please empty your brain below
'Watford Vicarage Road' is a ridiculous name, because it's quite obvious the people who use the station are only ever going to call it just 'Vicarage Road'. The mind boggles.
"Shepherd's Bush Market" is still also one of my least favourite tube station names, i insist they still should have called it "Uxbridge Road", instead.
I wasn’t aware that tfl has a rule against using street names for stations. Interesting to note that DLR breaks the rules. On the original DLR network there are Devons Road and Pudding Mill Lane. On the southern extension - Elverson Road. On the Stratford International extension - Star Lane and Abbey Road.
Looks like even though DLR is under tfl control they never got the memo.
[Edit - I see you’ve just added similar note yourself]
And in the case of Cassiobridge it is understood well enough locally to be acceptable and then eventually the name will become more prominent and the area better known as that further afield as a result of the underground station.
• Watford Vicarage Road (6)
• Heathrow Terminal 4 (6)
• Heathrow Terminal 5 (6)
• Chalfont & Latimer (6)
• Totteridge & Whetstone (6)
• Highbury & Islington (7)
• Kensington (Olympia) (7)
• Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 (8)
Personally, I think if Arsenal station can be named after the football club, then so can Watford. Watford wouldn't be a bad name, and we're closing the existing one in a worse location.
dg writes: Oops, yes, amended, ta.
Before someone else says it ...
Walthamstow Central/Hoe St had to have the same name as the BR (now national rail) station above. It was Hoe St. and certainly early Victoria line plans refer to it as such.
Notably the original Victoria line trains could not manage to display the full name of the terminus on the front of the train (they just said "Walthamstow") and I wonder if they got caught out by the change of name. In similar but not same way that DLR trains to Woolwich Arsenal can't display "Woolwich Arsenal".
Conversely, would anyone not local to the area know where Gloucester Road, Down Street or Gillespie Road are, if they didn't have tube stations named after them?
There are a few exceptions, where a short the street is particularly famous for another reason - e.g Chancery Lane, and notably Liverpool Street - a fairly insignificant thoroughfare, until the Great Eastern Railway built its terminus there. Vicarage Road arguably falls into that category.
It did work when each line was a unique entity, and could name stations for the streets which crossed it - so Tottenham Court Road made sense for the Central London Railway, but the nearby station on the Hampstead line was called Oxford Street. Similarly, Holborn made sense for the Picc, but not the Central
Does anyone know if this new naming policy is written down anywhere or if TFL are making this up as they go along? And is it this the final decision or if enough people complain can the name still be changed?
the idea that a new Underground station has to have the same name as any pre-existing National Rail station isn't always followed; I've never worked out why Southwark station wasn't called Waterloo East.
The simple answer is that Waterloo East and Southwark stations are at different locations but happen to have a connecting route.
The Southwark/Waterloo East issue is a bit strange but is not directly comparable to the conventional co-siting of NR and LU.
There is the Southwark entrance for the Jubilee line, the entrance from Waterloo main station or climbing an incredible number of stairs from the Union Jack Club entrance for Waterloo East and the interchange between the two.
Technically you could enter Southwark tube station from the Waterloo East entrances but would be mad to do so (especially by the stairs) as it would be easier to use Waterloo tube station on the Jubilee Line.
You could also use Southwark station entrance to get to Waterloo East but I suspect the reality is few people do.
It is a curiosity though but personally I think the current naming is the least confusing there can be. It probably happened because the joining passage really was an afterthought.
Unless you have a travelcard, you'll be charged a PAYG Zone 1 fare if you do.
When I did have a Travelcard, I used that route occasionally to get from Blackfriars Road to Waterloo (Main) - it has two advantages over the street level route:
1. it's out of the rain
2. Unlike Waterloo Main, Waterloo East has free toilets!
The business about road names as station names is bunkum if you consider that the majority of them are in zone 1, and that Watford isn't part of London. Rayner's Lane is about the closest I can think of that's a road name that far out. But I'd certainly prefer Watford as the first word in the station name so Watford stations all fall together in an alphabetical list.
So fondly remembered also are Leggatt's Campus, William Street, Water Lane, Ridge Street and Callowland.
I've sometimes wondered if any foreign tourists have caught the DLR to Abbey Road to visit the Beatles zebra crossing!
They certainly have, and there is (used to be?) a poster at the station directing tourists back to St John's Wood station. The poster was full of Beatles song titles as well; rather cleverly written, or rather contrived (depending on your taste).
http://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/309968_10151253163377405_1754720259_n.jpg
I hear other Beatles fans are wandering round "Liverpool" (Street) looking for Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, whilst those looking for popular culture from an older age are expecting Shakespeare's birthplace to be near the Olympic Park.
But we shouldn't laugh - British tourists have been known to think "Venezia" is Vienna, or confuse Washington DC with Washington State, or get a plane from Italy to "Monaco" and end up in the capital of Bavaria.
Not a completely idiotic mistake for a tourist to make, I once gave directions to a confused motorist who found himself driving towards Kennington when he actually wanted Kensington!
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