The 2024 London Reconnections Christmas Quiz

It’s that time of year and so here is the 2024 London Reconnections Christmas Quiz.

2024 was significant for your quizmaster as it was his first full year of retirement and, also, an increasingly debilitating medical condition was finally diagnosed and and easily fixed once the cause was known. Both this things mean that there has been more time to dedicate to the Christmas Quiz than previously available.

As a consequence of the changed circumstances, although there are fewer questions many of them are multi-part so there should be plenty to keep you busy. Also, there has been time to test the questions out on a couple of willing guinea pigs. This has identified errors, ambiguity, instructions that need more clarification and helped identify further sub-questions to some of the main questions. Moreover, there will be more time to spend marking answers that are sent in and actually getting around to distributing prizes.

The prizes so after are token gestures but are various books loosely related to Shenfield Electrification which is a subject on which we hope to have a few related article next year. Amongst the books potentially on offer we have multiple copies of the reprint of ‘I Tried To Run A Railway’ by Gerard Fiennes, good condition copies of ‘Liverpool Street to Ilford’ and ‘Ilford to Shenfield’ (both Middleton Press) and ‘The Central Line’ (Capital Transport). No prizes for guessing who ordered various books not realising he already had a copy in his library.

We will decide on how many prizes to award depending on the results which are often close. The outright winner (if there is one) will get first dibs and so on. To enter send your answers by 23.59 on December 31st 2024 to [email protected].

Whilst comments generally are welcome, please do not post anything that gives too much of a clue as to answer. Such comments will be deleted.

Finally, in addition to the usual quiz, we hope to publish a Collaborative Christmas Quiz some time next or following week so look out for that.

Question 1

It is quite well known that Heathrow Terminal 4 Underground station had no passengers at all in 2021 due to the station being closed as an indirect consequence of the Covid virus. Less well known is that another Underground station has been closed for over a year and has had no passengers, so far, in 2024. Which Underground station is that?

Question 2

A category of forward-looking people was given a dumb steer in 2024 by TfL. What people were targeted and which type of transport was involved?

Question 3

Which card got the key of the door in 2024?

Question 4

Initially it was 65. Then it increased by one to 66 and eventually it was finalised at 70. In 2024 it was supplemented by a further ten to make a total of 80.

a) What is being referred to?

b) If it increases further, what is the total then expected to be?

Question 5

Work being carried out, continuing throughout 2024, means that at one London Overground station the platforms are being made shorter at one end and longer at the other end which will make the station even closer than it already is (platform end to platform end) to one of the adjacent stations? At which station is this work being carried out?

Question 6

a) Identify exactly where this building is located. For example, if you believe it really is in Paddington then an answer of ‘Paddington’ is not sufficient.

b) Why might many people not have noticed this building until 2024?

Whilst on the subject of something that may or may not be Paddington related

c) Which station and which platform is this?

Question 7

a) Is this building currently a station (yes/no)?

b) If it is a station then identify which station it is. If not, then identify what the building currently is.

Question 8

A group of men are sitting at a pub (and they probably are all men). You cannot hear the entire conversation but amongst the words you hear are Rexine, Doverite and ears. They also talk about a monkey pole. What could one probably say is true about all of them?

Question 9

This is a question about escalators on the DLR.

a) What is the only original (1987) DLR station to have escalators fitted as part of the construction work?

b) Name one DLR station where an escalator or escalators have now been fitted but the station did not originally have them. By DLR station we mean a station that is exclusively served by DLR trains.

c) Name one station with passive provision for escalators (we think there is only one).

d) Name one existing station expected to be fitted with escalators in the future (again we think there is only one).

e) Name the DLR station that hasn’t had all its escalators fully functioning since 2021

Question 10

Whilst on the the subject of the DLR, why is Mudchute station so named?

a) Or rather why was it supposedly not given the obvious name for it?

b) And what was that name?

Another DLR station was not given so much consideration to its name and consequently contains many Beatles references.

c) What is that station?

Question 11

Various questions about north and south of the river.

a) What station name was originally given to a railway station north of the river Thames but now refers to an Underground station which is south of the river Thames?

b) Which Underground station north of the Thames shares its name with a former London terminus south of the river Thames? The terminus may not have officially had this name but it is the name generally used to refer to it.

c) Which station is the only station to have an entrance on both the north and the south of the Thames?

d) Which station is named after a building on one bank of the Thames but the station is actually located on the other bank of the Thames?

e) What tram stop south of the Thames has a very similar name to a station north of the Thames?

f) Which station name was originally given to both a station north of the Thames and a station south of the Thames? Both are within the zones 1-6 area. One has had its name supplemented which now distinguishes it from the other which sometimes carries a suffix to avoid any possible ambiguity.

g) What station name refers to a former railway station on one side of the Thames that was on a branch line and had two platform faces with two tracks but this was reduced to one track and a current railway station on the other side of the Thames that is on a branch line and had two platform faces and two tracks but this is now reduced to one track?

h) Finally, outside London this time, what station has a name which refers to two nearby parishes, one on the north side of the Thames and the other on the south side? Furthermore, the parishes are in different counties.

Question 12

The following is about a story, supposedly true, about a problem when implementing new Piccadilly line trains – almost certainly 1959 tube stock. For context, in those days, trains were not generally tendered for as complete ready-to-go trains and many of the smaller components were specifically ordered and fitted to the basic train in-house at Acton works or one of the depots.

An incident occurred on the westbound Piccadilly line platform at Earls Court station where a train departed with the doors open. The guard insisted that he had not given the starting signal to indicate that the doors were closed and the train was ready to depart. The driver was absolutely adamant that the ding-ding bell code had been given. As it was not his job to check that the doors were closed, he drove off. There was no evidence to suggest that the guard had given the “right away” signal.

The issue was a concerning one and the driver was seriously reprimanded but the union came to his defence and a strike was threatened. Management was concerned as they did not want a recurrence of this dangerous situation and felt it could not be glossed over. They were also anxious to avoid a strike. One issue was could it possibly be the case that driver had genuinely heard the bell code or something that could have been thought was the bell code.

As a conference discussing this issue was taking place, someone interrupted the meeting to tell those assembled there that an identical incident had just taken place only this time on the northbound platform at Bounds Green.

Immediately one of the assembled said “Oh well, it must be a problem with the cab light then”.

a) What similar feature on the Piccadilly line (not necessarily a physical one) do Earls Court westbound and Bounds Green northbound platforms have?

b) What behaviour of some drivers when driving an Underground train enabled one person to immediately diagnose the problem?

Question 13

In The Curious Case of Platform 14 at Paddington we referred to platform 16 which is at Paddington Underground Station (Hammersmith & City and Circle lines). Yet this is not the highest platform number on the Underground. We are referring to officially designated number evidenced either by reference to Carto Metro or the working timetable. We are not restricting ourselves to platform numbers advertised to the public.

What is the highest designated number platform on the London Underground at which you can catch a train?

Question 14

Underground station names are sometimes misleading as they are not the nearest station to the station name. Sometimes it is only a matter of metres – for instance where the station with a name of a road is actually on a side road and a different station actually fronts that road.

We are looking at any exit from the Underground station to the nearest walkable location of the actual place name (e.g. the entrance of the place or the pavement of the road).

Name the nearest Underground station to:

a) Euston Square

b) Mansion House

c) Turnham Green

d) Cannon Street (multiple answers acceptable but we were really looking for one in particular)

e) Goldhawk Road (not Goldhawk Road station itself but another that exits directly onto that road)

Question 15

Various Thameslink Questions

The Thameslink Programme was intended to provide 24tph through the centre of London. It never exceeded 22tph and currently manages 20tph (assuming no cancellations) during the peak hour.

a) Which proposed service in the final plan (as at May 2018) was never implemented?

b) What service was implemented but withdrawn during Covid and hasn’t been reinstated?

c) Which is the newest station to open on Thameslink?

d) Which station lost its regular direct fast trains (one intermediate stop) to East Croydon due to the Thameslink Programme? Consequently, immediately after the introduction of the May 2018 timetable, the only direct services between these two stations were by regular all-stations trains. Subsequently, these trains were withdrawn and there are now just two direct trains per day between this station and East Croydon.

e) Which existing station, never intended to be part of the Thameslink service, now (since Covid) has 2 Thameslink tph stopping there? As far as we are aware, this applies to just one station and this station has been around for a long time.

f) Which new four-platform station will Thameslink serve if it gets universal approval?

Question 16

What are these devices between the running rails? Each answer counts as one point.

Question 17

What is the shortest unbroken (no changing trains) train journey in London you can make that calls at stations identified by a sequence of the four main compass points as a prefix?

To clarify:

• West Acton is valid but Hounslow West is not. In the latter case, west is a suffix not a prefix.
• There can be intermediate stations that do not have compass directions in their name between the named stations.
• If the first station was West xxxxxxx, then the journey must either call at North yyyyyy, East zzzzz and South wwww in that order or must call at South yyyyyy, East zzzzz and North wwww in that order.
• The main station name can be either the same or different. So West Acton, North Acton, East Acton would be part of a valid sequence as would East Putney, South Kensington.
• Southfields, Southgate etc are not valid.

e) State the station and the platform number for the picture in d)

f) A station at Heathrow

g) This message is present in numerous places.

h) Sign at Paddington

i) Sign at King’s Cross

Finally, many thanks to Jonathan Roberts and Concord for both providing questions or inspiring part-questions and for willingly testing out the quiz and giving useful feedback.