please empty your brain below
I think it is generally consistent.

LU managed (which includes the Thameslink part of Farringdon) means LU rules. Crossrail managed means Crossrail rules.

Except that Abbey Wood is Crossrail (TfL Rail) managed but doesn't feel as if it is a Crossrail station. So either a special case or a bit of a blunder.

Pedantic of Purley | 04.09.21 - 7:22 a.m. | #

Abbey Wood may be because the national railway network trumps Crossrail at shared entrances in the same way that the underground does elsewhere. The capitalised blue looks like the normal national railway entrance style.

DavidC | 04.09.21 - 7:23 a.m. | #

Ealing Broadway is a National Rail station. The previous signage was not all caps.

HoosierSands | Homepage | 04.09.21 - 7:48 a.m. | #

I’ve never thought about the different and contradictory meanings of the word ‘capitalised’ before today, and now I don’t know what to think.

Super Trouper | 04.09.21 - 7:51 a.m. | #

It does appear inconsistent when compared to other "national signage" formats - e.g. road signs appear to be consistent as does airport signage (the latter pretty much worldwide from what I've seen)

Typographers do suggest that upper and lowercase is easier to read than just uppercase.

At least the signage all uses the same classic font!

Rob Gullen | 04.09.21 - 8:25 a.m. | #

I'm surprised they're not following the Underground's style guide given that TfL are pretending that Crossrail is an Underground line. I prefer the Title Case capitalisations personally, find them easier on the eye and thus probably easier to read.

Also, what's the status on Overground stations?

RG | 04.09.21 - 8:45 a.m. | #

Thanks for the update on Crossrail DG.

Do you know if the black and white thing at Abbey Wood beside the double arrows logo is meant to represent Crossrail, or just a wacky light fitting or something else?

dg writes: It's a wrapped purple roundel.

Miff | 04.09.21 - 9:11 a.m. | #

Signs outside Overground stations are generally orange, unless they're also Underground stations (e.g. Seven Sisters and Harlesden) in which case they're normally blue, but not always (e.g. Willesden Junction).

diamond geezer | Homepage | 04.09.21 - 9:13 a.m. | #

Signage at stations run by Crossrail/Elizabeth Line/TfL Rail is to NR standards, using Title Case. Whatever TfL would like to pretend, Crossrail (like the Overground) is part of the National Rail network - its trains run on national rail tracks out to Shenfield and Reading, and are built to NR standards and classified according to NR's system (Class 345, not e.g E or X stock).
There are places, such as Amersham, Gunnersbury, East Putney and Queens Park, where LU trains run on NR tracks or vice versa, but these all rely on "grandfather rights" going back at least 100 years - and incidents have occurred due to interface issues, most recently the near miss at Chalfont. All new lines have to be one thing or t'other.

Abbey Wood, although managed by TfL,is currently only served by South eastern Rail. The signs at the entrance seem to be in their house style.

timbo | 04.09.21 - 9:51 a.m. | #

It took me a little while to realise that 'capitalised' means 'the first letter is a capital letter.' I thought it meant that the whole word is written in capital letters.

dg writes: here's a definition.

David Cook | 04.09.21 - 10:12 a.m. | #

Abbey Wood, unlike most of the other stations, is still on the list of stations still to be fully done. Despite being TfL managed for nearly 4 years, it still needs 'final integration'. Presumably signs will go purple then (and the roundel uncovered)?

The East London stations that became TfL Rail stations in 2015 started off with blue-and-white signs, which became purple sometime late 2019/early 2020. A lot of the station works were finished in that window, which suggests that purple = completed station.

Obviously Canary Wharf didn't have a prior state, so that's why it's already purple even though its not done.

Si | 04.09.21 - 10:57 a.m. | #

Re 9:11: Ah of course, thanks

Miff | 04.09.21 - 11:08 a.m. | #

Willesden Junction is an LO managed station, Harlesden an LU managed station, hence the different signage.

Same thing with Ealing Broadway vs Whitechapel. Ealing is TfL Rail managed, Whitechapel LU managed.

What that doesn't explain is the purple signs at the Liz-only entrances to Farringdon (which is LU managed, even the Thameslink bit, hence the LU-style entrances) or TCR. It's a nice touch though.

Si | 04.09.21 - 11:21 a.m. | #

"Published rules exist for signs outside Underground stations...
• Generally only the station name appears and is suffixed by the word ‘STATION’."

Excited to see if Battersea Power Station station follows these rules.

dg writes: It does not.

TheLupineOne | 04.09.21 - 1:15 p.m. | #

My dictionary (Chambers) defines "capitalise" as "to print or write with capital letters". Nothing about the first letters of words, nor of any variation in meaning when applied to station signs or even to titles.

Ian | 04.09.21 - 3:11 p.m. | #

I wonder whether all this gets thrown in the bin in a couple of years when Network Rail turns into 'Great British Railways' and reverts to national branding of black-on-white Rail Alphabet 2 (unless the TfL concessions have an opt-out from that).

Nick L | 04.09.21 - 3:37 p.m. | #

Notwithstanding DG's use of the word "Capitalisation" and the learned Wikipedia article that he cites, I would like to point out that in the UK printing trade in the 1970s, when I learned to mark up copy for typesetting, we would use the designation "U/lc" for text where one wanted the initial letter and proper names to be the only thing capitalised. This stood for UPPER and lower case. Best practice was to mark any letter you wanted "capped up" with three underlines.
If one used the word capitalisation at all while "speccing" [specifying] text, it would be presumed that the word would be set all in caps.

Charles | Homepage | 04.09.21 - 9:02 p.m. | #

This potential ambiguity is why I exemplified my use of terminology in the title...

WHY ARE SOME CROSSRAIL STATION NAMES IN CAPITAL LETTERS And Some Only Capitalised?

It doesn't help move us forward on the format of Crossrail signage, though.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 04.09.21 - 9:16 p.m. | #

Sigh!!

scrumpy | 04.09.21 - 9:23 p.m. | #

Cross? I was ʟɪᴠɪᴅ.

Rich G | Homepage | 04.09.21 - 11:02 p.m. | #

And why do exterior Crossrail roundels at Paddington show the station name, whilst others read TfL * Rail and will presumably be changed to Elizabeth Line later.

Kim | 04.09.21 - 11:49 p.m. | #

Kim: because TfL Rail already exists at Paddington but in a different part of the station.

TfL seem to be sticking to their policy of not making the E word visible until the thing's actually open (which presumably explains the bagged over roundel outside Farringdon). I imagine the Paddington roundels will get their wording changed upon opening.

Gregg | 05.09.21 - 1:20 a.m. | #

The 'E word' is screamingly visible on roundels outside Custom House station, and has been for a couple of years.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 05.09.21 - 8:18 a.m. | #

A couple more data points on the other end of the Shenfield branch - Brentwood is purple and capitalised, and Shenfield (as a Greater Anglia-managed station) has a black-on-white sign at the entrance.

Interestingly at platform level many (probably all?) of the stations managed by TfL Rail on the Shenfield branch have blue all-caps signs on the "main line" platforms (and purple roundels on the TfL Rail platforms).

Daniel | 05.09.21 - 10:27 p.m. | #

...and having just been to Romford, the main entrance (unexpectedly) has a capitalised name on a blue background.

Daniel | 11.09.21 - 5:20 p.m. | #











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