What's in a name?

Strange Underground Station Names


I've just been sent an email from Robert Hulse the fab curator of the Brunel Engine House Museum and leader of the innuendo ridden Thames Tunnel Tour, who's in Tokyo and pondering on an unusual station name:

"I don't know if you have a column about signs & directions in foreign Tube stations but here is a troubling one. Whilst sorting out my 'bullet train' booking I noticed the following marked on the station map:

'Old Man's Place for Pleasure'

Of course Japan is right at the cutting edge of rail travel & customer service, but can we one day look forward to this sort of facility on LU? Or is this just an unfortunate phrasing of something quite innocent like 'Day Centre for the Elderly'..."

I asked a regular visitor & commenter who knows about these sorts of things and he says it could be a literal translation of a station name. "Kudanshita Station (pictured above) translates as 'nine steps under the station'. But that's only if you read the characters together. If you read them separately you may be able to intepret the meaning as 'swan, staircase, beneath the moon, lodge'."

Obviously if we referred to our station names by their original meanings, it would mean station announcers would have to do more than the advanced mumbling we hear at the moment. Change here for the "Saxon chieftan's clearing in the forest" sounds more exotic than Wembley Park (or rather Wemba Lea Park - its orginal name). Cyril Harris's little gem "What's in a name" would be required reading and we might find that some of our station names bring up a more evocative picture of the area.

Not on the London Underground

More roundels not in their natural home

Thanks to Toby and Malika for sending through some more pictures to add to the collection of places where the Tube roundel has been errr, influential, to the design of some other signs around the world (perhaps that will keep the Tube's lawyers at bay)

Toby B took the following at a bar in Victoria, Vancouver Island




Malika was in Mumbai when she spotted this:


She said: "It's actually the carshed for one of the Mumbai suburban railway lines, which all use a similar roundel for station names on the platforms, as do most of Indian Railways. No idea what spelling conventions are, though!"

Thanks for those and please email me if you see any more on your travels so I can add to the collection.

Misery Line

Next stop Misery

Brilliantly caught photo taken by Mr B, of some very apt graffiti on the Northern Line


Let's hope our artistic passenger didn't slash anything else afterwards.

Fashion Victim on the Tube

Fashion Victim or Halloween Outfit?

It's the end of Halloween week, so we'd have expected to see some strange outfits on the tube. The lady below was kindly snapped by Sel Lawson "While I was waiting for my Northern Line train back home, I noticed this girl walk onto the platform, and within a second I had whipped my mobile out and had snapped away (discreetly of course...)"

But is this a Halloween outfit or not?


No prizes for guessing but just the satisfaction of knowing you're right.

The previous victims can be found here and the complete picture gallery can be seen on the following Flickr set.

Transport night at the Tate

Free Talks & trips at Tate Britain

Two FREE transport related events which sound quite interesting tonight:

Subterranean London at 7pm - 8pm

Known by its logo, defined by lines on a map, the London Underground was such an audacious creation that no other city tried to copy it for forty years. Leading transport critic and author of Subterranean Railway: A Social History of the Tube (2004), Christian Wolmar talks through the history of this feat of imagination and construction.

And if you're still missing the Routemaster double decker bus, Joe Kerr who's a Professor at the Royal College of Art and also qualified Routemaster bus driver, will be presenting "a unique insight into the working life and history of the Routemaster, the most iconic symbol of London worldwide."

There are two bus tours of London's bridges -

18.45 Board bus
19.00 Tour departs
19.45 Return to Tate Britain

20.00 Board bus
20.15 Tour departs
21.00 Return to Tate Britain

Tickets for events are available from the Rotunda Information Desk tonight from 6pm

Have fun.