Today is 1000 days since 9th December 2018.
This means Crossrail is now ONE THOUSAND DAYS LATE.
So it's a good day to ask...
WHY ARE SOME CROSSRAIL STATION NAMES IN CAPITAL LETTERS And Some Only Capitalised?
Here are two entrances to Paddington station.
» The first is the new Westbourne Terrace entrance where the escalators lead directly down to the Crossrail platforms. The sign is purple and Paddington is capitalised.
» The second is the existing Praed Street entrance which leads only to the Underground. The sign is blue and PADDINGTON is in capital letters.
Publishedrules exist for signs outside Underground stations...
• The background colour is dark blue with white lettering.
• The station name appears in capital letters.
• Generally only the station name appears and is suffixed by the word ‘STATION’.
...but nothing similar has been published for Crossrail.
Bond Street does not help us.
1000 days after the line was due to open, Bond Street station is still very much unready to receive passengers at either entrance. No signs have yet appeared.
Tottenham Court Road again has a purple and a blue.
» Tottenham Court Road is capitalised at the new Dean Street entrance which will only lead to Crossrail.
» TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD is in capital letters at the old-but-revamped entrance which leads to the Central and Northern lines, but will also lead to Crossrail. Here it appears that blue trumps purple.
Farringdon looks similar but isn't quite.
» The blue FARRINGDON sign is at the new entrance serving Crossrail and Thameslink. It's in capital letters but it's not the way to go if you want the Underground, that's across the street.
» The purple Farringdon sign is at the new entrance alongside Barbican station. It leads to the other end of Farringdon's Crossrail platforms and not specifically the Underground, and so is only capitalised.
» The newest Liverpool Street entrance exists to lead passengers down to Crossrail so it's capitalised and it's purple.
» The new entrance at MOORGATE will also be the sole way down to Crossrail, except it's in capitals and blue. Admittedly it also leads to the Underground, particularly the westbound Circle line, but it's unusual to see a new Crossrail entrance that's blue rather than purple.
Whitechapel's new entrance is not yet a fortnight old.
» Here WHITECHAPEL is in capitals and blue as befits an Underground station. Purple doesn't get a look in because the station has a single gateline and Crossrail has no additional entrance.
Let's continue along Crossrail's central core.
» Canary Wharf is three completely separate stations, so Crossrail gets to be exclusively capitalised and purple.
» Custom House is two separate stations, so Crossrail gets to be exclusively capitalised and purple.
» Woolwich is a Crossrail station and nothing else, so it's definitely capitalised and purple.
» Abbey Wood, unusually, is capitalised but blue.
We haven't seen capitalised and blue before. Blue backgrounds are only used at Underground stations and this isn't one, so I'm not sure why Abbey Wood's sign is blue instead of purple.
Meanwhile on the upcoming Shenfield branch...
» STRATFORD's entrances are all capitals and all blue. Crossrail will serve only two of a dozen platforms so is vastly outnumbered, which means purple and lower case don't get a look in.
» Maryland, Forest Gate and Manor Park are all Crossrail-only, capitalised and purple.
» I think all the rest of the stations are capitalised and purple too, exceptRomford and Shenfield where other services stop, but I haven't been out to check.
Similarly I haven't been out to check the Reading branch but I think all the London stations are capitalised and purple too, even Ealing Broadway[photos]...
...except shouldn't Ealing Broadway be capital letters and blue, like WHITECHAPEL and STRATFORD, because it's an Underground station? Likewise the blue sign at Abbey Wood doesn't make sense because it should be Crossrail purple, neither am I entirely sure about the rationale for FARRINGDON.
I should probably stop trying to look for patterns that maybe aren't there. I'm over-thinking this, naively assuming that consistent rules are meant to be in place across the network several months before the line opens.
Which'll be probably be at least ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED DAYS LATE.
