Model Forum / General / Railroads / January 2006

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I think we should leave this for Jerry to answer.  Sounds like his sort of
thing!

TOS

I think all the above come with a dose of "except when it isn't",
and/or "it is all mixed up, unless and until there is a rethink to
rationalise it"...

If you travelled from Derby to London St Pancras on the Midland Railway you
were travelling 'down' to London.

John.

OK, what about the South London Line - both ends at a major terminus? Or any
orbital line connecting two similar size towns?

Don't tell me - "up" is the town that is 1 yard closer to Charing Cross!

And which way is the Eastbound train going on the Circle Line?

And what about where two lines intersect, each with a different up
direction?

A chap could go mad thinking about this!

Cheers,
Steve

More often than not.

Usually

There were some of these, the Midland for example thought Derby to be
the centre of the universe.

The boss decided.

Sometimes they changed it, sometimes they stayed the same.

Keith

As far as I can see everything you wrote looks right Chris, and its not
unknown for a line to change its direction mid way along.  For example, the
line from Fareham to Southampton was originally two branches, one from
Fareham to Netley and one from St Denys to Sholing if I remember correctly.
When they eventually met at Netley and became one line you went "Up" from
Fareham to Netley and then "Down" to Southampton (with no pun intended if
you are a football fan).

What I do remember well about this is standing on a commuter rail station in
Northern Virginia one day and idly remarking to a group of railfans that
they were about to miss what they were looking for because "it's
wrong-roading on the down line - look - over there".  (I had applied the
same logic that if London was "UP" then so was Washington DC)

Boy did that bring their collective tilt light on and left me having to give
a long explanation of the concept of "UP".

Elliott

What you say is correct!  It stems from the days when railways (the
pricipal ones) gave all of their distances from London to specifically
identify any point on their system coupled with the habit of saying
"Up" to town meaning London and in the case of us more civilised
people who did live at the centre of the universe - Bristol.  The
circular routes do pose a problem and I suppose that the direction
from the main terminus would generate a down train in each direction
until it reached the arbitary mid-point, then ,like at the north pole,
where every direction is south, all trains become Up trains!

Thanks everyone ... after I discoverd my error with the slip (see seperate
post) my brain started turning to cheese making a start on drawing the
track plan for my website (not finished/upoaded yet so don't go looking).
Just wanted the labels on it to make sense.

Thanks again.

As a matter of interest (see someone else's comment about exceptions),
trains in the South Wales valleys go "up" the valley and "down" to
Cardiff.

PhilD

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Case 4 South Wales Valleys
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'Up' -> Trains going (generally) uphill, i.e. away from Cardiff/Newport
'Down' -> Trains going (generally) downhill, i.e. towards
Cardiff/Newport