Reconnections’ Miscellany: Codes for Living – August 2021

On By In London Terminals, Miscellany

What do those Underground station codes mean?

Every LU station room, lobby, corridor and stairway has small blue Station Identification Demarcation (SID) signs with white lettering in the following format level/number:

  • Numerators 1 to 13 are the levels going down from ground level, and A, B, & C are the levels going up.
  • The Denominator number starts from 001 for ticket hall.
  • ‘y/6xx’ generally identifies stairs.

These signs are also denoted on station fire plans and station drawings to identify a very specific area of the station in case of emergency.

And those Underground Announcement Codes

  • Code 1 – Blood
  • Code 2 – Urine/faeces
  • Code 3 – Vomit
  • Code 4 – Fluid spillage
  • Code 5 – Broken glass
  • Code 6 – Litter
  • Code 7 – Everything else
  • Inspector Sands – Fire alarm, as in ‘grab the sand buckets, there may be a fire’.

London Terminals

  • Blackfriars
  • Cannon Street
  • Charing Cross
  • City Thameslink
  • Euston
  • Fenchurch Street
  • King’s Cross
  • Liverpool Street
  • London Bridge
  • Marylebone
  • Moorgate
  • Old Street
  • Paddington
  • St. Pancras
  • Vauxhall
  • Victoria
  • Waterloo
  • Waterloo East

Alas, not Farringdon.

Surprisingly, the National Rail ticket gates do not differentiate between northern and southern London Terminals, so London Terminals encoded season tickets valid only into ‘Southern Region’ terminals actually work at Kings Cross and Marylebone. Similarly from South London, the single fare to Blackfriars and St Pancras International (Thameslink) is the same as to the ‘Southern Terminals’.

Eurostar Chunnel Route codes

Surprisingly there are actually three (3) Channel Tunnel Routes (CTR) that the Eurostar can take:

  • CTR1: Waterloo – Tonbridge (via Orpington) – EuroTunnel
  • CTR2: Waterloo – Maidstone East – EuroTunnel
  • CTR3: Waterloo – Tonbridge (via Bat & Ball) – EuroTunnel

Boat Train Route Codes

Before Eurostar, there were three Boat Train Routes (BTR) between London and the Channel:

  • BTR1: Victoria – Chatham – Faversham – Dover Marine (later Western Docks)
  • BTR2: Victoria – Tonbridge (via Orpington) – Dover Marine/Folkestone Harbour
  • BTR3: Victoria – Maidstone East – Dover Marine/Folkestone Harbour

The London station group are the 18 railway stations served by National Rail, referred to on intercity rail tickets as ‘London Terminals’:

The Ten Commandments for Drivers

On 19 June 2007, the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People released a document entitled, “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road.” Included in this document is a driver’s decalogue:

  1. You shall not kill.
  2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
  3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
  4. Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.
  5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
  6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
  7. Support the families of accident victims.
  8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
  9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
  10. Feel responsible towards others.

Correct at the time of writing. Check before you travel.

19 comments

  1. Happy memories of musing over distant adventures when a Eurostar passed through Bromley South as I awaited my rush hour commuter train.

  2. The Commandments don’t really seem all that tortuous to follow, and yet you’ll see them broken multiple times every single day of the year. (and probably every hour of the year) Few things make me despair for humanity more than the attitude of the driving public.

  3. Just a quick point on the Inspector Sands announcement:

    The situation might have changed now, but when I was working on the Underground, the Inspector Sands announcement was triggered when one alarm was activated. It was the cue for a member of staff to inspect the location to confirm whether or not the alarm was a genuine cause for concern (many, many of them were not). If a fire was confirmed, then a second alarm is activated, which triggers the station evacuation signal.

    Hearing the Inspector Sands announcement therefore does not necessarily mean that a fire is present.

  5. @MARCKEE

    I was at West Ham station the other day at 10am and they did the Inspector Sands announcement as part of the fire alarm test. It’s an pre-recorded message that happens when someone presses a fire-alarm normally, but it was done as part of the fire-alarm test too!

  6. Surely those CTR routings are as relevant (or historic) as the BTR ones.

    Farringdon on the Bedford Line is a Terminals fare – it’s the Moorgate section that was moved to zone one.

  7. “Surprisingly, the National Rail ticket gates do not differentiate between northern and southern London Terminals, so London Terminals encoded season tickets valid only into ‘Southern Region’ terminals actually work at Kings Cross and Marylebone. Similarly from South London, the single fare to Blackfriars and St Pancras International (Thameslink) is the same as to the ‘Southern Terminals’.”

    Ummmmmmmm, you should probably make clear that this ticket isn’t actually *valid* for this, just that it happens to work the barriers. Just as having a zone 1 travelcard and then travelling to Mill Hill East without tapping out isn’t valid even though you could probably get away with it most of the time.

  8. Boat Train Route codes were separate from the standard Southern region headcodes that the trains carried: Vic-Herne Hill-Orpington-Dover 46; Vic-Nunhead-Orpington-Dover 47; the same, but to Folkestone: 14 or 15; Vic-Herne HIll-Chatham-Dover 74; Vic-Nunhead-Chatham-Dover 75.

  9. Re London Terminals, Farringdon is one but only for the special case of passengers with tickets with an origin or destination of ‘London Terminals’ and routed “Plus High Speed”, who are permitted to travel in either direction on Thameslink services between London St Pancras International and stations Farringdon-Elephant/London Bridge inclusive. All other London Terminals tickets to/from the north (including those from Bedford, Aleks) are not valid south of St Pancras and to/from the south are not valid north of City Thameslink, and hence are not valid at or through Farringdon.

    See https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/Travelling-to-london.aspx for the arrangements in all their complexity.

    Re the Eurostar CTR routes, like the BTR routes they are, of course, history, no longer being available.

  10. Pedantically the London Terminals ticket on Thameslink is ‘different’. To the user they won’t notice it’s called ‘London Thameslink’.

    It now covers both northern legs and the south to all core stations including Farringdon exits.

    https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/Travelling-to-london.aspx#Thameslink-stations

    London Thameslink
    Tickets with an origin/destination of ‘London Thameslink’ are valid to/from the following stations:

    Stations on the Bedford Line
    Stations on the Arun Valley, Brighton Mainline, East/West Coastway and Oxted Lines
    Stations on the Peterborough/Cambridge Lines

    St Pancras International YES YES YES
    Farringdon YES YES YES
    City Thameslink YES YES YES
    London Blackfriars YES YES YES
    London Bridge YES YES YES
    Elephant & Castle YES YES YES

  11. Yes, but that’s the London Thameslink grouping (of which there are two versions – for Bedford line journeys it also includes Euston via Bletchley and Kentish Town), which is different from the London Terminals one (with its three versions – northern, southern, and HS1) that’s under discussion here.

    Will a similar “London Elizabeth” grouping be added when Crossrail opens?

    In a sane world, by default tickets to/from London would be valid to/from any station (TfL or Network Rail) in TfL Zone 1, without the complexities of multiple different definitions of “London” that hardly anyone understands.

    Something for GBR to fix?

  12. The London Elizabeth has been answered by TfL which considers it another one of their services that crosses Zone 1, like Shoreditch.

    The London Terminals excludes travel by TfL whether tube or bus. At Thameslink stations there is no reason to sell two types of LT ticket. It also works on East Midlands presumably as you can transfer at Luton (not sure about St Pancras barriers on a day ticket) so should be the same from Southern. Valid interchanges are yet another GBR action point.

    The Bedford-Bletchley routing does not seem to work in reverse such as from Northampton, so it’s similar to St Albans.

    It makes no sense to group Kentish Town which is Zone 2. An LT ticket is valid at all intermediate stations. It is an in-station LU interchange. What is the purpose of a London Thameslink ticket there?

  13. @ALEKS

    There are NEW “crs” CODES for the Crossrail stations…

    CWF for Canary Wharf Crossrail – existing tube and DLR stations use ZCZ
    ABX for Abbey Wood Crossrail – current services use ABW
    LIX for Liverpool Street Crossrail – current station uses LST
    FAC for Farringdon Crossrail – current stations are ZFD
    PAA for Paddington Crossrail – current stations all use PAD

    and the best new one has to be “WOW” for Woolwich Crossrail (rather than WWA for Woolwich Arsenal) .

  16. @BrianB

    Cheers. Digging a bit further, the acronym CRS comes from the ‘Computer Reservation System’ for which they were devised. I do not believe that this system is still being used, however the CRS code name persists.

  17. On the topic of avoiding Zone 1 extension fares without resorting to a scoot, does it appear that east branch commuters to Moorgate in Zone 1 will in Crossrail time be able to exit the LivSt stop via the Moorgate exit on a LT fare?

    Admittedly a minority group who can afford £3.40 a day for a 5 min walk. Probably the same group commuting to Farringdon from the south on a London Terminals ticket avoiding the 4 minute walk from the Holborn Viaduct exit of City Thameslink.

  18. Aleks, a few points:

    – London Terminals tickets are for travel on National Rail, and so include TfL’s Rail and Overground services. I’m suggesting that GBR should simplify the fare structure so other TfL rail services are included (as they already are with cross-London NR tickets)

    – there appears to be no correlation or connection between TfL zones and the London Terminals/London Thameslink groupings

    – Euston being in the London Thameslink group refers just to journeys via Bletchley, so it’s hard to see any similarity with St Albans

    – people can commute to Farringdon on a London Terminals ticket only if they travel via SE High Speed and St Pancras

    – why shouldn’t Kentish Town be included in London Thameslink? It is of course possible to change to the Underground there, but that’s not covered by a London Thameslink ticket. (Changing between NR and LU there is possible with other NR cross-London tickets.)

    BB [Brian Butterworth], are there new CRS codes for Bond St and Whitechapel Crossrail/Elizabeth?

    –

  19. @BETTERBEE

    Yes.

    BDS Bond Street for Crossrail compared with ZBD for the tube; as far as I know Whitechapel uses ZLW as it’s that code already for the Overground.

    All** non-National Rail TfL stations have three-letter codes defined starting with a “Z”.

    ZAD Aldgate,
    ZAE Aldgate East,
    ZAF London City Airport,
    …
    ZWY Wembley Park,

    ** but for the sole exception of Abbey Road DLR.

Comments are closed.