please empty your brain below
Remember the tube map is showing services from the TfL perspective. It is showing its own services but is also showing where it makes sense to change to 'foreign' TfL services.
Heathrow isn't included because Heathrow Express isn't part of National Rail.
The only one that I think is wrong is Ealing Broadway. It is technically correct as there is one stop per day in each direction by a Paddington - Greenford service and (conceivably) someone could want to change from it to an underground service at Ealing Broadway (at 05.52!) and vice versa in the evening. A bit of common sense wouldn't go amiss here.
London Overground and the Elizabeth line are technically part of National Rail but lets not go there.
Elizabeth line maps and car line diagrams were never updated to reflect this change, quite possibly because many of them had already been installed before the timetable was finalised.
For example that would explain why Chorleywood doesn't have one (you could change at Chalfont or Rickmansworth instead) but Chalfont does (Chesham branch passengers can chabnge to/from Chiltern there). Rickmansworth probably should have acquired one when NR stopped serving Moor Park
Like Chorleywood, an NR symbol at Imperial Wharf, Deptford, Oakleigh Park, Loughborough Junction or Coulsdon South would be redundant as in each case there is no interchange except with services which call at the station either side
No-one is likely to want to change between Heathrow Express and Tube or Crossrail at Heathrow.
West Brompton, Shepherds Bush, Olympia have them because you can change to Southern services there from the Tube. You can't do that at Imperial Wharf.
Greenwich has a symbol as you can change from DLR to South Eastern there
Nunhead and Catford have services not shown on the map (eg to Lewisham, in the latter case from Catford Bridge)
Two anomalies:
Farringdon's symbol is probably a hangover from before Thameslink was shown on the map.
dg writes: added, thanks.
and I think Mitcham Junction should have a symbol, and not Mitcham Eastfields, because you can change between tram and Southern at the former
Seven Kings has one Greater Anglia service in the up direction in the early morning to enable train drivers to get to nearby Ilford depot but, sensibly, does not have a National Rail symbol.
-One potential reason for Rickmansworth and Chorleywood's lack of symbol could definitely be that they're not interchanges. A similar pattern: on the Hammer-circle-met stretch where (if my memory serves me correctly) only Baker Street and Liverpool Street are marked with interchanges to the other 2 lines.
-The Heathrow company rivals link makes sense.
-Perhaps because City Thameslink is just served by Thameslink, it doesn't need to tell you that you can change for National Rail as it's the only service available?
-When I was younger and hadn't ventured to many extremities and random parts of the network, I believed all double arrow-marked stations had large, impressive National Rail connections, so was rather peeved to find that most like West Ruislip, Seven Sisters, Chorleywood etc only receive a limited / infrequent service which is just enough to justify the symbol.
Thank you for this very interesting blog post, and one I can relate to!
So maybe no system but a sort of pragmatic logic
(I wonder if people in general understand what is meant by TfL and what is meant by National Rail. I'm not sure that I do.)
If so, I don't see why any station served by National Rail services only (eg Swanley and Slade Green?) should have a National Rail Interchange symbol as you're not interchanging between TfL and National Rail.
Regards
As mentioned earlier, Nunhead and Catford are both interchanges so are correct with symbols. Shortlands is correct with a symbol because the southeastern line via Beckenham Junction splits there. Bromley South should arguably also have one.
That all said, the existence of fast trains at Bromley South really feels like not having an NR symbol there is an oversight.
I am also convinced that Hayes & Harlington is also just a mistake - a hangover from daytime GWR trains. If H&H is present then logically West Drayton and some other stations (served by the same GWR night trains) should also be present.
Sadly, even the new Crossrail timetable from 2nd June 2024 persists with the symbol at Ealing Broadway and H&H on the diagram preceding the actual train times.
Can anyone explain New Barnet and New Southgate to me, and why they have symbols (and blobs) when the symbol at Finsbury Park ought to be sufficient?
When I worked there (between 2017 & 2022), it had the symbol removed from the Tube map when Thameslink was added.
I argued that the station was still a National Rail interchange and should therefore have its symbol restored on the map and it was eventually put back. Sorry dg!
Travelling northbound on a Thameslink, you could change at New Barnet for a Great Northern to Hadley Wood, skipped by the Thameslink.
How unexpectedly underlyingly subjective.
Things to ponder while in tunnels!
dg writes: no
Some of the omissions may be "tactical" from a TfL point of view, to avoid overcrowding by interchange passengers. Same as tactical walking route signposting in some tube stations
And that desire to discourage interchanges would presumably be reinforced in the TfL Journey planner (and maybe other planners like traveline, moveit, citymapper, google?)
Of course some people will know/discover for themselves.
Chorleywood, Heathrow T5, Imperial Wharf, Brockley, Honor Oak Park, Forest Hill, Oakleigh Park, Loughborough Junction, Hackbridge, Carshalton, Deptford, Maze Hill, Westcombe Park, Plumstead, Crofton Park, Bellingham, Beckenham Hill, Ravensbourne and St Mary Cray are not diverge points - the other services call at the exact same next station in both directions. They need no double arrows for the same reason that Bromley-by-Bow doesn't need to be marked as an interchange station between District and H&C.
Heathrow T4 and City Thameslink see no services save the routes drawn on the map. They don't need NR symbols for the same reason Bromley-by-Bow doesn't need an NR symbol.
Heathrow T2&3 is a diverge point due to T4 and HEx skipping stops en-route to Paddington, but HEx isn't NR, nor part of the fare system east of T2&3. It's not really that helpful to show double arrows there - but they show the invalid interchanges between Piccadilly and HEx/Liz so why not unhelpfully have double arrows?
Mitcham Junction isn't a diverge point on Thameslink, and Tramlink isn't a real valid interchange to rail services, so there's excuses!
Coulsdon South, Bromley South and Rickmansworth have NR services that diverge, but only due to different stopping patterns for services rather than a physical branching. There's an excuse, albeit a lame one.
Petts Wood and Swanley are diverge points and should definitely be marked as there are no excuses.
We also have to remember that Thameslink was forced onto the map by politicians and the map makers seem to have not bothered to spend a lot of effort implementing the dictat - seen in the general messiness of it on the map as well as the neglect of certain small details.
None of this is helped by the Schrödingeresque state of Thameslink on the Tube Map which seems to simultaneously be part of National Rail and not part of National Rail.
Thameslink trains from Horsham to Peterborough call at Coulsdon South and then the next stop is East Croydon (so Purley is omitted). These are the only Thameslink trains that call at Coulsdon South.
So, arguably, one needs a National Rail symbol because one needs to change train there if continuing to Purley, Purley Oaks or South Croydon on a Southern Train. However, this is all a bit theoretical as if travelling to Purley one either would not have caught this train in the first place or changed at a more suitable station (East Croydon or Redhill).
As I pointed out before this information is readily available on the NR maps and on board so it would serve no useful purpose on the TfL map. Maybe the rule the TfL guys apply is that a map should always serve a useful purpose.
Although I do rather like the idea of Cousldon South being a Schroedinger thought experiment.
In fact normally there are no direct trains at all from Coulsdon South to South Croydon.
And, when staffed, Coulsdon South when catching a train northbound is quite a nice station. Decent loos, decent waiting room, take away drinks and genuinely home-made cakes to take away available in the morning and a building with traditional character. It even has a ticket office that is often open.
(I'm joking, probably)
IMO, Kentish Town, Farringdon, Blackfriars and Elephant & Castle should not have NR symbols. Though if Blackfriars and Elephant & Castle retain NR symbols because of the Southeastern peak-hour services then Loughborough Junction, Crofton Park and Bellingham should get them.
Bromley South should definitely get a NR symbol as anecdotally, many people from the Catford Loop interchange there for Chatham and Orpington services (because while the map suggests Thameslink services to Orpington, they are only peak hour services).
No non-Thameslink services: Farringdon, Kentish Town
NR services only at ridiculously rare times: Hayes & Harlington, Ealing Broadway, Seven Sisters
And these are the three NR symbols I'd definitely add:
Mitcham Junction, Bromley South, Swanley
dg writes: it is currently crossed out.
The difference here was that the symbol was smaller and was next to information about the interchange distance to nearby Sudbury Hill Harrow station. I’m guessing it was eventually removed due to the dire service at this NR station.
Incidentally, the adjacent Sudbury Town station didn’t have a symbol although it has a similar connection to an equally dire interchange at the nearby Sudbury and Harrow Road station.
Thanks to all.
Still, it's been done poorly, and I've actually never noticed this - thanks for the post DG.
On another note, Mitcham Junction would be better than Mitcham Eastfields as it's an interchange, but as already mentioned, that would go against the first divergent point theory... the same thing with Shortlands/Bromley South - the latter is far more significant. Either way, it's a mess.
Late evenings and Sundays it's the terminus for the Meadway Towns trains via Woolwich plus it's served by the all night trains between Brighton and Bedford via Gatwick.
Out west TfL clearly had a strategy, with the double arrows referring not to where the parallel GWR trains also call but rather marking where the branch lines diverge (Marlow, Henley etc.). It’s also where (and why) the automated announcements say ‘change for NR’.
Out east I personally think it’s mainly because they threw thameslink on in a hurry and didn’t put much attention into it. You could always ask TfL, either directly or through a FOI request.
And the other answer is just to ditch the LT map and always use the rail+tube one instead!
Here’s the list of current NR TOCs.
Taffy, from that useful list the definition of National Rail operators appears to be those of scheduled passenger trains on Network Rail, except London Underground, Nexus and heritage operators.
However, unlike the others, only a small portion of the Thameslink route is shown. So an infrequent traveller in posession of a National Rail ticket to Brighton, for example, needs to know they can reach that destination by interchanging from a TfL service at Farringdon or Blackfriars. Wheras there are no TfL services at City Thameslink so there's no interchange there, and thus no symbol.
It's a stretch, but the same logic can be applied to Ealing Broadway. The National Rail service there happens to be the Elizabeth Line, but it's possible to go online and buy an NR ticket from Ealing Broadway to a far flung destination. So if you're arriving on the Central Line, you need to know it's a National Rail interchange to use your ticket, even though you'll be using it initially on the Elizabeth Line.
We could stretch even further for Hayes and Harlington; The Heathrow stations are not part of the National Rail network. So you could argue that an Elizabeth Line service from Heathrow to H&H is not a National Rail service, but you might want to change to another Elizabeth Line service at H&H to go West, and this one would qualify as an NR service. Tenuous? Of course, but the logic is there.
This distinction between Network Rail and National Rail is just a bit nerdy, but can be important - for instance, for overseas visitors like me Britrail Pass validity is defined by the latter, not the former (though I think Heathrow Express may be exception that in this case proves the rule).
Given that this discussion is about the double arrows symbol and where it can or should be displayed, I challenge you or anyone else to find it at any of the three Heathrow stations. You won't, because they aren't legally part of the network ("Network Rail" if you like, though that gets more complicated) but rather a private railway owned by Heathrow Airport. This is described in the Heathrow Express Railway act 1991.
It appears the crux of this discussion amounts to the question "What does National Rail even mean?" - is it, as Taffy's list indicates, a joint undertaking by TOCs to market rail services? It's an appealing idea, but legally this isn't how the railway is structured.
Is it rather a description of services covered by a national ticketing system (ie RSP) and associated conditions of carriage? This is a bit more like it, but it's still possible to buy tickets via that system to or from destinations on other systems with varying conditions. For example combination LU/TfL tickets. And Heathrow Express tickets. So maybe it's that but with a bit more nuance.
Apart from the lack of double arrows, there is also the fact that Heathrow Express has its own Conditions of Carriage.
But to return to my earlier tenuous comment about Hayes and Harlington, the real question to me is whether the double arrows could ever be a helpful indicator to a passenger. And I'm not sure it could, because a journey West from Heathrow would likely be entirely an Elizabeth Line journey, or involve a change at Paddington or possibly Slough, which is where the change to NR (conditions/ticketing) would occur.
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