Why are some locations in capitals?

[Class15]

Hi all,

I was not totally sure on which forum this should be on, so if it is the wrong one feel free to move.

On Railcam, I’ve noticed that, when looking at train schedules, some locations are given in capitals rather than the more common lower case. Examples are Willesden Up & Down Goods, Richmond North London Line and Clapham Junction Platforms 0-2. I am genuinely confused by this, as there appears no obvious reason, and could anyone explain why this is the case?

On RTT, it simplifies the locations and this does not occur.

Thank you!

 

[trainmania100]

Don't think there's any significance it's just how the data for location names has been made. The NR-updated file is completely in capitals, it could be that railcam defaults to that if it doesn't have its own lower case representation available

 

[Gloster]

At least part of the reason is that it has long been the habit on the railway to begin some of the most important words in a message with capitals. Here Up and Down, Loop or Platform are of particular importance. It may well date back to the days when many railway employees had only limited literacy.

Here, North London Line and Clapham Junction are proper nouns because they are names and so should start with a capital letter. Unfortunately, people are increasingly failing to use capital letters, not just for proper nouns but also at the beginning of sentences. Hundreds of years of refining and improving the language to improve clarity are being jettisoned because people can’t be bothered.

 

[Deepgreen]

At least part of the reason is that it has long been the habit on the railway to begin some of the most important words in a message with capitals. Here Up and Down, Loop or Platform are of particular importance. It may well date back to the days when many railway employees had only limited literacy.

Here, North London Line and Clapham Junction are proper nouns because they are names and so should start with a capital letter. Unfortunately, people are increasingly failing to use capital letters, not just for proper nouns but also at the beginning of sentences. Hundreds of years of refining and improving the language to improve clarity are being jettisoned because people can’t be bothered.

Exactly! Laziness abounds, at least partly fostered by predictive text and keyboard over-speeding. An especially irritating trend today is to give simple plurals apostrophes - e.g. several train's, many station's, etc. I see so many official signs for shops, etc., with this - it's so unprofessional.

 

[trainmania100]

Exactly! Laziness abounds, at least partly fostered by predictive text and keyboard over-speeding. An especially irritating trend today is to give simple plurals apostrophes - e.g. several train's, many station's, etc. I see so many official signs for shops, etc., with this - it's so unprofessional.

From a web development perspective it's so simple to sanitise text so that it automatically upper cases the first letter and lowercases the rest, I'm sure it's an easy fix if someone contacted railcam about it.

To me, SOUTHEASE SIG TLW20 has no significance whatsoever to any schedule, but for seaford services it's the only one capitalised:

Train ID : 882C171D30

railcam.uk

 

[IrishDave]

From a web development perspective it's so simple to sanitise text so that it automatically upper cases the first letter and lowercases the rest, I'm sure it's an easy fix if someone contacted railcam about it.

That's what RTT seems to do automatically, but then you end up with "Southease Sig Tlw20", when really you'd want "Southease Sig TLW20" with the signal number entirely in capitals (as printed on the signal post!).

To me, SOUTHEASE SIG TLW20 has no significance whatsoever to any schedule, but for seaford services it's the only one capitalised:

Train ID : 882C171D30

railcam.uk

I suspect the reason will be that that's a new timing point - trains have only been timed there since the December 2023 timetable change (it went in at version 1 of the 2024 Timetable Planning Rules) - and no-one's got round to manually making it lower case yet.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

From a web development perspective it's so simple to sanitise text so that it automatically upper cases the first letter and lowercases the rest

Ashby de la Zouch and Chapel en le Frith would like a word.

(Been there, done that, wrote the code.)