And so another year ends, and so does our annual quiz. From the entries we’ve marked already, it seems that we’ve managed to bamboozle more than a few of you this year. Winners will be announced on Monday, but in the meantime it seems only fair to give you the answers.
Thanks to everyone who took part!
Question 1
In this picture of one of the original 1863 Metropolitan Line stations we have blanked out part of the station name. What station is it?
The answer is Euston Square – formerly Gower Street (remember, we asked what station it is, not was).
Question 2
Which of Crossrail’s Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) completed the most tunnelling (i.e. did the most digging)?
We are reliably informed that although both Victoria and Elizabeth have the same quoted general distance travelled, Victoria actually had to do the most digging.
Question 3
In short, what is special about LTZ2001?
This is the registration of the first new shorter New Bus for London
Question 4
“A great battle that has now resulted in an almost universal acquiescence in the view that the new bridge is a fine bridge, well worthy of the capital city of the British Commonwealth of Nations” – Who was speaking, and about which bridge?
Herbert Morrison made these comments about Waterloo Bridge.
Question 5
The picture below is of the first female bus conductor in London. What was her name?
It was Mrs G Duncan of course (sorry, that would have been too easy). What we want you to tell us is her badge number.
If you managed to track down the full version of the cropped image above then you’d have spotted a hand-written note in the corner. That note reveals that her badge number was 13001.
Question 6
Fill in the gaps: Anson, Beatty, Collingwood, Drake, ????, Freemantle, Grenville, Hardy, Inglefield, ????, Keppel, Ley, Madden, Nelson, ????, Parry.
We were looking for Evans, Jellicoe and Oldham (although we weren’t too fussy about spelling as sources vary). The completed list represents the names of the various dormitories in the Clapham South Deep Shelter during WW2. More on the shelter shortly.
Question 7
Where in London are we?
Though you may not have spotted it before, this is actually the ceiling in Euston station ticket hall (look up next time you are there, you’ll be amazed).
Question 8
Where in London can you be standing on a railway platform and be directly above a mosque?
You can do this at Shadwell DLR station.
Question 9
Another sequence, another set of gaps to fill: B, C, D, E, F, Q, CP, Q, CP, ???, A, D, A, ???
We were looking for 1938 and 378. It is the stock used on the East London Line since inception.
Question 10
An Imperial measure, a hardy Asian quadruped ruminant, the handiwork of the incarcerated, a gang of four. Where were we, once (don’t worry if it takes you about 12 minutes to process)?
One of Mwmbwl’s tougher cryptics this. We were after Feltham Concentration / Marshalling Yard.
Question 11
Sometimes we have to doctor images for this quiz. In this case Southeastern made sure we didn’t have to bother. What’s wrong with their printed timetable map?
Once spotted, it is hard to miss – St Johns and New Cross are in wrong place
Question 12
There are only two London boroughs in which TfL has no rail (or light rail) stations or stops. Which boroughs are they?
For a bonus point, by 2018 (as things stand) this will be reduced to one. Which borough?
They are Bexley and Kingston. By 2018 this will be down to just Kingston as the entrance of Abbey Wood Crossrail will just cross the boundary between Greenwich and Bexley.
Question 13
Time for an International question! Where are we?
The clue is in the capitalization – this is, in fact, Waterloo International
Question 14
Another sequence question. Fill in the gaps: B25F00, F12B12, FFD300, ???, 00853A/FFFFFF, F5859F, 959CA1, ???, 231F20, 183C96, ???, 81CEBC
One point if you correctly identified that these were hexadecimal colour codes for the Underground, but the fact that they were different from the official ones should have suggested there was more to this than meets the eye. They are, in fact, the actual hex codes used on the last official 2015 Tube map made available by TfL as a PDF (now archived here) and are in the same order as the key. The missing codes are #00853A (District), #99005E (Metropolitan) and #009CDF (Victoria).
Question 15
To our knowledge, this is the most northerly occurrence of an officially approved roundel in the British Isles. Where is it?
You will find this plaque at Paisley Gilmour Street (the railway heritage award which this commemorates is sponsored by London Underground).
Question 16
Where, now in 2015, attracts many more passengers to and from London than it used to, but in doing so has gone from being a town to a village?
Bicester Village railway station was renamed from Bicester Town with the opening of the service from Marylebone to Oxford Parkway.
Question 17
Whereabouts on the Underground will you see these Gentleman?
No trick to this – they are part of David Gentleman’s platform artwork at Charing Cross.
Question 18
Farringdon. Smithfield. St John Street. Charterhouse. Looked at a certain way one might say these were a source of blame on Crossrail. What are they?
They are geological fault lines encountered during the work on Farringdon Crossrail.
Question 19
Where will you find this particular piece of London’s underground history?
At Cutty Sark DLR.
Question 20
Becky may have come to prominence in 2015, but she won’t be Tooting about what she’s up to anytime soon. Who, or what, is she?
She is the Night Tube owl – Becky being her internal name at TfL, although she now seems to be called Tooting according to the London Transport Museum.
Question 21
And finally, where in London will you find this little piece of the Underground, above ground – and what is her unit number?
With thanks to Ianvisits – you will find unit 5721 (although in reality she’s a mashup of various parts) in the Relay Building next to Aldgate East station.
Thanks for the answers. It’s a shame I didn’t have the time to do the whole quiz this year.
Question 14 – the correct colours used by TfL (including Pantone and hex) are listed here – http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-colour-standard.pdf
Nearly all right, including some I didn’t think I had – where on Charing Cross is the image of Q17?
Q10 – none the wiser even after the answer has been revealed.
Well of the ones I wrote an answer down for I got 11 correct. I got half of Q14 correct but not the missing codes. I got Q1, Q8 and half of Q12 wrong. I had no answer for six of the questions but got close in my research on one of them but wasn’t certain (the Charing Cross artwork). Is someone able to actually translate from the question to the answer for Q10 as I just can’t begin to fathom it?
Q10 – I assume the imperial measure is the yard, then erm….
Cryptic clues were one of those things I can never get my head around, the intellectual equivalent of brussel sprouts.
I thought Question 10 was extremely difficult though funnily enough I thought timbeau might have got it. It is the sort of question my mind just can’t even start to attack.
But … it does seem logical enough – once you know the answer.
The only imperial measurement that makes any kind of transport sense is a yard in anything other than the obvious meaning (well I suppose a foot does in a sort of way).
For the hardy Asian quadruped ruminant the obvious creature is a camel and the notable feature is the hump – or maybe two humps. So a yard with a hump or two.
This is where is starts to get difficult. The handiwork of the incarcerated is a reference to German Prisoners of War who helped build Feltham Marshalling Yard.
Another supposed clue was the gang of four which refers to a type of locomotive based there (Urie’sE6 4-8-0Ts) and I quite understand why this wasn’t much of a helpful clue as was the fact that it supposedly took 12 minutes to process a train through the yard.
I would be interested to know if anyone did get it.
I am particularily annoyed I didn’t get any ideas about Question 14 knowing it was set by John Bull and of his obsession with tube colouring schemes.
For Question 11, I have modified the diagram so it is correct and you can view it here.
Chiltern Railways are almost as bad. This diagram looks very wrong but is technically correct – just very misleading. I couldn’t have a question on that because it gave the answer to another question (Bicester Village).
[Challenging the answers is fine. But would people please remember that the quiz-setters are people giving up their time for our amusement: please keep it civil. Malcolm]
Q9
NO
All stock types have (usually) letter-codes, especialy for the SSL’s
What are the CODES for those date, please?
Your answer is WRONG in your own terms ….
Q10
EXPLAIN
( or else )
Q14
Colour codes …again, not good enough – what LINES?
Surely, the line represented by the missing code is an adequate answer – if not, why not?
Q 20
Oh bugger!
Excellent quiz, as ever!
(a former sub-editor writes) I’d question the definition of “is” in Q1. The context is established by the first sentence as the picture, which is of Gower St Station, not of Euston Square Station.
If I was marking (I am not), I would accept either answer. The names “Gower Street” and “Euston Square” refer to the same station. So what is apparently required is a name identifying the station pictured – I reckon that either should do. The key point is that it is not Baker Street. But other interpretations are possible, and the editor’s decision is of course final.
@poP
I was sidetracked on Q10 by trying to determine what is a ruminant. Camels are, apparently, not classified by taxonomists as ruminants as they do not have the four-chambered stomach that cattle do, and are a different suborder within the ungulates. So I was sidetracked into thinking the answer must be something to do with yaks
Q14 – the hex codes led fairly quickly to colours which were close to the familiar line colours, and in alpahabetical order (and the two-colour nature (one of them white) of one of them identified the order. But they were all of them almost, but not quite, the official colours (especially the Northern, which should be 111111. I wondered if there was some arithmetical manipulation – some other number (ASCII code for the first letter of the name?) subtracted from each hex code perhaps, but no pattern could I see.
Q13 was very familiar to me as it used to be part of my regular step-free route from street to Drain, in the days when I was usually pushing a baby buggy – long ago now: the occupant of that buggy passed his driving test last year!
Q14 – interested to note that neither London Transport nor any of its successors has ever operated any rail-based services within the area defined by the present borders of the LB Kingston.
Great quiz again. Well done to anyone who managed to get most of the questions right.
I’d have to agree with johnb78 about Q1. Grammatically the question refers to the picture, not the current name of the station in the photo, so Gower Street is the correct (or at least an acceptable) answer.
For Q10, I’m still bamboozled and incredibly impressed by anyone who actually managed to get that right. I’m surprised if the animal referred to is a camel because they are not a ruminant (they are a camelid, one difference being that they have three rather than four stomachs) nor are they notably an Asian animal (although their range does extend there).
I’m interested how you can find the hex codes for Q14. While it was fairly easy to work out what the sequence referred to (particularly thanks to some helpful comments from others) I have no idea how you then find the actual values.
@ Timbeau 0032 – yep I got to pretty much where you did on those codes but could not reconcile the differences between what was listed in the question and what was liberally scattered all over the Internet (including TfL’s own specification).
I didn’t get distracted by yaks or camels – it was sheep for me. Oh dear.
Oh and Waterloo International was ridiculously frustrating. It rang a bell with me – especially the roof design but I could not place it for certain.
@ PoP – many thanks for the explanation re Q10. I clearly stood no chance whatsoever of ever getting that.
Thanks LR – I got almost none but learned much, as ever.
Happy New Year to all!
I never got around to finding sufficient time to do the quiz this year, but re Q11 surely there is *also* the point that you can’t go direct from Lewisham to Waterloo East! Even if you don’t get off the train you’ve still got to go through London Bridge, after all, so the lines are branched wrong. And on Q13, surely it is now Waterloo/Windsor as the International stuff has now all been ripped out?
btw, Thankyou for another great quiz!
I didn’t get the colour code question right, but you could theoretically have done so by pasting a screenshot of the source map into Photoshop and doing a colour lookup on the relevant pixels. Convoluted, but still easier than Q10!
WW: I didn’t get the Waterloo question at first, but then noticed the beer sponsorship in the photo, and remembered that Waterloo International briefly served as a theatre while it was out of commission…
AlisonW: Southeastern trains to Charing Cross currently don’t stop at London Bridge because of the rebuild work, so although that part of the diagram is geographically inaccurate it’s schematically reasonable (see Mornington Crescent’s orientation on the Tube map, etc).
Although international trains no longer call there, it can still be called, informally at least, by the name it had when it was built. International trains also do not call at Birmingham and Stratford Internationals, so a solid 50% of “International” stations are misnamed.
@timbeau 2/1 00:38
Think you are referring to Q12 (the one leading to Kingston and Bexley answers) not Q14.
However Q12 was about current TfL-related rail (or light rail) services, not as you suggest to ‘London Transport and successors’… But you are right that Kingston lost out also on that count, as trolleybuses replaced trams there in 1931, pre-LPTB!
London Transport did of course previously operate rail-based services in Bexley – the 96 and 98 trams and the Wilmington spur, before conversion to trolleybus/bus.
I’m still exercised about Q9
Given the terms of the question AS POSED IN THIS BLOG, the “alternative” answer of the successive SSL stock-codes must also be correct, surely. (?)
As in:
From texts, as noted in each section:
a) “Steam to Silver” gives: A 1903, B 1905, C D E 1910-13, F 1920, G 1923, K 1927, L-M-N 1927-31, O P Q R (flared sides) 1935-39 + CO/CP metadyne fitted, R immediate post Wr, A 1959/60, C 1969, D 1976-78. A – refurb & “S” currently being introduced.
b) “London Underground stock planbook” gives: A 1903, B 1905, E 1914 ( no mention of “D”), F 1920, , G 1923, K 1927, O & P & Q 1937-40, with CO/CP variants of course …
Then, as in (A) above, & again the last query is “S” ( In S6 & S7 variants, of course)
So most likely to be: “K” & “S” I think.
Which is surely a valid answer as the question was posed, whatever the “intentions” of the setter.
Oops – a n other “proof-reading” problem perhaps.
Having thought it through Q10 is very clever and all the information the clues refer to is available in the short wiki entry. Just googling ‘London yard 12 minutes’ brings it up as one of the first hits, so it was solvable even without the camel clue (not that I managed it!). I was sidetracked by thinking about mail bags (handiwork of prisoners) and other ruminant species (a yak being the most logical fit with the clue). Thinking about it the yard had two humps rather than one so it makes perfect sense that the clue referred to the Asian (Bactrian) camel.
For Q2, according to the Atkins twitter account Elizabeth completed the longest tunnel drive (https://twitter.com/atkinsglobal/status/672367600354111488 – this was published as part of National Tunnel Day earlier in December which is why I assumed it was the source of the question) but maybe that’s different to completing the most digging.
Best wishes to all for 2016.
Greg,
I think not. The sequence you give does not fit in. The sequence given is taken from John Glover’s London Overground. I can’t locate my copy at the moment so can’t give page number. The repeated groups Q, CP, Q, CP and A, D, A means the idea of these being just a list of SSL stock codes implausible.
It is probably a hard question but possibly the real clue is in A, D, A. The A stock did not stray much and there is really there are not many locations where A and D stock ran on the same track and even fewer where they did it alternatively.
And surely S for the second missing item is too obvious!
Re: Q1
Like Malcolm I am leaving is/was to the Editor. The picture is of Gower Street station but the station itself is now Euston Square.
@Greg
You suggestion requires additional elements in the sequence where there are no gaps provided for them.
@Milton
yes I did mean Q12, and I am aware that the question related only to the most recent incarnation of TfL, which is why I worded my comment the way I did – a predecessor of TfL namely LUT, did operate trams in Kingston but, as you say, it stopped doing so before LT took them over.
Re. Q1:
From a purely linguistic perspective, asking “What station is it?” is an ambiguous question.
“By what name is the station known today?” would have avoided the ambiguity, but as this was clearly a trick question — an abhorrent fashion among quiz setters; naturally, I shall be writing a strongly worded letter to The Times anon — such phrasing would have made the question too easy.
Anonymous 2nd January @ 09.43 and others
Apologies to anybody led up the garden path by the cryptic opacity of the clues to Q10. In part it stems from the high quality of the responses that we get from competitors and the mastery of both text and image engine search engines as demonstrated in past quizzes. As ever this mastery of facts has shown up my shortfalls with the detailed issue as to whether camels have three or four stomachs and there was I complacently smug at finding a connection between two humps in a marshaling yard and a Bactrian camel.
For the benefit of the terminally bewildered can I refer you to
http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/feltham-marshalling-yard-railway.html
for David Turner’s excellent potted history of the yard when includes a splendid diagram.
How were the RGB triples for question 14 derived? I ask because the colours in the referenced PDF file are specified in the DeviceCMYK colour space, and the PDF specification doesn’t as far as I can tell provide any standard way to map these colours into an RGB colour space. Different applications on my computer produce RGB triples that are subtly different from one another and from yours. For reference, here are the actual colours as specified in the PDF:
0 .58 1 .33 K, 0 .95 1 0 K, 0 .16 1 0 K, .95 0 1 .27 K, .95 0 1 .27 K/0 0 0 0 K, 0 .6 .15 0 K, .05 0 0 .45 K, .05 1 0 .4 K, 1 SCN, 1 .88 0 .05 K, .85 .19 0 0 K, .47 0 .32 0 K
All but the Northern Line are specified as c m y k K, where c, m, y, and k are the levels of cyan, yellow, magenta, and black inks, with 1 being most and 0 being none. The Northern Line is specified using a Separation colour space with fallback to DeviceCMYK, but I think it boils down to 100% black on all devices.
I didn’t have the time to look at this properly, so didn’t enter, but did have fun working on some of these, and would have got 4 right (well 5 if Gower Street does get accepted as an answer for Q1!).
Q11 took me way too long, especially as I use the SouthEastern services regularly.
Thanks to everyone involved in setting and marking the quiz for the fun it’s given me and others.
Thanks for the info, Mwmbwls. Just for interest, what is the “Gang of Four” business? PoP said it referred to the locos – was it a nickname?
Malcolm 2nd January @ 13.20
“Gang of Four” was not a nick-name but a fevered attempt on my part to not use the more obvious “Class of Four” because we wanted to sort out the obvious sheep from the obscure nerds. In popular usage, the Gang of Four refers to a powerful clique surrounding Chinese Leader Mao Tse Tung. Urie’s four 4-8-0T locomotives were built specifically to handle traffic at Feltham and although they were tried elsewhere on local freight trip working and empty coaching stock, the yard was always seen as their home base.
http://www.semgonline.com/steam/g16class.html is worth reading.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one cursing myself at the answer to Q1, having guessed Gower Street!
If you want an excellent wild goose chase for Q10 – I put ‘hardy asian ruminant crossword’ into Google (like timbeau I initially thought ‘yak’) and got back ‘Barkingdeer’ which fits the theme of a place in London (it’s another term for Muntjac) and so I was looking for things about 30 miles down the Thames from where I should have been!
Question 10: I thought the “Gang of Four” usually referred to the four defectors from the Labour Party that formed the SDP, if you are not into “post-punk” (whatever that is). Perhaps “Class of 21” might have been suitable as the G16 locos were built in 1921?
I did enjoy wrestling with the quiz and got 4 + Gower Street, so I have learned something.
Q11. I know very little about south London railways and the only error that I could see was the lack of an interchange symbol for New Cross (also missing from PoP’s amended map). Since this seems to answer the question I have given myself one point.
Q10. Completely at sea on this one and thought it was something to do with camel-backed Met locomotives.
Q21. Whatever is in the Relay Building it isn’t Unit 5721, which is at the Museum Depot. Given myself a bonus mark.
I find that like John Lewis, the fun in the quiz is that you learn so much. Thanks to everyone involved.
A pitiful TWO – I thought the answer to question 1 was Great Portland Street, but settled on Baker Street because of the just visible ‘r’ of the name board. Even though St John’s used to be my home station, I completely failed to see the transposition of it with New Cross. I guessed at Waterloo Bridge, but had no idea of who was being quoted, and thought that the mosque must be in the ‘East End’, although I was thinking Stepney. The rest of the questions were just too arcane to even attempt google searches.
@LadyBracknell: For what it’s worth, St Johns is not transposed with New Cross. They are in the right order, but both on the wrong line segment, because trains travelling between Deptford and London Bridge do not pass through them. See PoP’s corrected map referred to earlier.
Having guessed the Bridge might be Waterloo because of the reference to a battle, I then decided it had to be the most recent incarnatiuon because of the reference to the Commonwealth. I then googled to see who conducted the opening ceremony, and found Pathe news footage of part of Morrison’s speech (although not the right part).
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/opening-of-waterloo-bridge/query/Morrison
Apparently there was some controversy because he referred to its builders only in the male gender, not acknowledging the contribution made by women during WW2.
But none of this confirmed my hunch.
On the subject of Q11, AlisonW mentioned a possible second issue, the geographically dubious way that trains to Charing Cross appear to go “nowhere near” London Bridge, whereas in fact they pass through it. I would absolve this from being “wrong” as the question required. The standard conventions for diagrammatic maps allow the designer to choose whether or not to display such pass-throughs in a geographically accurate way. The choice has been made here in such a way as to underline the impossibility of boarding/alighting there.
In other words, you are allowed (though not compelled) to show a line as being remote from a station it actually passes through. You are not allowed the opposite error of showing a line passing through a station from which it is actually remote!
Incidentally, you are also allowed to play fast and loose with geography, as South-Eastern does to a spectacular degree when it comes to depicting HS1.
Re. Q11 – could it also be argued that there’s an error in the map not showing the ability for Sidcup line trains to Charing Cross to completely bypass Lewisham?
I got a few of them, (which is better than I usually manage, as I’m not really a rail nerd), but I’m kicking myself over the Cutty Sark image. I knew I’d seen that somewhere, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember where.
Re. the colour sequence:
For those who aren’t aware, there are two major colour systems in use today: CMYK (Primary colours: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key) and RGB (Primary colorus: Red, Green, Blue). The first is the oldest, and used extensively in the print media: magazines, (colour) books, and the like use this system. If you have a colour printer, you may recognise those colours as it’ll use the same inks.
CMYK is a subtractive system: the inks absorb light, so if you use the maximum amount of all three colours (the “CMY” part), you should, in theory, get a pure black. In practice, the chemistry needed to achieve that, and provide decent colour reproduction, is tricky and expensive. It would also be hugely wasteful as most print media uses a lot of black for text. So there’s usually a dedicated black ink supply. For reasons too tedious to go into, this is typically referred to as “Key” rather than “Black” in the trade, hence “CMYK”.
The RGB system is the opposite of CMYK. It’s an additive system as TVs and computer displays emit light rather than absorbing it, so maxing out the Red, Green and Blue values produces white.
It is not, in fact, possible to directly map all colours in the CMYK system to RGB colours, or vice-versa, which is what the question 14 is all about: PDF files were originally designed for sending files to printing companies and most graphic design software will tend to assume you want the CMYK system. Today, most of us download and view PDFs on a computer screen, so the computer has to convert from one system to another.
It doesn’t help that the “hexadecimal codes” the question refers to are 8-bit integers (whole numbers), which means each of the RGB values is stored as a value between 0 and 255. There’s no support for fractions of such values in this system. However, the CMYK system used in PDF files does support fractions, so there’s an inherent loss of precision taking place before the conversion itself.
That CMYK-to-RGB conversion process is also reliant on your display’s accuracy, which isn’t guaranteed. Something that appears pure green (for example) on one display might be slightly bluer on another, depending on its calibration. So the values in the PDF linked to in the answer can vary slightly from computer to computer.
And now, back to your scheduled programming.
[Thanks to Anomnibus for this helpful explanation. Please could we leave general issues on colour systems now, not arguing the details set out here, except insofar as things are directly related to the quiz question and its answer. Malcolm]
@simon T
“could it also be argued that there’s an error in the map not showing the ability for Sidcup line trains to Charing Cross to completely bypass Lewisham?”
Possible, although diagrammatic maps often omit bypass lines like Darlington, Frome and Westbury. Is there really any difference from trains skipping, say, Surbiton or South Ruislip, where there is no platform on the fast line?
@Malcolm: ah, I see how it looks now. However, I was not distracted.
@ John Lewis – you weren’t the only person considering the SDP for Q11. In the end I decided sheep, Shirley Williams et al and Limehouse didn’t make any sense.
I find it so ironic that I got Q11 within 30 seconds of looking at the map given how unfamiliar I am with SE London’s rail network. Perhaps my lack of familiarity made it easier for me to see what was wrong?
@Walthamstow Writer:
The SDP “Gang of Four” was the only reference I could think of, so I never got any further than that. (Although the “ruminant” reference also threw me. Camels aren’t ruminants, so I’d never have gotten that one.)
Q11 took me a while to understand as, despite growing up and living mostly in SE London, I moved to Italy a few years ago and have therefore missed the entirety of the London Bridge rebuilding work. I’d forgotten that South Eastern services weren’t calling at London Bridge en route to Charing Cross, so that’s what stuck out the most when looking at that diagram.
It took me a good ten minutes of head-scratching before I spotted it.
Thanks for another challenging quiz. As usual I learnt a lot, mostly by running off in the wrong direction! Here are my thoughts on some of the questions.
Q1. I got Gower Street (“it” being the “original 1863 Metropolitan Line station”)
Q2. There is a curve on the Crossrail route between Limmo & Farringdon so the Southern tunnel is longer (by ~15m) as it is on the outside of the curve. By looking at photos Victoria was on the southern tunnel excavation.
Q4. Got this one as the “British Commonwealth of Nations” gave quite a short date range, but only after looking for the opening of the temporary walkway on Hungerford Bridge for the festival of Britain. Couldn’t find the original quote so was concerned that it might have been Boris on the Garden Bridge.
Q5. Found the photo – but misread the handwriting – Dooh.
Q8. I thought of Shadwell/Limehouse/Westferry area initially, but then ruled it out as I couldn’t find a suitable mosque. Then I found the 415 mosque map site and it all fell in to place.
Q9. No idea on this one. I was trying to fit it into the missing Imber bus question!
Q10. Completely wrong footed on this one. Having ruled out a Leeds pop group I homed on the SDP and of 4 and the Limehouse declaration and the Isle of Dogs where (a) HMS Camel was built. Prisoners were used to build several of the docks.
Q11. Easy enough to find the mistake once I’d realised that Charing Cross wasn’t the answer.
Q12. Easy enough, but a good reminder that Wikipedia isn’t 100% accurate.
Q13. Kicking myself. I found a photo labelled Eurostar Business Lounge and assumed it was St Pancras.
Q14. I got the HEX code for underground line colours, but no further.
Q16. Got this one as soon as I read the question
Q17. Thought this was a trick question. Would have gone and had a look at Charing Cross if I lived in London.
Q18. Found this answer by accident while researching the tunnel boring machines.
Q20. Becky Wood was appointed the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for Crossrail in 2015. Crossrail II is now likely to go via Balham instead of Tooting. The wrong answer, but a good fit (do owls toot with a capital “T”?).
Q21. Got this one, but gave the building location rather than name.
The remainder I got with a bit of judicial googling.
I think I got 12-14 depending on how generous the Judges are feeling. Nothing like as good as last years attempt.
Thanks again,
Peter.
The original ‘Gang of Four’ was the Chinese clique. It included Mao’ s widow. All were executed. The name was then applied to the later defectors from the Labour party, in the ironic way that applies in the UK, getting a laugh out of our relatively gentle political upheavals by using the bizarre vocabulary of Communist China.
Peter Coventry. Do owls ‘toot’ at all? I rather thought they hooted. I’ll admit to not having done the quiz this year, after an initial foray at some of the questions. I just remembered how much it had obsessed me in previous years, with the rather important consideration that I was due to host the whole family on Christmas day, and being distracted by the LR Quiz would not have been understood as a reason for not being prepared!
While understanding that the judge’s decision has to be final, it can be very disappointing to get a valid answer to a question which just doesn’t happen to be the one the question setter thought of. But, it’s great fun and I am very grateful to the LR team for the huge amount of enjoyment (and education) I have had over the years from the annual mind-buster.
This picture of the northbound Northern Line platform at Charing Cross looking towards the southern end of the platform shows exactly where the little men can be found.
Anonymous
the only error that I could see was the lack of an interchange symbol for New Cross
There is no need for one. You can only change to London Overground and, as far as SouthEastern are concerned, this is just another TOC. No other interchanges with other TOCs are shown nor, indeed, with London Overground at Peckham Rye or Denmark Hill.
SimonT
could it also be argued that there’s an error in the map not showing the ability for Sidcup line trains to Charing Cross to completely bypass Lewisham?
I hadn’t noticed that but would argue it would be awkward to put in and not strictly necessary anyway. If it could be done easily then that would be bonus.
There are other services that do not stop at all stations included in the timetable and it would be confusing to show all possible permutations. The fact that there is a physical avoiding line isn’t really relevant. It is meant to be schematic diagram.
Fandroid
Which sort of owl?
Barn O’s shriek
Tawny’s go “Wick-wick WHOOOO!”
Little Wols just sit on your wrist or a railway fence-post & blink at you as you go past ….
I think Eagle O’s hoot.
Don’t know about long/short-Eared’s – suggest you try an ornithology site
Regardless of Hooting, Tooting, Twitting or Twooing the LT Museum calls her Tooting the Night Tube Owl. It does say “What a hoot!”
No 15
I was sidetracked by this photo
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=plaque++ballochmyle+viaduct+2014&biw=1600&bih=745&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfsOjF047KAhVC7Q4KHVuwAJMQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=FT57BN9mvm0OMM%3A, which was the only LU award north of the border that I could find.
mention has also been made of an award even further north than Paisley – is there no plaque at Dunkeld?
So, why was Gower Street renamed to Euston Square as it is in Gower Street and not in Euston Square, and Euston Square has a station called Euston ? Presumably they wanted to indicate that it is near Euston, in which case Euston West would have been better.
Who knows, but there is a present day Euston Square station – http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/SME/html/NRE_EUS/external/1809-0000009.html
@Lady Bracknell
The present day Euston Square station is the one originally called Gower Street. The LNWR terminus lost the “Square” from its name around the time the LSWR terminus lost the “Bridge” from its name.
Railway politics may have had an effect – The LNWR was the only one of the northern companies not to have a link with the original Metropolitan Railway, as it already had its own link to the City at Broad Street. Further, the Met’s original partners were in competition with the LNWR on many routes and wouldn’t encourage acknowledgement of the Met’s usefulness in getting to Euston. Later on, when the Met was less dependent on its main line partners, it may have felt less inhibited about advertising the “OSI”.
LadyB
Your link to that very detailed pictorial route proves my point:
Frame 1 : Euston Square station in Gower Street
Frames 17 to 21 : Euston Square
Frame 26 : Euston station
Lady B
What a pity that National Rail took their photos on a rainy day. They have had over 150 years to do the job – there must have been some sunny days that they could have chosen, in all that time.
@timbeau
There is no plaque on display at Dunkeld and the building now appears to be vacant.
@LoS
“the building now appears to be vacant”
so much for heritage – sic transit gloria mundi
As in the Denis Norden story “Seek train seat, Gloria, Monday”?
GH
Surely it was Frank Muir’s explanation that won that week’s My Word competition, not Denis’s? The mechanical problems that arose with a van during a household removal job led to the office secretary telegramming the boss: “Sick Transit, Gloria Monday”.
Probably both had a go at that particular ‘saying’ as some were repeated over the course of the run of the programme, albeit with different versions of the ‘derivation’. The only one listed in the British Global Comedy Collaborative thegbcc.info/Web/Misc/w-cy/My_Word.html#Robertson appears to be by Denis.
JR – you may be right; I suspect that even now. busy fingers are tracking down the original episode(s). [My personal preference was for the explanation that “The Age of Chivalry is gone” but it doesn’t have a railway connexion…]
@GH
I still remember hearing it, from back in the 1960s!
As I recall, Muir and Norden were each given a different challenge each week. However, some of the challenges were repeated in later episodes.
Goodness, it’s 25 years since the last show! Some things just stick in the mind
– Muir’s mnemonic for his to-do list: “Soup, a cauli, fridge, elastic, eggs, pea, halitosis”
– Norden’s unfortunate fancy dress costume “Dressed in a little Brie for Thora T”
– Muir’s choices after a washing machine malfunction destroyed most of his wardrobe: “between the duffel and the cheap blue T”
– and of course the miscalculating eskimo who literally burnt his boat: “You can’t have your kayak and heat it”
People who live in Grass Houses shouldn’t stow Thrones
Railway one:
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas La Gare
( St Pancras, I think )
@timbeau – seeing as we are so far off topic (whatever that means for the Christmas quiz) can you recall who told the splendid story about travelling on a tower wagon in fancy dress as a cardinal?
@Greg
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas La Gare
long before Muir and Norden’s time – the Victorian wit Arthur Pinero described the Royal Courts of Justice thus when they were opened in 1885. The epi thet has also been directed at Keble College Oxford.
Is there an LR article which mentions the shorter New Bus for London?
What’s the reasoning behind building it? Are there routes with tight corners or otherwise awkward roads, which the full-length bus can’t easily navigate?
I mentioned this in a response to a post of timbeau on another thread but we both got snipped for being seriously off-topic.
Courtesy of LOTS, the new short NRM is needed for Route 91, where the Crouch End terminus has tight clearances and an extension to suitable point would need an extra bus. The new mini NRM will still have 3 doors and 2 staircases but a seating capacity of just 54 or 56 and still no opening windows.
And how many seats did the RT have? Let alone the normal RM…? (And they had opening windows!)
56 and 64
@Anonymous at 16.13
Your and timbeau’s comments were snipped as they were the answer to a quiz question. LBM
LBM. Sorry, entirely unintentional
[Not a problem at all. LBM]
I rest my case.
Graham H: I presume the case you are resting is one which says that making a short borisbus is bonkers. It may well be bonkers, but comparing it to two different obsolete buses, with nowadays-unacceptable accessibility does not prove it.
There are undoubtedly suitable modern buses on the market for this requirement, but the pre-war notion that London is different and cannot cope with this “provincial” stuff is taking a long time to die off.
@Malcolm – of course, neither the RT nor the RM is PRTMIS compliant; I was merely amused that 80 years of progress doesn’t seem to have chieved much more than that, and, of course, the RM may be obsolete but can still be seen in service on London streets as I write.
Do you think that the notion that “London is different” has anything to do with maintenance practices inherited from the LGOC? I can’t think of any other provincial operator who dismantled buses so thoroughly as LGOC/LT and there are the entertaining stories of Aldenham trying to apply that philosophy to standard provincial kit.
“Your and timbeau’s comments were snipped as they were the answer to a quiz question”
…..and I had been so careful to avoid drawing attention to that!
@Graham H
I’m at a loss on what PRTMIS means. My friend Mr Google (UK) has not been helpful in this regard. Perhaps you might like to submit some Google-proof Xmas Quiz questions for next Winter Solstice? LBM
I think this may be a reference to PRM-TSI (see below). This applies to heavy rail, but it is possible that by rearranging the letters, as Graham seems to have done, it can somehow be adapted for buses.
The Persons with reduced mobility – technical specifications for interoperability (PRM-TSI) relates to accessibility of the European Union’s rail system for persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility. Malcolm
The short NB4L is apparently an evaluation vehicle. It was rumoured to be heading to route 91 where the roundabout at Crouch End Broadway is rather tight. However today’s latest rumour is that the 91’s conversion will proceed with normal length NB4Ls but with a very tight turn being made at the roundabout. Given that normal length conventional buses have smashed into buildings at that roundabout in the past we shall see how carefully route 91 drivers have to be in future. It seems that routes 91, 68, 3 and 211 are all in line for NB4L conversions shortly but that does not cover the full intake of 800 buses so 2, possibly 3, more routes will fall victim to NB4L-isation.
There are a considerable number of routes which standard NB4Ls cannot run on – 14, 22, 6, 139 are a few such examples – and it is suggested that TfL want a shorter version to allow more conversions. Of course the bit that is not remotely clear is how they will be funded and procured. I am increasingly of the view that TfL will require operators to buy them or lease via the usual contract process rather than TfL requiring a capital purchase. This is a way of “getting round” the need for more purchases to go before the TfL Board where there is unlikely to be any business case and, of course, the Mayor usually chairs the Board. We shall see what happens in the coming weeks. There are also a number of outstanding Mayor’s Answers on the subject of more NB4Ls that may also cast more light on what TfL are up to!
TfL is also rumoured to have arranged for a Volvo B5L hybrid chassis to be bodied with the NB4L body but we don’t know how many doors it will have as the Volvo engine is on the nearside where the rear platform would be. We have already seen that Alexander Dennis have developed the Enviro City that NB4L-esque features with the first batch on route 78 and more following for the new contract on route 26. No sign yet of a NB4L with the opening windows – all the new ones being built are still to the original design.
I did see a suggestion that the reduced unladen weight of the shorter bus would at last provide an NBfL which would allow 87 passengers to be carried without exceeding the maximum allowable gross weight, although thirty of them would be standing so they would have to be good friends.
Back to Question 18 and this PDF file may possibly be of interest.
If I recall correctly, these weren’t merely faults that caused Crossrail some difficulties, these were previously unknown faults that we only now know about because of Crossrail. Of course, it is not generally as exciting as finding plague pits so didn’t hit the news or the TV like unknown dead bodies did.
The short NRM (née NBfL) is numbered LT806. How does this tie in with the authorised build of 800? Do the initial build (and this one) count as prototypes in some way so outside the production run? This numbering rather implies that any more short NRMs, at least, will be additional to the 800.
As I recall, it was six prototypes, a production run of 600, and a repeat order for 200 more.
@timbeau. Thanks, that makes sense of the 806. So presumably there will either be just one short one, an additional order, or a change to the existing plans?
@ Anonymous / Timbeau – there were eight initial vehicles but LT1-3 whizzed off on world tours / holidays. Despite returning to London LT1 and 2 have not re-entered service but 3 has. LT8 was one of the early euro6 testbed vehicles so moved from Arriva’s fleet to Metroline for evaluation on route 24. I expect the current orders to reach 808 not 806. I’ve seen no explanation as to why the short vehicle was / is (who knows) numbered LT806 other than being that number in the production cycle. Furthermore, apart from causing excessive excitement amongst enthusiasts, I don’t know why it has renumbered ST2001. This has set hearts a flutter that TfL has secretly ordered 2,000 LTs when there is no demonstrable evidence that financial authority of that quantum has been sought never mind budgeted for. Still the whole project has been as transparent as dark treacle so anything could happen.
Re PoP,
Q18 All were also the locations for road closures so that old weak water mains could be replaced for Crossrail station tunneling work…
Suggestion to bus operators: If there is insufficient room to turn the bus around you could try altering the route slightly so it turns around somewhere where there is more room. This might prove slightly simpler and cheaper than commissioning a new type of bus.
@Anonyminibus – err all the roads in the immediate vicinity of the 91’s terminus have some rather tight turns on them meaning a NB4L would struggle. The alternative is to send buses up the road on a long loop working via Hornsey station which is prone to congestion and which could need at least 1, possibly 2, extra buses. I think all this is very well understood by TfL and Metroline.
As I understand things, the short LTs (classified STs) will number 200, so as to fulfill the Mayor’s pledge that 1,000 new Routemasters will be running on the streets of London within his mayoral term. OK, they won’t all be running by the time of the election, but the last batch has now been ordered.
If they are to be numbered ST 2001 upwards, I would guess that this is to tie into the LTZ 2001 registration number sequence (Q3 refers)..
I’m afraid that I still think that three doors and two staircases on a shorter bus is over-provision, even though the reduced amount of glass will now allow the passenger capacity to increase beyond that of the longer versions. Just think how many more passengers could be accommodated (and seated) if the doors and staircases were reduced in number.
@petras209
“If they are to be numbered ST 2001 upwards, I would guess that this is to tie into the LTZ 2001 registration number sequence ”
That was my assumption too, the LTs being registered in the LTZ 1xxx series and the STs in the LTZ 2xxx series. (The first eight were originally give proper London registrations – LT61AHT-CHT and LT12DHT-HHT)
And yes, there were eight prototypes so LTZ1806/2001 is the antepenultimate one of the current order, not the last.
I know it’s a silly point by comparison, but I’m rather excited by these letters being re-used. ST and LT are both bus types of great significance, though of course the earlier LTs had an extra axle (and some were single-deck). The next type will have to be when someone concludes that the STs are a bit too short, and they go for STL (which my father firmly believed stood for Short Type (Long); though I understand that other theories are also available).
@ Petras409 – where is the financial authority or budget for TfL to buy 200 short NB4Ls? No sign of this anywhere and TfL officials previously told an Assembly Committee they weren’t buying any more. If you can point to some evidence of an order or authority for the 200 buses I’d love to read it. TfL have still not answered Mayor’s Questions on this subject! 🙁
@ WW
Please ignore my earlier reference to the order for 200 STs. My source made reference to the 11 routes that had failed their route surveys for the longer LTs and went on to describe the order for 200 buses.
Having read the article again, but less hastily, it is now clear that the order for 200 extra buses referred to the increase from 600 to 800 LTs, rather than additional buses.
I will retreat to a darkened room and promise to read more slowly in future !
@ Petras409 – ta for the reply. I am keeping my beady eye on the topic of NB4Ls given the swirling rumours about all sorts of possibilities. Any actual facts would be nice to get hold of but they’re proving hard to find!
Have I missed the announcement of the 2015 winners?
Going up when I get home – sorry. It’s been a long couple of weeks…
Might the 2015 winners be announced this weekend?
Perhaps the prize-winners themselves could post their scores and prizes? It might be interesting to see who got closest to a full house?
So will we ever find out the winners? Or were no prizes awarded in the end?
Having got 100% correct last year found this year more difficult so did not submit an entry. Would be interested to know what the winning entries/scores were or are details only available to subscribers?
Any likelyhood of winners and scores being posted?
I assume the likelihood at this point is zero.
It’s a great shame, partly because I’m really interested to see how well people did this year but also because this presumably means there won’t be a quiz in future years. It has always been a lot of fun, but you can’t run a competition and then not reveal the winners.
The winners were not posted last year IIRC, nor the year before.
I would actually like a tale of the top 5 or 10 contestants, just to see how well the rest of us did ….
On 12th January, JB was about to publish the details – what changed?
Well there could be illness or high workload in getting volume 3 of LR out, but 2 months is a bit of a stretch. While I find this site interesting and generally of a high standard of comment the lack of followup to the quiz over the past three years is disappointing. If people take the challenge and time to enter the quiz at the least the number of enteries, the number of enteries with all answers correct or the highest number of correct answers, should be posted. Also each question listed with number of incorrect answers would be interesting to see which questions were generally found to be the most difficult. This posted as opinion but intended to be constructive.