Up and Down lines in UK

[thealm]

I was wondering why it is that on the ECML that the line going Northwards up towards Scotland is called Down line and the line going Southwards down towards London is called Up line.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

Railway terminology generally refers to ‘up’ as towards London whilst ‘down’ is from London. Probably because London is the nation’s capital and considered the most important settlement

 

[edwin_m]

Railways mostly follow the old-fashioned convention that "up" is towards London. Some of my elderly relatives, now no longer with us, always talked of going "up to London".

 

[thealm]

Thanks.

 

[hwl]

Up is towards the zero mile post marker and down away from it.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Up is towards the zero mile post marker and down away from it.

Indeed, hence whilst Birmingham is the bigger of the two, the Up Derby is away from Birmingham.

 

[pdeaves]

Exceptions are the Cardiff valleys that are 'down' to Cardiff, also lines that don't go towards London e.g. Bristol-Birmingham that are 'up' to Derby.

 

[pdeaves]

Up is towards the zero mile post marker and down away from it.

I don't think that is universally the case, though I cannot cite an exception at this moment.

Edit: The Chiltern route is 'up' to Marylebone but the zero point is Manchester. On the British railway, for every rule, there are exceptions!

 

[CW2]

You go Up to the headquarters of the railway company that built the line. Hence Midland railway lines all go Up to Derby. These are the exception to the rule of going Up to London.

 

[ilkestonian]

Indeed, hence whilst Birmingham is the bigger of the two, the Up Derby is away from Birmingham.

More to do with the line being one of the Midland Railway's key routes. Their HQ was Derby so it was UP to Derby and most mileages were from HQ (Though I think the MML is the exception which proves the rule...)

Edit: Bu99er. Not quick enough. Beaten to it by CW2

 

[RSA BOB]

I understand that the Lancashire and Yorkshire were up to Manchester Victory.

 

[urbophile]

How does it work for something like Merseyrail Northern line, which is a conflation of one route going north (ie away from London but towards Liverpool) and another (+2) going south towards both London and Liverpool?

 

[edwin_m]

I don't think that is universally the case, though I cannot cite an exception at this moment.

Edit: The Chiltern route is 'up' to Marylebone but the zero point is Manchester. On the British railway, for every rule, there are exceptions!

There are several others, such as Berwick to Edinburgh and the Chat Moss line between Liverpool and Manchester.

Indeed, hence whilst Birmingham is the bigger of the two, the Up Derby is away from Birmingham.

You go Up to the headquarters of the railway company that built the line. Hence Midland railway lines all go Up to Derby. These are the exception to the rule of going Up to London.

More to do with the line being one of the Midland Railway's key routes. Their HQ was Derby so it was UP to Derby and most mileages were from HQ (Though I think the MML is the exception which proves the rule...)

Edit: Bu99er. Not quick enough. Beaten to it by CW2

But in the case of the Midland you're all wrong! Its entire network was re-miled in the early 20th century. Lines that could be reached from St Pancras without reversal are numbered from a zero there, so St Pancras to Derby is the direction of increasing mileage (and is also the Down direction). The line from Derby through Birmingham to Bristol and Bath, which is probably the main reason people believe this myth, follows the same policy as all other Midland lines that start at a trailing junction as seen when travelling from London. Mileage increases from a zero milepost at the junction, in this case the south end of Derby station. Derby to Bristol is also Down, which aligned with the LNWR and GWR at the shared stations in Birmingham and Bristol but is the wrong way round for the Gloucester area. I'm not sure if all ascending mileage on the Midland was Down direction, but it certainly isn't now - for example through Nottingham the mileage runs the "wrong way" as it was miled via Melton Mowbray.

 

[pdeaves]

How does it work for something like Merseyrail Northern line, which is a conflation of one route going north (ie away from London but towards Liverpool) and another (+2) going south towards both London and Liverpool?

Those sorts of lines (Thameslink being another) have a defined point where 'up' becomes 'down and vice versa.

 

[edwin_m]

How does it work for something like Merseyrail Northern line, which is a conflation of one route going north (ie away from London but towards Liverpool) and another (+2) going south towards both London and Liverpool?

Essentially it becomes arbitrary. As long as someone defines which way is Up on each section of line it doesn't matter too much if it changes - as indeed it has to at least once at every triangular junction. According to the Quail map "Up" is towards Hunts Cross on the various branches of the Northern Line - some of this may have been "flipped over" at some point, as from Kirkby towards Wigan is "Up" to Manchester. The Kirkby line and into Central is miled from a zero at Manchester Victoria and Central to Hunts Cross is miled from a zero near Central (the former surface station), so are two more examples of mileage decreasing in the Up direction. But the Southport and Ormskirk branches are miled in the opposite direction from the former Exchange station.

 

[paul1609]

Up and Down change over in Hastings Station as the marshlink line was the original line to London. As a consequence the platform repeaters dont indicate Off Up or Down but Off ORE or Off WSQ (ST Leonards Warrior Square).

 

[Shimbleshanks]

The 'up' and 'down' terms date from horse drawn mail coach days when the coaches heading (going up to) London were called the up coaches and those heading away from London were going 'down' from the capital. Not quite sure why, as London would have been downhill from most places in the country, especially those in the north.
Not sure if it's related in any way but I think university students used to say they were going 'up' to whatever univeristy they were attending or 'coming down' when they went home.

 

[43066]

Confusingly up and down can also switch over, so that up becomes down and vice versa.

For example, the Thameslink core does so at Farringdon (IIRC).

 

[Llanigraham]

Confusingly up and down can also switch over, so that up becomes down and vice versa.

For example, the Thameslink core does so at Farringdon (IIRC).

Same at Hereford.
North of there the UP is towards Shrewsbury, South UP is southward towards Newport.

 

[Ianno87]

Confusingly up and down can also switch over, so that up becomes down and vice versa.

For example, the Thameslink core does so at Farringdon (IIRC).

Camden Road and Manchester Victoria being two other examples.

 

[edwin_m]

Up and Down must swap over at least once in every triangular junction, but usually they are assigned so the principal route retains the same designation throughout. Or at least that was true of the principal route when designated - which may not be so today. This means people can talk of an Up or Down train, which on most of the main routes remains as such over its entire journey. The NE-SW Cross Country route is an exception - trains change designation at Derby.

I think it's fairly rare for an Up line to be re-designated Down and vice versa, because of the number of people in operations and engineering who rely on the definitions. I believe Bletchley-Oxford was re-designated, having been closed completely for a while and having had virtually all its infrastructure replaced. Bletchley towards Oxford used to be Down, a relic of the original layout at Bletchley where the junction faced towards London. It is now Up to align with the existing designations at both ends, though not at Bicester.

 

[73202]

At Midland Railway Butterley the Up and Down are the "wrong" way round. The junction at Codnor is mile post 133 measured from London and Hammersmith is mile post 136 from London, but the Up line direction is from Codnor to Hammersmith ie mileage increasing in the Up direction.

 

[Tomnick]

The 'up' and 'down' terms date from horse drawn mail coach days when the coaches heading (going up to) London were called the up coaches and those heading away from London were going 'down' from the capital. Not quite sure why, as London would have been downhill from most places in the country, especially those in the north.
Not sure if it's related in any way but I think university students used to say they were going 'up' to whatever univeristy they were attending or 'coming down' when they went home.

The best suggestion, by far, that I've ever seen is that it stems from the early days - possibly stagecoach days - when services in both directions were shown on a single table: locations listed down the page usually starting with the most important, thus trains going away from the most important place went Down the page and those going towards the most important places were read going Up the page.

 

[MarkyT]

There is an Up and Down swap and mileage change mid platform at Ramsgate in Kent:

 

[HSTEd]

Honestly I think, in hindsight, it would have been better to use a town in the normal direction of travel.

So instead of the Up Fast it might be the London Fast.

 

[MarkyT]

The best suggestion, by far, that I've ever seen is that it stems from the early days - possibly stagecoach days - when services in both directions were shown on a single table: locations listed down the page usually starting with the most important, thus trains going away from the most important place went Down the page and those going towards the most important places were read going Up the page.

And that applies to the track diagram pages in the sectional appendices (generally, except where there's a change on the page like Ramsgate as illustrated above)

 

[DavidGrain]

In my personal life I do not use railway terminology as I always go 'down' to London as that is going South for me.

The first time I saw the sign at Barnt Green Station (south west of Birmingham) which said 'Electric Trains Must Not Enter the Up Gloucester Slow Line', I had to stop to work that one out. 'Up' meant towards Derby. Gloucester was in the opposite (down) direction.

 

[S&CLER]

The London tubes, several of which were American financed and controlled in their early days (the Yerkes era), adopted the US habit of referring to eastbound, westbound, northbound etc. I don't know if or when the Met was changed to this practice. On the Circle Line, old timetables refer to "Inner rail" and "Outer rail". In the USA itself, the great majority of railroads were oriented east to west, so they referred to eastbound/westbound tracks, though in some cases the line designation was not the actual compass direction of travel. It was easy to know which direction a given train was, since westbounds bore odd numbers and eastbounds even numbers.

 

[skyhigh]

Confusingly up and down can also switch over, so that up becomes down and vice versa.

For example, the Thameslink core does so at Farringdon (IIRC).

Camden Road and Manchester Victoria being two other examples.

Leeds to Manchester Victoria via Bradford Interchange is another example- up to Leeds and Victoria, down to Bradford.

 

[Andyjs247]

There is an Up and Down swap and mileage change mid platform at Ramsgate in Kent:

Harrogate is another location where direction swaps. The direction is Up towards York but also Up towards Leeds.

Up and Down directions get quite interesting approaching Leeds from the west due to the various converging routes which historically were operated by different companies. A train from Harrogate will swap direction at Leeds West Jn to arrive in the Down direction. A train from Bradford Interchange nominally swaps direction 3 times approaching Leeds!