The 2014 LR Quiz: Answers and Winners

1. @Fandroid
   “Q19. I picked up the clue about Canaries, but absolutely couldn’t find any images that clinched what that passageway was. Anyway, what was the long walk associated with it? In the end I had a wild guess at Liverpool Street Utilities Corridor.”

   Q15: there is another picture on the internet showing a commemorative headboard, and from the comments some people seemed to think it was that that had been photoshopped out, but in that picture the unit is displaying “75” in the headcode panel, rather than the red square indicating the rear of a unit: clearly this picture was taken earlier, before the driver had changed ends.
   It was of course the recent conversion to three-rail operation which made the tour possible, but BR wee in no hurry to recover the redundant fourth one.

   Q18 – I found it by googling Variobahn in Google images. This came up very quickly http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Bybanen23.juni2010.jpg, and then it was just a matter of googling the name on the front of the tram.

   As I said, either photoshop or a very long Crayon, from Beckenham Junction via the Channel Tunnel, the belgian coastal tram and the Oresund bridge!

   Byparken is probably the closest tram stop to the Shetlands

   Google images, using keywords Canary Wharf (from the file name), Crossrail (from the question) and corridor (something you walk down) found a very similar picture to the one in the question.

   Q8″And can anyone explain the connection with Kolomenskoye (fascinating though that diversion was!) ?”
   Googling that word found a palace – there are only three stations in London with that word in their name: one of them closed in 1953 and was never electrified, one of them hasn’t seen overhead wires since 1926 – it had to be the third one. Google Street view from outside the entrance on the east side identified the building in the background to confirm it.

2. Ah well – back down the salt mines to dig up more questions for this year’s quiz – (oops what a give away). Well done to all of you whose boozle was not bammed. Happy New Year.

3. Q15 – I am hoping that my original photo can be added to the answers to compare. You would see that the only things ‘missing’ are the station sign and the fourth rail. I have also provided a photo of the other end of the train further to illustrate just what a tatty place Croxley Green station was then (requested be put up here as well) – and the pre-war 4-COR EMU we were on, off the Southern Region, was tatty enough in those latter days of the stock! The looks on folk’s faces when we ran into Euston! BR Rail Blue with bright yellow ends did it few favours. We ‘did’ Broad Street and Watford Junction as well. I even have a photo of one significant LR contributor as the evening was drawing in at Windsor (SR) on the same day.

   Date of the photos: 8th November 1970 – L.C.G.B. (Croydon Branch) – Southern & North London Electric Train Tour.

   Oh, and the headboard hadn’t been brought from the other end when I took the photo, so it was not missing from the view when I took the photo.

4. @Graham Feakins
   “I am hoping that my original photo can be added to the answers to compare. You would see that the only things ‘missing’ are the station sign and the fourth rail. ”

   Yes, that would be nice. Interesting to see how different it would look from

   http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/mill_hill_east/mill_hill(c.1960s)east_old4.jpg

   http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/mill_hill_east/index8.shtml

   which had me fooled!

5. Funny… Q15, looked at photo 11 on http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/Croxley_Green_line_1.html again and somehow the wrong picture of Mill Hill East looks more like the Photoshop-to-make-a-question photo due to the removal of the station building!

6. Part of my comment in the wee small hours got garbled: the following passage was in reply to Fandroid’s question about Q19

   Google images, using keywords Canary Wharf (from the file name), Crossrail (from the question) and corridor (something you walk down) found a very similar picture to the one in the question.
   http://www.ascenda-mcl.com/Fumes-evacuation-corridors.html

7. Thanks to:-
   timbeau 31 December 2014 at 16:43

   “International coach passengers go through immigration and customs control at the port of entry.”

   Perhaps we will all remember this the next time somebody has a rant about the same happening to train passengers.

8. Kolomenskoye is a palace made of wood, so this pointed not only to a palace station but also to the previous name.

   I think the heraldic question had far too many possible answers. As with any quiz, the quizmasters decision must be graciously accepted. I went in the totally wrong direction of Stowe to Schools Class to Waterloo……..

9. Good point, Ray, but bear in mind that (other than London-Oxford) coach services are not known for being competitive with other modes in the time dimension…

10. @timbeau. thanks for the explanation and link for Q19. I eventually found a corridor (the one at Liverpool Street) but failed to include the word in my Google search. I have no idea what the Liverpool Street one actually looks like as I never found an image, just a description in someone’s Linkedin CV!

    @Kit Green. Kolomenskoye. Thanks for the timber palace explanation. I got the answer right as I homed in on stations with O/H wiring. Having found a description of the Moscow Kolomenskoye palace I unconsciously jumped mentally to Alexandra Palace and with a bit of help from Google found some photos to clinch it.

    It wasn’t difficult to source the location for Q15, as there are several photos of the actual tour on the web. I puzzled over the lack of the tour nameplate until further researches on the 4-COR indicated that the red panel on the left showed that this was the rear of the unit. The other photos of the unit’s front clearly showed the 4th rail. So hey bingo!

    I’m with Greg on Q20 though. You can correctly put an association together which gives the Central London Railway/Central line, including the connection/reconnection bit (with the London Olympics 1908 & 2012). Oxo sponsored the 1908 London Olympics and Water Polo shows up as a Hungarian national pastime on Google (with football). The 2012 Water Polo centre is (was?) fairly close to Stratford station. But as I said before. My other failures doomed me anyway.

11. @Fandroid

    “I’m with Greg on Q20 though. You can correctly put an association together which gives the Central London Railway/Central line, including the connection/reconnection bit (with the London Olympics 1908 & 2012). Oxo sponsored the 1908 London Olympics …. ”

    And, whilst we are at it the 1920 were a big year for Cubism! And the OXO tower was converted to that name from a power station in the 1920s.

    And Smithfield Market is much, much more meaty than “the tube”?

    “…and Water Polo shows up as a Hungarian national pastime on Google (with football). ”

    Along with Ernő Rubik’s Cube (oh and … chess).

    Talk about canine onomatopoeias up the wrong arbour!

12. Timbeau and RayK

    A trip by IDBus (SNCF) from London to Lille and back recently was handled in exactly the same way as Eurostar, with exit from UK/entry to France handled at Cheriton and exit from France/entry to UK handled at Coquelles.

    It could be argued that that part was an international train journey, but I was definitely travelling on a coach.

13. Oh well 15 out of 21 not too bad on first go. Well done to the compilers and the knowledgeable and investigatory winners. I’ll bring my 4COR tour brochure along on January’s Thursday.

14. I pondered whether a non-busnostalgista like myself could ever have got Q11. I should have thought of the Warminster-Imber busfest as a possibility. It got good coverage on this site, but no photos of the actual stop were included. The local Streetview survey dates from 2009, (before the ‘flag’ was erected?), and the bus bay at the station isn’t very clearly shown anyway. Enthusiast photos of the event capture the Imber stop, but not the Warminster one. I obviously should have bought a day return and had a look! (£13.25 from here, with a railcard).

15. It would be fun to have a quiz like this with normal pubquiz conventions (no internet, no books, limited time to plump for an answer). But I cannot quite see how such rules could be enforced, even with the best of intentions, on a website.

    (I would still have had the same close-to-zero chance of winning. But winning is not the point, is it?).

16. Aw shucks, finished already? I would have got 14 out of the 15 I attempted, if I’d remembered to submit my answers in time. Some were ‘easy’ – or at least things I knew about, but I was completely stumped on the other six. Not too bad for a first attempt.

    I’d got as far as Imber for Q11, but I knew that was a temporary stop, so I was wondering what is used at Warminster.

    Congratulations to all for a great quiz.

17. @James Bunting

    That (all checks before the tunnel) approach is standard for all passengers and freight on le Shuttle. In fact something a bit like that happens on car ferries as well, except that the exit from the ferry-port is a “hardly ever” check (in my experience), rather than the “need not even slow down” when you leave le Shuttle. But to my knowledge, the only ways you can enter the UK without having at least a previous passport check on foreign soil are private jets, private boats, or driving through rural Ireland. (Or of course from a cruise liner, as I have just learnt!).

18. @ Fandroid – I only got Q11 correct because of a large hint from Timbeau and then some very thorough searching in Flickr to find the Warminster stop. I then had to double check on a map where Warminster was relative to Imber. It was a bit of luck finding the one photo of the stop flag and being able to scale it up enough to see the words. I was originally stuck with Streetview shots of Slough town centre!

    On Q19 I just went with the clue from the photo name and stuck with Canary Wharf. I’ve been lucky enough to get inside the Crossrail station during London Open House so I knew how huge the place is even if I didn’t see the corridor in question.

    As I said earlier I’m amazed that I managed to get so many answers correct given I haven’t got the historical knowledge that some people who post to the blog have. I got a few questions spectacularly wrong like the Hampton and California one and I’m not convinced I’d ever have got that one correct.

19. [email protected]

    With all due respect I disagree. Whilst an interactive pub rules quiz might be technically feasible it would take away two challenges – the joy of trying to research the answers and the joy of setting the questions in such a way as to confound those taking the first challenge. Unlike other quizzes we try to set question that Sherlock Holmes would describe as “three pipe problems” – questions that will give you an “Aha” moment when the answer strikes you over the Muesli.
    One of the joys of the quiz is finding out there are sometimes “Aha” answers that even we did not think off. In this regard could we have a brief round of electrostatic applause for Alison W for her ” Wicket keeper beater” of a response to Q15 on the 8th December. Perhaps in future in addition to announcing winners – we should dish out “Honourable mentions”

20. @Walthamstow Writer. With my background, any mention of Hampton means ‘waterworks’ so I had a clear advantage there, knowing something of the history of those sites. It’s a bit strange but the name ‘California’ turns up quite a lot in the UK. It must have been seen as a romantic place that people aspired to (in the 1840s Gold Rush days perhaps).

    I lost count of the times that I navigated Streetview through Slough! It was however interesting to find quite a few pictures (elsewhere) of the new bus station (which looks like a very fancy wind-tunnel)

21. @Mwmbwls yes of course you are right. A pub quiz variant would actually be an entirely different animal, and overall would doubtless provide less amusement and entertainment.

    For avoidance of googlability of any future railtour pictures, it might be appropriate to hide the carriage number? Though judging by comments, many otherwise LR-quiz-skilful people did not use this…

22. @ Fandroid – having used Slough bus station once I was decidedly unimpressed. It was a hot day but it took little imagination to realise it must an utter nightmare to use on cold, wet and windy days. A classic example of appearance overriding decent functionality and comfort.

23. @Malcolm. I would be lost without Google! Some folk have detailed knowledge and personal experience to draw on. Others like me have to use what knowledge we have picked up and then use the clues as routes into various sources of information. There was no actual photo on the web that was the same one as Graham Feakins submitted but there were enough others to pin down the location. Answering the question at all would have been impossible for me without those other photos, and there were enough spoilers like the tour headboard to deflect attention from what was really missing there. Also it’s strangely difficult to get good detailed info on electrification types and dates from most published sources.

24. @Anomnibus,

    Is there another “Penge Station” somewhere?

    Further to ngh’s answer (a lovely phase often used by the now defunct “Why and Wherefore” section in the Railway Magazine), I would like to add the the question was submitted as a two parter. The second part of the question would have been:

    In the unlikely event that the Penge Station referred to was the first Penge Station then, assuming you were standing on a platform there now at the same location, where would you be?

    Now that is really hard and, I suspect, ungoogleable. But no doubt someone will prove me wrong.

    In a rather neat way of bring the strands together it was, I believe, a question in “Why and Wherefore” in the late 1960s/early 1970s that queried the actual location of the painting and a general acceptance that the suggestion of Lordship Lane was correct. It made sense as Pissarro had also done some paintings of Sydenham – not far away.

    @Briantist

    The great irony to me is that I thought I had given a big hint in this comment (obviously way too subtle) where I had also mentioned Mill Hill East but not with the intention of trying to fool people into thinking that it could be the answer to Q15.

25. the now defunct Railway Magazine in its “Why and Wherefore” section

    I still read The Railway Magazine every month. There has not however been a “Why and Wherefore” section for some years.

    [You are right of course. I was confusing Railway Magazine and Railway World. I have taken the liberty of amending my comment. PoP]

26. Pop – is Railway Magazine really defunct? And I’d love to know the route a 4COR would have used to get to Mill Hill East under its own steam (so to speak)! [See above for the first part. PoP]

27. @Mike it looks as if the track through Crouch End was closed just over a month before the railtour in question. It would anyway have had to be dragged through that bit.

28. Q14 Pissarro,

    When the picture was painted he was living above the now closed Natwest branch (or rather its predecessor) on Westow Hill with the Crystal Palace high level turntable instead of a back garden. A blue plaque is on the building (now an estate agents).

    The other possible answer to the question was while Lordship Lane station was still open the No. 12 bus provided a direct service between the 2 stations. The 12 route was subsequently shortened and the 176 now provides the same direct journey between the “stations” and then goes up the Strand.

    The original Penge question might be slightly trickier as the current incarnations in Penge East and West (renamed by SR in 1923) are arguably the 4th and 5th “Penge” stations. I suspect PoP means the very elusive Penge 2nd for google proof question, through there is one possible very very indirect clue for the very eagle eyed…

29. Turns out it probably is google-able as the answer is on wikipedia in 2 places but google doesn’t return the 2 relevant pages in any relevant searches* as far as the average devoted LR reader would look down the search results.
    (as google probably thinks “This is not the Penge Station you are looking for”)

    It doesn’t make it onto the list at http://www.disused-stations.org.uk either.

    *I had to add another 8 carefully chosen words to get the answer in a page returned as the first result on a google search (helped by knowing the answer but not including that in the search terms).

30. Many thanks as ever; those I got, I enjoyed the ‘Aha!’, those I didn’t, I can see how I might have got – which is as it should be.

31. Just on Q19, I got there, like timbeau, via the file name but having done so and identified the corridor as a fume evacaution one, I wondered whether there isn’t a further link in that canaries were used by miners to identify the presence of killer gases and fumes underground. (Maybe I’m being overclever …?)

32. I wondered whether there isn’t a further link in that canaries were used by miners to identify the presence of killer gases and fumes underground. (Maybe I’m being overclever …?)

    You’re not. I was particularly proud of that one.

33. @John Bull- maybe there should be a prize for the most devious question setters?

34. Gentlemen – re the answer to Q13, both Wikipedia and the BTP web site state at the NLR train was FROM Fenchurch Street. Is this wrong?

35. Re Anon,

    The murder was before Broadgate (or Liverpool Street) opened so less choice for other departure points…
    If you look at Cartometro some of the former tracks that would have enabled the route have either been removed or reused by the DLR.
    http://carto.metro.free.fr/cartes/metro-tram-london/

36. It’s easy to be covered in confusion about the notorious 1st railway murder. Lines have closed, stations have moved/closed/been renamed/reopened !

    The train was travelling FROM Fenchurch Street to its destination at Chalk Farm.

    Mr Briggs body was found on the line between what was then Bow station and the first site of Victoria Park station (until 1866) . He was taken (still alive at the time) to the Mitford Castle pub (now the Top o’ the Morning) in Cadogan Terrace close to the Hertford Union Canal. Blood and other traces of the attack were found by passengers getting on at ‘Hackney Station’. This could be the predecessor to the present day Hackney Central station.

    The Bow to Victoria Park line closed to passengers in 1944, and is now mostly built over.

    Victoria Park station was replaced two years later (1866) by a station on the junction with the line to Stratford (with platforms on both lines). Joe Brown’s atlas gives this station name as Victoria Park, Hackney Wick. It closed in 1943, and a new Hackney Wick station (a bit further east) eventually opened in 1980. To add to the confusion, there was a station close to Bow station called Victoria Park and Bow station. This had platforms both on the main line from Bishopsgate (pre Liverpool Street) to Stratford and on the chord linking Fenchurch Street with that line. It didn’t (according to Joe Brown) serve the NLR, and closed in 1851 anyway.

    I’m not sure if I’ve clarified anything. I gave Hackney Wick as the station answer, although my later researches indicate that Hackney Central might be at least an equal contender. The latter would have given Muller time to get off at Victoria Park unnoticed before the new passengers got on at Hackney (Central) and discovered the evidence of the attack.

    Interestingly, the investigating officer, DI Tanner used new technology to apprehend his suspect. Muller had set off for America before a fine bit of detection identified him as the suspect. Tanner (‘of the Yard’, presumably) set off on a steamship and arrived in New York over two weeks before Muller did in his sailing ship.

37. The Londonist site has a future question for this quiz –

    Which are the 2nd longest escalators behind Angel Station ?

    A – The escalators down to Crossrail at TCR Station .

    See link to confirm answer and see beyond new Northern Line entrance opening Monday 11 Janusry –

    http://londonist.com/2015/01/central-line-trains-not-stopping-at-tottenham-court-road-from-saturday.php

38. The Coandă-1910 employed a ducted fan (though Coandă was Romanian – it is next door to Hungary!), Christopher Cockerell was born in 1910 and invented the Hovercraft, which employs a ducted fan, jellied eels were perhaps tuppence a portion in Edwardian London, both cockerels and eels are meaty, and it’s apparently a popular pastime in Hungary to fill one’s hovercraft with eels. Thought I might have been barking up the wrong tree with that one, I really couldn’t see how the platonic solid fitted in!

    But in all seriousness many thanks to the LR team for providing many hours of intrigue and frustration over the festive period, and congratulations to the worthy winners.

39. @ngh:

    I’ve found no evidence that either of the two Penge stations were substantially relocated, other than vertically:

    Today’s Penge West was preceded by an earlier, short-lived, station at a lower level, when the line crossed the nearby road on a level crossing. This closed after just two years, decades before Pissarro was around to paint anything. He didn’t move into the local area until 1870, long after the line had been quadrupled and raised up to cross the High Street on a bridge.

    As far as I can tell, the present Penge West station is pretty much on the same site as its short-lived predecessor, albeit at a higher elevation. Nevertheless, the line had been quadrupled roughly twenty years before Pissarro had even moved to the area, so the view depicted cannot possibly be of anything on that route.

    It also cannot be Penge East as the landscape simply doesn’t match at all, whichever direction he was facing: looking towards London, you’d definitely see the Penge Tunnel portal, as well as the LB&SCR crossing above it. (Note, too, that the tunnel passes through a long, continuous ridge, not discreet hills.) Facing Beckenham, the line quickly ends up on a brick viaduct and the reverse-curve shown is simply not there. This was, after all, a line built for speed.

    In short: I still don’t understand how anyone could claim that painting was of either of the Penge stations. I claim shenanigans.

40. You can read the transcript of Muller’s trial at
    http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=def1-920-18641024&div=t18641024-920#highlight

41. The original title given to the picture was apparently “Penge station” call it artistic licence by the artist.
    (after checking some dates so what was the 3rd in the above comments is now the 5th)

    The original Penge Station 1839-41 (not PoP’s original???) is 12foot under Penge West and was closed when the line was raised and the level crossing on the High Street became a bridge. The gate to the station remains next to the bridge and is visible on street view. The 4 tracking (the current slows added either side of the existing tracks which became the fasts) came later in 1854 with the arrival of the Palace as well as the railway flyover for the down slow just up the line that went to the Palace. The level crossing removal explains the dip in the road under the bridge were the road was sunk when the level crossing was removed providing about 1/3rd of the height difference. (The Homebase site was the goods yard)

    The second Penge Station that PoP refers to as the original? is neither the current Penge West or Penge East but a third extant station…
    The topography doesn’t match the painting though hence PoP’s “unlikely”

    The 3rd and 4th Penge Stations opened on the same day 1st July 1863 LCDR Penge (East after 1923) and LBSCR opening Penge (West post 1923) on. LBSCR probably doing it as a spoiler. Only these would have been open as Penge at the time of painting.

    The fifth Penge station was on the Pneumatic railway just inside the park 150m and direct line of site from the bridge mentioned above. Open from 27 August 1864 to 31 October 1864. (the other station on the line being “Sydenham” near the current location of the TV mast at the top of the park)

42. Correction: I’ve just refreshed my memory of the area with a bit of Google Street View and the excellent Beckenham History website’s extensive gallery of historic photos. Photo #08 in the linked gallery shows the road was lowered to pass under the LB&SCR, rather than the track being substantially raised. Which makes a lot more sense.

    (Incidentally, the next photo – #09 – shows tram tracks being installed on Beckenham Road – today’s Penge High Street. It makes an interesting contrast with the work done in Edinburgh for their new tram line.)

    A similar road-fettling technique was used for the Beckenham Junction – Birkbeck line where it crosses the Beckenham Road not far from Clock House. (At the latter, the road was raised to pass above the line to remove another level crossing, probably because of the flood-prone Chaffinch brook which flows nearby.)

    I do apologise for my useless memory. I shall have it taken out and shot forthwith.

43. @ngh – “The original Penge Station 1839-41 (not PoP’s original???) is 12foot under Penge West and was closed when the line was raised and the level crossing on the High Street became a bridge…… The level crossing removal explains the dip in the road under the bridge were the road was sunk when the level crossing was removed providing about 1/3rd of the height difference.”

    I believe “clearance beneath this bridge next to Penge West station was 13 feet 3 inches (4 metres) before the tramway was built… [and] was lowered to permit of operation of the [electric] trams.” – per Harley in “Croydon Tramways”. Hence the dip. The trams terminated in Thicket Road.

44. To add to the link that Anomnibus gives, this related one:

    http://www.beckenhamhistory.co.uk/flashNifties/gallery3.html

    should take you to the page where, in section “Penge 5” in the clickable list, you can find picture 1c, which clearly shows the roadway being lowered under the bridge for the tramway.

    Oh, and esp. Anomnibus, [“the next photo – #09 – shows tram tracks being installed”] – I’m sure you appreciate that’s how tram track is still laid/relaid in many quarters in Continental Europe. It’s just that over here where heavy rail practice tends to intervene – expensively, mainly because we’ve lost the knack and are seemingly unwilling to look abroad. It’s nothing to do with all the blather about stray currents, for example.

45. @ngh:

    In that case, I suspect Pissarro may chosen the name for marketing reasons. Penge was much more well-known by then, thanks to the nearby Crystal Palace, than Lordship Lane would have been.

    Re. the “disused gate”:

    There were two gates, one either side of the bridge. Both were used for the 1863 station, not the 1839 one.

    In 1904, a tram line was built under the bridge. This involved lowering the road level further to provide the additional headroom needed for double-decker trams and the trolley wires. The ‘down’ side pavement alongside was also lowered at this time. (The other pavement remains at its original level, hence its unusual height above the adjacent road today.)

    A couple of photos in that gallery I linked to earlier illustrate this:

    #8 (counting from the start) shows the station in 1907. You can clearly see the second (now lost) gate, as well as the covered staircase behind it rising to platform level. (You can see the site of this gate in Google’s Street View.) Note the pavement on the right is clearly at a higher level than the one on the left. This shows the original road level.

    Photo #20, and a similar one, the 26th photo in from the end of the gallery – the caption says it’s #57, but the numbering is all over the place – both show the tramway under construction directly under the bridge, taken from similar vantage points at around the same time in 1904, just a few years before that first photo. (The #57 photo shows the second, lost, gate more clearly. You can also see just how much the road surface was lowered during the work.)

    Note that both gates line up perfectly with the lowered street level. This isn’t possible if either was a remnant of the 1839 station: the gates would be almost 12 feet above that point, and why would you waste money lowering a disused gate?

    Take a good, hard, look at the gate in that first photo. Look at what’s wrapped around its arch. Look at how bright and clean and new those capstones are. That’s new construction, that is.

    The gates may have been built specifically to provide better interchange with the trams, or were rebuilt when the pavement was lowered. Either way, the gate you see today cannot be older than 1904.

46. @Graham Feakins:

    Yes, a late relative, Piero Muscolino, was the director of the Italian state railway company, Ferrovie dello Stato (‘FS’, pre-privatisation), and the (co-)author of a number of books on the subject. Including this one..

    He’s the main reason I have an interest in the subject of public transport.

    There are a lot of websites dedicated to Italy’s trams. This image is a particular favourite of mine.

47. You can read all about the Imber service at
    http://www.bathbuscompany.com/imber

48. Thanks Anonymous 00.26. The Old Bailey transcript confirms that the facts I got off various websites are correct. The railway witnesses variously named the station north of where the body was found as ‘Victoria Park’ or ‘Hackney-wick’*. Sometimes, the same railway witness used both names interchangeably during their testimony! The train which Briggs caught started late at Fenchurch Street, then called at Bow (according to the guard), Victoria Park, and Hackney (now Hackney Central) where evidence of the crime was discovered.

    *No wonder Joe Brown hedged his bets in his atlas!

49. @ngh

    According to J Howard Turner’s history of the LB&SCR the widening at Penge was all on the up (west) side. When the atmospheric line was built this took over the existing down line and a new up line was built, apparently because of the existing buildings on the down side of the station. When the fourth track was constructed, this was also on the up side. Also there was a bridge over the High Street from the start of the London and Croydon – they adjusted the gradients to give extra clearance.

50. So there is a minor error in the answer to Q13 – the train was from Fenchurch St not going to it!
    Also being pedantic there should have been two yogurts pictured not just one!

51. @Vince:

    I’ve read at least two different sources that claim the first station was adjacent to a level crossing. It does seem an unusual move to build the entire route as grade-separated from the outset. There really was nothing there but countryside in 1839. Penge – such as it was – was a tiny backwater hamlet a long walk away down the hill.

    I can well believe the assertion that adjusting the road level was preferred to adjusting that of the track. The roads would have been practically deserted compared to today’s traffic. Cheap, temporary crossings nearby could easily have been provided for what little traffic there was while the road-lowering work was done. This would certainly have been cheaper than the major earthworks required to raise or lower the railway.

    (Incidentally, there are engravings of the old road bridge over the canal that preceded the railway. That road has had more ups and downs than the British economy.)

    And now, I really must stop procrastinating…

52. @james Bunting
    “A trip by IDBus (SNCF) from London to Lille and back recently was handled in exactly the same way as Eurostar, with exit from UK/entry to France handled at Cheriton and exit from France/entry to UK handled at Coquelles.”

    That’s not how Eurostar is handled though – all customs and immigration is handled at the embarkation point (St Pancras/Lille/Gare du Nord etc. Eurotunnel is done before driving onto the shuttle trains, but you drive straight off with no further checks.

53. @Anonymous 15:13

    Also being pedantic there should have been two yogurts pictured not just one!

    And being really pedantic, there should have been multiple yogurts pictured not just one!

    The picture shown was intended only for internal use as a tryout to see if it was thought that the question would go down well. I shared your concern and took my camera when shopping in my local Tesco in order to get a more suitable photo. This was the revised picture submitted. However, like everyone else, I have to abide by the decisions of the quizmaster and if he chose to use the first picture then that is down to him.

    Similarly, I posted the picture of the Croydon tram and suggested it would be a good quiz question if only we knew where it was taken. When, to my surprise, I saw it was one of the questions I panicked a bit and desperately tried to find the location. At the time I had no inkling that it had been photoshopped. I didn’t know whether or not John Bull knew the location but feared the suggestion of a bonus point to anyone who knew exactly where it was meant that he didn’t. I was fairly sure it was Bergen as the prefix “Riks” in the picture is a Norwegian word meaning “state” – a bit like the German “Reich”. Fortunately a quick search on “Bergen” on the Wikipedia entry for “London Tramlink” led me to a short trail that resulted in me finding the location.

54. @poP
    having googled “Riks” without success, I adopted the more pragmatic approach of putting “variobahn” into Google images and the very picture (unphotoshopped) came up. (on the fourth row)
    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=variobahn&biw=1600&bih=717&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=LD6oVPHyL8PvUNDKgOgM&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg

    The destination displayed (Byparken) led me to the city, and the Wikipedia entry showed the same image with a caption stating that the picture was actually taken at the Byparken terminus – confirmed on Street View.

    Photoshopping out the unit number wouldn’t have been much of a hindrance – 4COR was what I searched on. Most photos of the 4COR are taken from the same end – whether showing the red tail-blind it displayed on arrival, or the “75” and headboard on departure.
    http://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/photos/701108_2.jpg

    Ally Pally
    Street View had no view corresponding directly to the question, but the buildings in the background could be identified in this view
    https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Alexandra+Palace/@51.5981296,-0.1197015,3a,75y,359.99h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1smazvYYNHHr9OwBIdzN7Ylg!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x48761bd75310a7cd:0x9a38677b79460879

55. I love all the involved debate about exactly how “right” the questions and answers were. I’m glad I knew when to stop and not overly complicate my answers. Once I’d got something that looked like a plausible and decent answer that was it. I was quite fortunate to recognise locations in some of the photo entries and it seems my Google search skills are reasonably OK. I only went back to an answer if a subsequent comment or hint cast doubt / made me think further. Knowing nothing about Penge’s railway history or Pissarro seems to have proved a benefit as once I worked out what the image was and where it could be seen I stopped searching. Clearly I didn’t pick up on all of the subtleties and connections in the clues but never mind!

56. @timbeau,

    Minor correction to your comment. It is either “Byparken terminus” or “the Bypark terminus”. Ending a masculine (or feminine word) in -en means the definite article is added. So “the Byparken terminus” actually means “the the Bypark terminus”. Yes I know Wikipedia got it wrong.

    A classic example of Riks- is Rikshospitalet which is a neutral word meaning “the state hospital” – except on Wikipedia it seems where it means the national hospital.

    A propos of nothing, an alternative Scandinavian word for hospital is Sykehus (sick house, geddit?). It is a neutral word so Sykehuset is “the sick house”.

    “By” is a town and is common on the East Coast of England after a visit by the Vikings a long time ago e.g. Whitby, Grimsby. Park I presume is just park so the tram terminates at the town park. Bybanen is “the town railway” or, as we would call it, tramway.

    I only mention this because is surprisingly easy to learn a very few Scandinavian words and very quickly get to understand, at least partially, some place names – especially some bus or tram destinations or underground (T-bane) stations. Trying to pronounce them is another matter.

57. @ngh,

    I was unaware that a station very close to the site of the current Penge West station was open between 1839 and 1841. To quote from this page :

    “The original Penge station was opened by the London and Croydon Railway in 1839, probably more for logistical reasons than anything else: the railway crossed the nearby High Street by a level crossing, and the station would have provided a place for trains to wait while the crossing gates were opened for them. The population of Penge was only around 270 at this time, not enough to make the station commercially viable. It was closed in 1841, and the level crossing was converted to a bridge soon afterwards.”

    So yes, I was referring to the second Penge station where there are still platforms present – though not the original ones.

58. The level crossing at Penge West would have had to be converted to an underbridge before the atmospheric railway opened in 1845, level crossings (road or rail) being difficult – if not impossible – with that type of propulsion.

59. @poP
    Byparken – The subtleties of the Norwegian language were lost on me – indeed at that point I didn’t even know what country it was: I was simply Googling the destination named on the front of the tram. (That the name on the front of the tram was indeed a terminus was a reasonable assumption).

    You can get that sort of confusion when a place name includes the definite article – for example the “The Hawthorns” interchange on the West Midlands Tram system, the “The Bishop’s Avenue” stop on bus route H2. Not to mention phrases like the Alhambra and the Algarve (or the US version of the Renault 5, “the Le Car”).

60. @timbeau – the best clue was in the shop sign immediately above the tram: it had to be either Swedish or Norwegian, so the next step was to investigate the relationship between the Croydon trams and recent Scandinavian fleets.A Bit of Streetview and you were done!

61. @PoP the grammatical term for a Norwegian word such as sykehus is “neuter”. Neutral sounds like a compromise between that and common gender (which occurs in some varieties of Norwegian, and is used for all nouns which are not neuter.

    I agree that it is often easy for someone with knowledge of English and German (preferably both) to understand much of any written Scandinavian language (though Icelandic is praps more challenging). As you say, pronouncing them, or understanding the spoken form, is another matter entirely.

62. @Macolm,

    Yes I wrote neutral instead of neuter. And yes to complicate matters some parts of Norway use masculine and feminine (e.g. Oslo) where as in Bergen masculine and feminine are lumped together. Let’s not get get two involved in the added complication that Norwegian is really two languages (Nynorsk and Bokmål). Waay off topic but I must admit I started it.

63. @PoP, timbeau —
    Unless Norwegian has diverged more from Danish than I think it has, “Byparken” is a proper noun. It contains a definite suffix, but that is an inseparable part of the name, not something that detaches depending on the grammatical context.

    Thus, “the Byparken terminus” is a correct way to refer to the terminus called Byparken. In Norwegian it would be “Byparken-endestasjonen”, with a separate “-en” for “endestasjon” (terminus) — or more likely “endestasjonen Byparken”.

    It’s not much different from, for example, “the The Who concert next Tuesday”.

64. I enjoyed the quiz, despite getting very few answers correct. However I’m surprised that the answer to Q.15 is Croxley Green. Three reasons; Croxley Green is on top of an embankment, so am surprised to see an overbridge in the background; the regular rolling stock in use in 70’s didn’t have a connecting corridor through the driving cab; no tube stock was run through to Croxley Green (at least in the 70s) so the central fourth rail that was apparently photoshopped out, shouldn’t have been necessary (tube stock accessed the first 400m of the Croxley Green line to access the train shed near Watford High Street, but I’m not aware that they every went further down the line).

    Many thanks to to LR contributors: keep up the excellent work.

65. @Anonymous : the event was a railtour (rather apparent, I reckon, from the cameras and anoraks in the picture), so we shouldn’t expect to see “normal” stock. The whole line had only just been converted to no longer require trains which needed the fourth rail; it was because of that the the railtour with southern stock was possible. The fourth rail could have been removed at any subsequent time, but there would have been no urgency; it probably remained until all the other rails were removed after 1990.

66. @Anonymous 18:16

    Previous comments should make this clear.

    I think that what you have presumed is an overbridge is the roof awning covering the platform. Click on the picture to enlarge or compare it with http://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/photos/701108_2.jpg

    The comments make it clear that this was taken on a special railtour. The above photo has the railtour plaque visible on the train.

    Who said anything about tube stock? London Midland Region also used the fourth rail and abandoned it shortly before this photo was taken. There is no “apparently” about it. If you want to see the original here it is.

67. @anon 1816
    Here is a view on the same occasion facing the other way – it should be evident from this that the object you thought was an overbridge is in fact the station awning.
    https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7383/14001342328_4a47840368_b.jpg

    The LNWR’s London area was electrified around WW1, in conjunction with the extension of the Bakerloo Line to Watford Junction. To avoid complications both companies used the 4-rail system. The LMR only converted to 3-rail in 1970, although recovery of the redundant 4th rail took many years (I would not be at all surprised if some lengths of it is still there!).

    Only the Southern used 4-digit unit numbers, which should narrow down the identity of the unit. Here’s a picture of the 4COR at Watford Junction alongside two of the indigenous population.
    http://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/photos/701108_3.jpg

68. Q20: I got Oxo Cube, Rubik’s Cube and Twopenny Tube, but linked them thus…

    The Oxo tower is approximately above the alignment of the Waterloo & City line.
    The Rubik’s Cube building is roughly above the alignment of the City branch of the Northern line
    The Twopenny Tube is the Central Line
    They connect at Bank Station.

69. Re Moosealot

    I linked them with the W&C as well for the Oxo tower + W&C connection as well. The W&C fare was also 2d…

70. @Briantist
    “And the OXO tower was converted to that name from a power station in the 1920s. ”

    Reading round that answer, I discover the power station was built c1900 by the Post Office. The Post Office Railway didn’t open until 1927, so the only reason I can think of why the Post Office might have needed a power station was to power its telephone and telegraph services, but these had already been in existence for several decades. Anyone know any more?

71. It may be relevant that,before the Anders patent of 1882,telephones were powered by batteries within each subscriber’s apparatus.Anders patent described how the system could be centrally powered from the exchange,presumably making a power supply necessary for the first time….?

72. Re. Q11, doesn’t a TfL bus stop have to be 1) maintained by TfL and 2) be served by at least one Tfl route? I know this looks like a London bus stop, but I doubt very much that it fulfils those criteria.

    Perhaps the flag was supplied by Tfl ? Then it could be described as a Tfl bus stop (sign). Do Tfl make their own signs ? Does the Anonymous who keeps the Imber signs in his garage know about the origins of the Warminster one ?

    I assumed it was temporary but I’ve just been round to Warminster station to check, and it IS there now. Also, the local sign shown on 2009 streetview has gone, along with its timetable, although the post is still there. The old sign was actually on the wrong side of the road for the bus stop markings on the road but the new one is in the right place.

    Presumably the 53 arriving at Frome, even further West, has to make do with an ordinary local sign.

73. Re. Scandinavian languages…

    I once translated a guide book from Swedish to English. On my first day, I knew not one word of Swedish. Five days later, I was done. Context helped, but I’m still not sure how I did it; I still can’t speak the language, but I can read it and get the gist.

    For my next trick, I’ll tie the above loosely into the main topic: The Danish word for money is… penge!

74. @Anomnibus -a friend who used to manage the District reports that a little while after LU introduced software which blocked employees from viewing porn on company machines by identifying key words, they undertook a survey of foreign languages amongst train crew and were astonished to find that at one depot over 80% of staff knew Swedish …

75. @Anomnibus
    “The Danish word for money is… penge!”

    And guess where Pissaro was born?

76. Q18. I’ll admit to already knowing that the latest London Tramlink stock was diverted from an order for Bergen by the manufacturers Stadler. That didn’t stop me from checking Streetview for Amsterdam! It got stuck in my mind that Riks and Rijks were the same thing (as in the Rijksmuseum where all those Rembrandts and Van Goghs are). Then I fixed on Sweden for a bit, before my brain woke up and I remembered the Bergen link.

    As a Surrey schoolboy, those 4-CORs were a very familiar sight, so I just took it for granted about the unit in Q15. It took a while before I properly remembered that the 4-COR worked on 3rd rail routes and those other pics revealed by Google were showing Croxley Green and a 4th rail.

    I can verify that pronunciation of Swedish words can be totally bewildering. It took a long wait on the platform at Malmo before I realised that they were announcing my train to Copenhagen as ‘Shop-n-ham’ !

77. In the hope that it will be forgotten by the time of the 2015 quiz, Google Search by Image http://www.google.co.uk/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html is your friend – at least six of the questions here were a lot easier with that help.

    Doubtless the Lords of LR Towers will fix that next time.

78. @Fandroid – I saw the Riks and linked it to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam too. I went through about 3 pages of Google search results looking for other places in Amsterdam beginning Riks before giving up as I could only answer about 3 of the other questions.

    On the subject of Swedish, I went to Stockholm a few years ago, and despite being told that 99% of Swedes speak English, I decided to learn the phrase “Talar du Engelska?” (“Do you speak English?”) to be polite. The lovely Swede I tried using it on didn’t have a clue what I was trying to say until I just said English and then she replied in perfect English, the phrase was binned after that!

79. @Jason I had exactly the reverse experience in Prague. I uttered my one phrase of Czech, which meant “I don’t speak Czech”, and I apparently pronounced it so well that my hearer utterly refused to believe me. (I have now deleted the phrase from my memory, of course).

80. @ Anonyminibus – the “person with the stops in his garage” is none other than Sir Peter Hendy, Transport Commissioner. I rather suspect he knows someone in the bus industry who makes the TfL bus stops! As for how the stop was put there well I’ve no idea but I guess some helpful local connections with the council and the Bath Bus Company came into play.

81. @anon 2319 31st Dec
    @Ww 2319 5th Jan
    So the Top Brass at TfL really do read London Connections, and even contribute! Might we get a personal appearance on Thursday?

82. timbeau
    Sir Peter Hendy, according to one article I have read, owns an RM – & drives it …..

83. @ Greg – Sir Peter owns RM1005 – it has appeared on several running days often with him at the wheel and Mr Daniels on the back. It runs on the Tower Transit operating licence. The standard internal “TfL notice” about the vehicle (all buses running on TfL service have them) has Sir Peter’s name on it – I’ve seen a photo of the notice.

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/24759744@N02/8218498634/ – I even got a nice smile when he drove past me on that occasion although we’ve never met face to face.

    IIRC Sir Peter also commented on the 2013 LR Quiz.

84. If I recall correctly, in these messages he refers to himself as “Peter”. It might be polite for us to do the same, (assuming we are not trying to make a political point about his handle).

85. @ Malcolm – I have been summarily “told off” by various people (none of them from TfL AFAIK) on other forums for using “Peter Hendy” or “Mr Hendy” so I now hedge my bets. I am not making any point about the “handle” – it’s not something that bothers me so I’d never seek to make a “point” about it or an individual who received such an honour.

86. I have to deal occasionally with a ‘Sir Robert’. He seems to encourage his entourage and acquaintances to call him Robert. It’s probably the done thing not to appear too snooty about ones ‘K’. (Can Yes Minister provide any guidance here?).

87. @Fandroid -back in the day, the general Whitehall useage was/is to refer, if possible, to people with Ks by their job title; “Chairman”, “Permanent Secretary” as it might be. You only called a Permanent Secretary “Sir Peter” if you knew him very well or were an Under Secretary. (Deputy Secretaries would have always called the Perm Sec by his Christian name). Principals, if allowed to address the Perm Sec directly, would just use “sir” or avoid using a direct reference. As to”lay” Ks (mere captains of industry and the like… ),Sir Brian was quite acceptable.

    I suspect the armed forces have a similar approach: when I joined the Service,my first Principal had been a former base Commander in Cyprus – The general rule, he said, was First Names one grade up or down, otherwise “Mr/Mrs or Sir”.

    Probably quite different these days. BTW, I hear (but maybe from Ben Trovato) that the Guardof Honour at Canberra greet the Prime Minister with “”G’day,Mate” – the highest available form of accolade.

88. @Graham H. I thought ‘bro’ was the accolade that the current Prime Minister regards as the absolute top tribute.

89. An interesting digression. I was thinking of the general social convention that if someone signs off a message as “Peter”, that is what they would prefer to be called (or at the very least, they would not be offended).

    But subsequent comments make it clear that it is still the case that many third parties take it on themselves to hold and express views as to what “A” should call “B”. So WW uses the “Sir” not to please the man himself (nor to avoid offending him), but just to avoid offending these other busybodies.

    Sigh. Still it is probably best to avoid all offence (unless some greater good can be served), so I suppose “Sir Peter” it will have to be…

90. @Fandroid – presumably with the matching form “sis”?

    @Malcolm -maybe a rash assumption of familiarity there…(After all The Queen signs off “Elizabeth” but I wouldn’t venture to address her so. )[My own preference is to lurk and see what the custom of the land might be.]

91. As long as they don’t make the common American solecism of calling him “Sir Hendy”

92. @timbeau – 🙂

    And just for amusement, if you ever have to have any dealings with the College of Arms, they like to be addressed by their title rather than their rank; so “Garter” rather than “King of Arms” or Sir Edward.

    @Malcolm – and if you think the Brits are pernickety , the Danes are far worse. A Danish oppo once explained to me that any internal communication to one of their ministers had to begin “To the Honourable Minister, the Most High”. Our chaps don’t need that sort of encouragement, of course

93. @Graham : I think the Queen is a special case. (Certain formal documents are signed thusly, but any reply I might get to my letter to her would undoubtedly be signed by someone else).

    Of course we have no idea what she herself might feel about being so addressed (if done in ignorance by a child, for instance, I suspect she’d be amused), but it is widely known that many people around her would be deeply offended (they would claim “on her behalf”), (and she might be offended on their behalf!) so no-one aware of these conventions would actually do so. Another instance of avoiding offence to third parties.

94. @Graham I don’t think I am rashly assuming anything; anyone who is happy to drive a Routemaster is (according to my estimate) unlikely to be in the least bothered how he is addressed.

95. In a desperate attempt to get back to some sort of relevance …

    When I joined the railways I worked as the lowest grade of clerk. It was quite clear that that the assistant station manager was effectively the substitute for god and had to be addressed “guvnor”. Even a chief clerk expected due reverence.

    When I moved to the completely anarchic IT department you were on first name terms with everybody. Even the director was only ever referred to as “Otto”.

    My experience in life is it is best to be over-polite until it is obvious it is unnecessary. A good example is a talk I went to by Lord Berkeley. First question “Lord Berkeley, …”.
    “Oh, Tony please” was the pained response. Of course things always depend on circumstance and it may be that the same person is greeted in a different way depending on it.

96. Another common America solecism is to refer to HM (nb not “HRH” – that is the style for less royals) as “Queen Elizabeth”. She is either “The Queen” or, if there is any doubt as to which queen, “Queen Elizabeth II”

    A queen is usually only referred to by name during her lifetime without a regnal number if she is a dowager (widow of a king) – e.g Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary. (although the most recent example preferred the style “Queen Mother” to avoid confusion with her daughter and namesake). A surname is added if it is necessary to distinguish e.g between the five Queen Catherines (Valois, Aragon, Howard, Parr, di Braganza)
    However, during her husband’s lifetime a Queen consort was just “The Queen”.

    One also uses the name without a regnal number for monarchs who were the only ones to have had the name – e.g King John, Queen Anne. Until 1952 “Queen Elizabeth” meant the woman who reigned from 1558-1603, not the Queen consort.

97. @malcolm – it’s impossible to say without meeting them, how any individual would prefer to be addressed (and by whom), hence this curious trundle down a very much off-thread by-way has been entirely in generalities. I’m not sure driving a Routemaster is a good indicator of personal stylistic preference or anything else really – I can think of a number of peers who like to drive locomotives or even trams,but I don’t think it tells us anything about them other than that.

98. Graham says ” I’m not sure driving a Routemaster is a good indicator of personal stylistic preference”.

    Well I think it is. But that is my own privilege, and if pressed I will admit that I am not being entirely rational here. I don’t think we should always be too rational.

99. @ Malcolm – I gave you an honest explanation as to my reasoning. I didn’t expect to be criticised for it. I have never met Mr Hendy in real life but when I was an employee I would probably have addressed him as “sir” in recognition of him being the most senior person in TfL. If I had been corrected and asked to address him in another way then I would have used the preferred term. In my experience senior people have differing expectations as to how they are addressed and the level of formality to be shown to them in differing situations.

    Many moons ago I often shared the lift at 55 Broadway with Sir Wilfrid Newton when he arrived in the morning. It was always a case of saying “Good Morning Sir” in recognition of his organisational position and not to do with his honour. Can we please draw a line under this because it’s off topic but also I’ve no desire to keep explaining myself when there is absolutely no intent on my part to demean or insult anyone.

100. @Timbeau – “ although the most recent example preferred the style “Queen Mother” to avoid confusion with her daughter and namesake”. However, within the Royal Household she was still referred to as Queen Elizabeth.

     @Graham H 2019 – “ I suspect the armed forces have a similar approach”. Whitehall custom was exactly as you describe in your first paragraph. Away from Whitehall and its rusticated elements the 3 services all differ slightly with the RAF being slightly more formal than the others. First name terms between junior officers, Sir to those more senior. That said, with purple (tri-service) environments becoming more common the army usage in informal settings where officers at colonel and above would be referred to by rank and first name (Colonel Mike, Brigadier Geoff) is gaining ground. There were, however, exceptions. In the MoD(Air) technical branches the customary specialist desk manning was normally a squadron leader with a SNCO bagman. Both would tend to have around 15+ years of service and within the office would often use first names, which would have caused a huge shock to the wider service community. On units (as opposed to headquarters office environments) with troops around, formal usage (rank and surname) prevails.

101. @POP
     “My experience in life is it is best to be over-polite until it is obvious it is unnecessary.”
     @Malcolm
     “I don’t think we should always be too rational.”

     To read two `thoughts of the day` in quick succession has really struck a chord with me.

     (Please forgive me – I am just having a rare `hippy` moment….)

102. @Steven Taylor – Be careful, we’ll be having an LR “Thought for the Day” before you can say “knife”…. I can see it now, each week, we have a different TFTD sponsor.

103. I am happy to draw a line under the Sir business. For the avoidance of doubt, I had no intention of criticising anyone. WW explained his reasoning very clearly, and even though I would tend not do the same, I find his approach entirely rational, respectful and understandable.

     (And of course if there is any evidence that Sir Peter Hendy actually prefers to be referred to with title, then I will be perfectly happy to comply.)

104. Background to 23A Imber service here, which also explains why it has a TfL flag.
     http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2014/07/20/timetable-for-a-bus-route-to-an-abandoned-village/

105. I was christened Peter so that will do! The flag was made by Trueform who make all TfL flags and kindly fixed by them too as they fix stops all over the UK. I think the lamp standard is on railway property, and as the Great Western are keen on modal interchange I thought they would be happy to host our stop; no harm has come of it yet. And for the avoidance of doubt, not a penny of public money has been spent! P

106. Thank you for that useful update ‘Anonymous’ ;-p

     (btw, I thought Trueform was a shoe company …)

107. All this sir, madam, Your Majesty, and so on seems awfully taxing. I can barely remember my own name of a morning, let alone the rules regarding its usage. I’d therefore like to see the adoption of the egalitarian, traditional, South London greeting of “Oi, you!” Very popular in some of the more picturesque parts of Catford and Penge.

     (Variants involving soft and hard expletives are also available for the true connoisseur. I can particularly recommend Old Low Catfordian’s, ‘Oi! W[BLEEP!]r!’, the sublime ‘Oi! T[CENSORED]r!’, and the rarely-used, but very specific, ‘Oi! Bird! Yeah, you wiv the crown and la-de-dah clothes!’)

     I commend this bill to the house. Preferably served with a white wine, but a can of cheap lager will do.

108. @Anomnibus – and yet the name ‘stimarco’ sticks with some of us over here…….

109. Quiz Q15 – PoP persuaded me to open a Flickr account and here’s the link to my first attempt, showing inter alia a few of my photos of that great day when we roamed the North London Line (including Euston – not shown) and elsewhere in a pre-war Southern Electric unit.

     In particular, repeated is the original of the Q15 Croxley Green view. Another view is of the other end of the train, up by the buffer stops, by which time the headboard had been taken to the front! This view also confirms that it could not have been Mill Hill East as the station building is on the ‘wrong’ side.

     https://www.flickr.com/photos/129814209@N04/

     Hope it works.

110. @ Graham F – yep that works OK. You should have a few views now. Just need to generate some more traffic to catch up with the 3m+ views on my Flickrstream. 😉

111. Thanks WW, so it does. It also reminds me that I really ought to scan those slides again and do a bit of ‘photo-improvement’. The more observant will notice that we visited Watford Junction twice. Doesn’t really show me up as a railway enthusiast, does it? As to whether I’ll approach that vast number of views you have accumulated, I doubt, especially as I was more worried about being struck off for lack of use within a year.

112. @Graham Feakins:

     The photos look pretty good given their age. A bit grainy, but that’s normal for consumer-grade film of the period. If you were using professional kit and stock, I’d go with a re-scan, but if not, I don’t think you’ll see much benefit.

     Seeing Broad Street is interesting. It’s one of the two London termini I’ve never used. (The other is Marylebone, but at least that’s still there.)

113. And in relation to Q8 and courtesy of a recent tweet here is some Thames News TV coverage of Diana Dors (!) christening the renamed Alexandra Palace station in 1982.

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZTDIC0bB0Q

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