing up I always thought 'St Albans City' was an old name for the station, as all the signage, maps and announcements all just said 'St Albans'. Then a new automated announcer installation at East Croydon (Amey's 'Only Woman' for those interested) started saying 'St. Albans City' again, it started appearing on maps like that, now the newer Atos announcements say St. Albans City, it's now back on maps and now the on-train information in the 700's also refer to it this way. So in my eyes it has made somewhat of a comeback.

 

[FQ]

"Royal" Leamington Spa (main station for Warwick) is one of my favourites.

I think traditional, longer names are often good, for example for people who knew the place and return after many years away.

Pretty much no one refers to the town or station as Royal Leamington Spa, for the station all rail signage and announcements are "Leamington Spa" and locals generally just shorten it to Leamington station

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Canterbury East and Canterbury West were both originally called Canterbury, and would be better described as South and North...as East is only about 100m east of West and West is about 1000m north of East!

As discussed elsewhere, there was a Canterbury South on the former Elham Valley line

 

[fat_boy_pete]

The junction name on the roundabout signs outside the station is "North Station" but the exit for the station is signed as "Colchester Station"

It's actually North Station roundabout at the end of North Station Road. Weirdly, I can find no evidence of the station ever being officially called anything in it's 175 year history except Colchester. Even more weirdly until 1991 ( when st. Boltophs was renamed Colchester Town), it was the only one of 3 stations in the town with Colchester in it's title, the third being called simply Hythe. But the NLS map from 1888, shows that the road from the town was called North Station Road then.

So why North station? Presumably it just arose from local usage when the other 2 stations opened in the 1860's.

 

[southern442]

Another one is the two London Road's. The Brighton one is announced on trains at London Road (Brighton), yet all the station signs simply just show London Road, and the Guildford one is announced (on SWR at least) as just London Road, but all the station signs show it as London Road (Guildford)!

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Edinburgh Waverley has to be the ultimate. Even rail signage refers to it universally as Waverley. It is something that you get with unique station names. Temple Meads is a similar though not quite so pronounced case in Bristol. They both spill over to the name of the surrounding district. You need to get to over about 100 miles away before it's Bristol T M or Edinburgh Waverley, in fact anywhere in Scotland for the latter. This same applied in Bristol before Parkway was even built.

Other way round in Bristol. The station was built in the fields (meadows, meads) in Temple parish.

 

[Mojo]

Bristol is an odd one as they only have the one main station, but everyone from there I've met insists on calling it 'Temple Meads' rather than 'the station' or what have you.

Probably because there are multiple railway stations in the urban area, and Parkway station is quite well used by those in the city, even those fairly close (geographically) to Temple Meads due to the ease of access, and in the instance of trains to London, quicker service.

As an aside when I lived in Bristol someone did once get on a bus I was on & someone clearly not local asked the driver if they went “to the station,” and the driver replied with words to the effect of “which one, I go past 4?”

 

[D6975]

There are no fewer than 19 stations in the Bristol area with more to come, though technically some are in S Glos. If I were to say I was going down the station for a while, it would be because I was going down to Lawrence Hill (been my local station for many years despite several home moves). Hence I would always say that I was going down TM if I was off to Temple Meads.