Strange Destinations

[Rhondda Rudie]

Back in the Wales & West days we used to work a train that left Treherbert at 0900 and terminated at Gunnislake.We all used to carry a list of stations served for PA annoucements.Never really worked out how to say St Budeaux.That's the trouble with the English,they haven't got easy to pronounce place names like we Welsh.

The train's destination was later changed to Par and then (I think) Paignton.Anyone else got any examples of such bizarre services?

 

[O L Leigh]

Never really worked out how to say St Budeaux.That's the trouble with the English,they haven't got easy to pronounce place names like we Welsh.

Pfft!! Just because England was never afflicted by the Great Vowel Shortage of 1362 it doesn't make our place names hard to pronounce.

Saint Budd-oh.

Not a local. How close did I get?

Now, precisely how much phlegm to I have to reserve at the back of my throat to correctly say Llanerchymedd...?

O L Leigh

 

[Rhondda Rudie]

Pfft!! Just because England was never afflicted by the Great Vowel Shortage of 1362 it doesn't make our place names hard to pronounce.

Saint Budd-oh.

Not a local. How close did I get?

Now, precisely how much phlegm to I have to reserve at the back of my throat to correctly say Llanerchymedd...?

O L Leigh

St Budd-oh is what I used to say,don't know if it's right though.

You should try playing Welsh scrabble.It's the same as the English version but you get a black rubbish bag full of extra letter Ls.

 

[First class]

Charters are often pretty wierd,

Google shows a Hooton to Kingswear service ran last year!!

 

[sonic2009]

I wonder if anyone would run a service from :

Bowling to Bat & Ball.

 

[Rhondda Rudie]

I wonder if anyone would run a service from :

Bolwing to Bat & Ball.

 

[reb0118]

If far off times before "boxes" for rail staff my driver colleague when requesting one of his free journeys from the admin bods used to specify that particular journey

I wonder if anyone would run a service from :

Bowling to Bat & Ball.

Wrong quote above

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Another one was St Erth to Wick or a "Continental Port" - pretty well coovered the whole of the UK on a staff ticket

 

[button_boxer]

A friend told me a story once about a time in Edinburgh when he was trying to buy a ticket to a certain town in mid Wales. Don't remember the details but it ended up with "look, I'm from Cambridgeshire and if I can learn to pronounce Kirkcudbright then you can learn to pronounce Machynlleth!"

 

[Schnellzug]

The name St Budeaux comes from Saint Budoc, the Bishop of Dol (Brittany). Around 480, Budoc is said to have founded a settlement and built a small church. The church eventually gave way to a permanent stone one, dedicated to Saint Budoc, which was erected shortly before the Norman conquest of England.

The village is documented in William the Conqueror's Domesday Book of 1086. Known as Bucheside, it was valued at 30 shillings (around six times the amount of neighbouring manors). Over the course of the next few hundred years, Bucheside became Bodekishide, Budeokshed, and even Bottockishide. The modern name, St Budeaux, is itself a Frenchified "elegant" form.

So the correct pronunciation is actually Bucheside, or perhaps Bottockishide. Try it some time.

 

[dvboy]

I did post this in the unusual announcements thread but I have heard on on occasion a station announcement at Wolverhampton for an ATW Aberystwyth/Pwllheli service that split at Dovey Jn, one half calling at "all unpronounceable stations to Pwllheli". The Aber half isn't so difficult.

 

[O L Leigh]

"all unpronounceable stations to Pwllheli".

Bless you.

*Proffers box of tissues*

O L Leigh

 

[fairysdad]

I did post this in the unusual announcements thread but I have heard on on occasion a station announcement at Wolverhampton for an ATW Aberystwyth/Pwllheli service that split at Dovey Jn, one half calling at "all unpronounceable stations to Pwllheli". The Aber half isn't so difficult.

... "So if I can pronounce the station name, this train won't stop there"

 

[table38]

You should try playing Welsh scrabble.It's the same as the English version but you get a black rubbish bag full of extra letter Ls.

Huw: I'll have a consonant please Carol
Carol: L
Huw: Another consonant please
Carol: L
Huw: And another consonant
Carol: L
Huw: Consonant
Carol: Y
Huw: Three more consonants
Carol: L, L, and G
Huw: Another consonant
Carol: L
Huw: Consonant
Carol: And finally, L

Richard Whitely: You have thirty seconds starting from… now!

:

Richard Whitely: Huw?

Huw: Nine.

 

[Cliveblackpool]

Wales & West. From Cornwall it was a cheap route to Manchester - if you didn't mind a scenic tour of Wales!

St Budeaux - A lot of people pronounced it Saint Boo-dough. But I am not a Plymothian!!

 

[DarloRich]

i thought it was St bue doh (i will ask my Western collegues!) (bue as in Bueller)

 

[dvboy]

... "So if I can pronounce the station name, this train won't stop there"

The announcement from hell surely for anyone who isn't Welsh:

"...the rear half of the train will call at: Penhelig, Aberdovey, Tywyn, Tonfanau, Llwyngwril, Fairbourne, Morfa Mawddach, Barmouth, Llanaber, Talybont, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Llanbedr, Pensarn, Llandanwg, Harlech, Tygwyn, Talsarnau, Llandecwyn, Penrhyndeudraeth, Minffordd, Porthmadog, Criccieth, Penychain, Abererch and Pwllheli."

By the time you've finished the train's probably gone!

 

[Michael.Y]

The announcement from hell surely for anyone who isn't Welsh:

"...the rear half of the train will call at: Penhelig, Aberdovey, Tywyn, Tonfanau, Llwyngwril, Fairbourne, Morfa Mawddach, Barmouth, Llanaber, Talybont, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Llanbedr, Pensarn, Llandanwg, Harlech, Tygwyn, Talsarnau, Llandecwyn, Penrhyndeudraeth, Minffordd, Porthmadog, Criccieth, Penychain, Abererch and Pwllheli."

By the time you've finished the train's probably gone!

The Heart of Wales Line is all Llan...s, including two which sound the same (Llanwyrda and Llanwrytd) and the English-speaking automatic woman at Shrewsbury pronounces each deliberately and carefully, making it last a good two minutes. At the other end, at Swansea, the Welsh-speaking automatic man rattles through it like he's listing his shopping.

Of course, the funniest thing is in the middle of this long list, she suddenly spurts out enthusiastically "Sugar Loaf!!"

 

[DownSouth]

You should try playing Welsh scrabble.It's the same as the English version but you get a black rubbish bag full of extra letter Ls.

And the vowels are all worth 10 points.

The announcement from hell surely for anyone who isn't Welsh:

"...the rear half of the train will call at: Penhelig, Aberdovey, Tywyn, Tonfanau, Llwyngwril, Fairbourne, Morfa Mawddach, Barmouth, Llanaber, Talybont, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Llanbedr, Pensarn, Llandanwg, Harlech, Tygwyn, Talsarnau, Llandecwyn, Penrhyndeudraeth, Minffordd, Porthmadog, Criccieth, Penychain, Abererch and Pwllheli."

By the time you've finished the train's probably gone!

Anybody having to make that announcement 'live' over the PA system deserves to have everybody wait until the finish and applaud them!

I wonder if anyone would run a service from :

Bowling to Bat & Ball.

Judging by their performance in Dubai last week, that could as be confusing for the English as the Pwllheli line.

 

[Rhondda Rudie]

Thanks for the replies.

Slightly off topic,but relating to Welsh station names.

I remember bringing a City Line train into platform 7 at Cardiff Central.These trains are fairly lightly used.I had a slip from the train repair book to hand out and spotted a member of platform staff called Barry Thomas.I shouted "Barry" and about 100 people got on thinking the train was going to Barry Island.

 

[12CSVT]

Wales & West had a few bizarre ones during the late 1990s

Some examples were
Waterloo to Maesteg
Waterloo to Manchester Piccadilly
Penzance to Manchester Piccadilly (via Severn Tunnel Jct and Cwmbran)
Waterloo to some of the unpronouncable Welsh stations already mentioned in this thread (bizarrely some of these services used to be compulsory reservations despite serving numerous request stops west of Swansea. Not sure how you were supposed to obtain an advance purchase ticket from an unstaffed request stop)

 

[TEW]

i thought it was St bue doh (i will ask my Western collegues!) (bue as in Bueller)

That's the correct way, bue as in view with a b.

 

[WestCoast]

i thought it was St bue doh (i will ask my Western collegues!) (bue as in Bueller)

I suspected it had a French connection, so 'budd-oh' didn't seem correct at all - definitely 'bue-doh'!

 

[Michael.Y]

Wales & West had a few bizarre ones during the late 1990s

Some examples were
Waterloo to Maesteg

A lot of ferry passengers getting on the 12:38 off Holyhead are confused by it being the service to Maesteg, as they are not sure which part of Wales Maesteg is in.

 

[Rhondda Rudie]

We used to work a Merthyr-Fishguard Harbour.It used to go round the City Line into platform and then go via the Swansea District Line,first stop Llanelli.It made the South Wales Echo when a couple of old ladies got on at Waungron Park to go to Cardiff Queen Street and ended up in Llanelli.

 

[button_boxer]

That's the correct way, bue as in view with a b.

So still slightly anglicised then - French pronunciation would be more like boo than bew (strictly speaking it's with the tongue further forward, position your lips as if you were making an oo sound and then try to say ee).

 

[plymothian]

Saint Budeaux

So [Bude] as in the place Bude [aux] pronounced 'oh'

or even [bu] to rhyme with view [deaux] pronounced 'doh'

 

[SprinterMan]

Wales & West had a few bizarre ones during the late 1990s

Some examples were
Waterloo to Maesteg
Waterloo to Manchester Piccadilly
Penzance to Manchester Piccadilly (via Severn Tunnel Jct and Cwmbran)
Waterloo to some of the unpronouncable Welsh stations already mentioned in this thread (bizarrely some of these services used to be compulsory reservations despite serving numerous request stops west of Swansea. Not sure how you were supposed to obtain an advance purchase ticket from an unstaffed request stop)

It was only compulsory seat reservations between Waterloo & Bath, it was a normal local service elsewhere. Wales & west had numerous amazing service patterns back in the day. Their Cardiff-Holyhead train ran via Llandudno (calling at Llandudno junction twice).

 

[mralexn]

St Budd-oh is what I used to say,don't know if it's right though.

You should try playing Welsh scrabble.It's the same as the English version but you get a black rubbish bag full of extra letter Ls.

Its St Byew Doe :P

 

[Mark_re]

There were a few odd services in RRNE days. Newcastle - Yarm, I recall, which called at Thornaby twice. Also when it was ATN and they had long-term industrial action trains were terminating short everywhere; including Newcastle - Redcar Central.