Cross border oddities and anomalies

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Bfivethousand
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by Bfivethousand »

I think I've posted this before but this is what happens when two parishes meet in the middle of a road
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by SteelCamel »

On the subject of cross-border oddities:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... e-54660888

"Plans for a drive-in cinema in Chester were bogged down after the toilets were found to be across the border with Wales and subject to Welsh Covid rules."
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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danfw194 wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 14:29 I just so happened to stumble across this: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.34490 ... 312!8i6656

So this is the curious case of Knighton in Powys, Wales. Well, the town is in Wales, but it's rail station is actually over the River Teme in Shropshire, England. And as the streetview shows, the British Rail sign has the Welsh translation of Knighton, even though it stands in England. Firstly, does anyone know if that is correct?.....should the sign be like that, or because it's actually in England should it lose the Welsh translation?

But it got me thinking if there are any other little cross border oddities and anomalies like this, whether it be county to county or country to country, road-related or other transport, anything really. And not necessarily just in the UK, wherever....
It's common enough to see some signs with Welsh translations just within England and vice versa. I've seen bilingual roadworks signs about 20 miles into England. I've seen the odd random English-only sign sprinkled throughout Wales too.

SteelCamel wrote: Sat Oct 24, 2020 18:30 On the subject of cross-border oddities:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... e-54660888

"Plans for a drive-in cinema in Chester were bogged down after the toilets were found to be across the border with Wales and subject to Welsh Covid rules."
Oh how pathetic.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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Britain wrote: Thu Dec 17, 2020 07:04
danfw194 wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 14:29 I just so happened to stumble across this: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.34490 ... 312!8i6656

So this is the curious case of Knighton in Powys, Wales. Well, the town is in Wales, but it's rail station is actually over the River Teme in Shropshire, England. And as the streetview shows, the British Rail sign has the Welsh translation of Knighton, even though it stands in England. Firstly, does anyone know if that is correct?.....should the sign be like that, or because it's actually in England should it lose the Welsh translation?

But it got me thinking if there are any other little cross border oddities and anomalies like this, whether it be county to county or country to country, road-related or other transport, anything really. And not necessarily just in the UK, wherever....
It's common enough to see some signs with Welsh translations just within England and vice versa. I've seen bilingual roadworks signs about 20 miles into England. I've seen the odd random English-only sign sprinkled throughout Wales too.
You occasionally get bilingual temporary signs as far east as Wolverhampton, so 40 miles from the border.

It's easier for contractors who may be working in Wales to carry one lot of signage rather than two - IIRC, bilingual signs are required in Wales, but not illegal in England and therefore the bilingual versions are the set to choose.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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Steven wrote: Thu Dec 17, 2020 07:43
Britain wrote: Thu Dec 17, 2020 07:04
danfw194 wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 14:29 I just so happened to stumble across this: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.34490 ... 312!8i6656

So this is the curious case of Knighton in Powys, Wales. Well, the town is in Wales, but it's rail station is actually over the River Teme in Shropshire, England. And as the streetview shows, the British Rail sign has the Welsh translation of Knighton, even though it stands in England. Firstly, does anyone know if that is correct?.....should the sign be like that, or because it's actually in England should it lose the Welsh translation?

But it got me thinking if there are any other little cross border oddities and anomalies like this, whether it be county to county or country to country, road-related or other transport, anything really. And not necessarily just in the UK, wherever....
It's common enough to see some signs with Welsh translations just within England and vice versa. I've seen bilingual roadworks signs about 20 miles into England. I've seen the odd random English-only sign sprinkled throughout Wales too.
You occasionally get bilingual temporary signs as far east as Wolverhampton, so 40 miles from the border.

It's easier for contractors who may be working in Wales to carry one lot of signage rather than two - IIRC, bilingual signs are required in Wales, but not illegal in England and therefore the bilingual versions are the set to choose.
That makes sense financially, so you can't blame them if it's not illegal. I do wonder about the legality of bilingual road markings and signs on the English side, and English-only markings/signs on the Welsh side. I've seen it enough times to notice.

Arriva trains have their signs and notices in both languages no matter which country the station is in. I've even seen Welsh signs in shops and medical practices 15 miles into England. That one baffled me a bit more as I would assume it's more inconvenient to find and purchase a sign in Welsh/bilingual than just English.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by SJAP »

Arriva trains have their signs and notices in both languages no matter which country the station is in. I've even seen Welsh signs in shops and medical practices 15 miles into England. That one baffled me a bit more as I would assume it's more inconvenient to find and purchase a sign in Welsh/bilingual than just English.
Arriva Trains? They only operate CrossCountry services now and don’t operate any stations. Arriva Trains Wales/Trenau Arriva Cymru lost the Wales & Borders franchise to Keolis/Amey Wales in 2018!

And as of today, Sunday 7th February 2021, KAW have also lost the franchise to the Welsh Government, bringing Wales & Borders under state control!

*Pedant Mode deactivated*

On the subject of Oswestry, it’s been back and forth across the border so many times in its history it would be facing severe penalties from Heddlu Gogledd Cymru if they ever found out!

It’s also, to the best of my knowledge, the only town in England to have a Morrisons with bilingual English and Welsh signage throughout the store and car park!
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by avtur »

Chris Bertram wrote: Tue Oct 20, 2020 09:01 Wivelsfield village is in East Sussex. However, Wivelsfield station is a couple of miles away in West Sussex, and might be better named Burgess Hill North.

It always amuses me that Wivelsfield Station is in the neighbourhood of World's End and, as you say, both Wivelsfield and Wivelsfield Green are at a distance away.

The boundary between East and West Sussex to the south and east of Haywards Heath is a rather odd shape.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by Vierwielen »

Here is a roadsign pointing to Rijsel (with "Lille") in brackets. However most people in the aforementioned town refer to their town as "Lille", not "Rijsel".
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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Vierwielen wrote: Sun Feb 07, 2021 22:01 Here is a roadsign pointing to Rijsel (with "Lille") in brackets. However most people in the aforementioned town refer to their town as "Lille", not "Rijsel".
And for some reason, across the border into France, the signs for Belgian destinations are written in the French form first with the Belgian in brackets. Spooky or what.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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Vierwielen wrote: Sun Feb 07, 2021 22:01 Here is a roadsign pointing to Rijsel (with "Lille") in brackets. However most people in the aforementioned town refer to their town as "Lille", not "Rijsel".
I don't follow you. Are you suggesting that all signs should show what the people who live there call a specific place (or at least what it's called in the official language there) regardless of the location of said sign?
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by DavidB »

Also on that sign is Doornik, the Flemish name for a city which most of its residents would know by its French name of Tournai.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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Bfivethousand wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 02:44 I think I've posted this before but this is what happens when two parishes meet in the middle of a road
Quite a lot of boundaries are like this. What seems to have disappeared is where there are different say lighting standards on the opposite sides of the road, with different lamps, each having done their own, separately wired. It now seems standard to agree a halfway point, each does all the works up to there.
vlad wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 20:03 I don't follow you. Are you suggesting that all signs should show what the people who live there call a specific place (or at least what it's called in the official language there) regardless of the location of said sign?
This is exactly how the old Thomas Cook railway timetable of Europe used to do it, so it used Milano, Lisboa, etc, on the basis that when you got there, that's what the signs said. The editor did an explanation of this at the front. It seemed the most sensible way to handle international names in something used by people from many countries (ignoring different alphabets).
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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WHBM wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 21:23 ...
vlad wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 20:03 I don't follow you. Are you suggesting that all signs should show what the people who live there call a specific place (or at least what it's called in the official language there) regardless of the location of said sign?
This is exactly how the old Thomas Cook railway timetable of Europe used to do it, so it used Milano, Lisboa, etc, on the basis that when you got there, that's what the signs said. The editor did an explanation of this at the front. It seemed the most sensible way to handle international names in something used by people from many countries (ignoring different alphabets).
I await the campaign to remove English versions of Welsh placenames from roadsigns in England :D
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by RichardA626 »

I remember the Panini World Cup sticker collections would have all the participating countries in their native names, apart from the ones not using the Roman alphabet. I remember in the 1986 one had the Soviet Union as SSSR rather than the Cyrillic CCCP.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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RichardA626 wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 22:41 I remember the Panini World Cup sticker collections would have all the participating countries in their native names, apart from the ones not using the Roman alphabet. I remember in the 1986 one had the Soviet Union as SSSR rather than the Cyrillic CCCP.
There is a tremendous blunder in, I think, Jonathan Dimbleby's book "Russia" (at least in the first printing), where it says that all round the country you still find CCCP signs, which stood for Central Committee of the Communist Party ... :( .
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by Al__S »

it gets more complex where there's bilingual sign sin border areas. Eg. on the A63 in south west France you won't find signs to Donostia, but do once that crosses the border and becomes the AP-8. Yet you'll find signs like this for places on the French side of the border on the autoroute, and many signs on the local roads are dual language in French and Euskadi. Of course, politics is complex around that one, with previous governments on both sides of the border having attempted to snuff out local lanaguages.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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RichardA626 wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 22:41 I remember the Panini World Cup sticker collections would have all the participating countries in their native names, apart from the ones not using the Roman alphabet. I remember in the 1986 one had the Soviet Union as SSSR rather than the Cyrillic CCCP.
Open Streetmap insists on labelling countries and locations within them in their local language. Even ones that use a different writing system. It's novel but not really practical for those of us who don't happen to be able to read every language in the world.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

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DavidB wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 20:57 Also on that sign is Doornik, the Flemish name for a city which most of its residents would know by its French name of Tournai.
If the sign is in Flanders, the names will be the Flemish ones, simple as. That's the way the Belgians do it. Only Brussels is officially bilingual. There's an area in French-speaking Wallonia near the German border where German has a sort-of official status, not sure what happens there.
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by DavidB »

Chris Bertram wrote: Tue Feb 09, 2021 13:17
DavidB wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 20:57 Also on that sign is Doornik, the Flemish name for a city which most of its residents would know by its French name of Tournai.
If the sign is in Flanders, the names will be the Flemish ones, simple as. That's the way the Belgians do it. Only Brussels is officially bilingual. There's an area in French-speaking Wallonia near the German border where German has a sort-of official status, not sure what happens there.
I've visited that part of Belgium and my understanding is that the German place names there don't have French or Flemish versions, at least not in official use (although they do have different prounciations, e.g. Eupen is 'oi-pen' in German but 'uh-pen' in French).
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Re: Cross border oddities and anomalies

Post by vlad »

WHBM wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 21:23 This is exactly how the old Thomas Cook railway timetable of Europe used to do it, so it used Milano, Lisboa, etc, on the basis that when you got there, that's what the signs said. The editor did an explanation of this at the front. It seemed the most sensible way to handle international names in something used by people from many countries (ignoring different alphabets).
That's probably the best way to do it, as otherwise you're going to get places that change their names at linguistic boundaries. It fascinates me when the native name for a place is quite different from the name in other languages as that raises the question where the other languages got their name from (and even who was first).

One advantage of putting everything in English, of course, is that it doesn't unduly favour one language over another. Calling the capital of Belgium Brussels, for example, does remove the pretty much sectarian debate as to whether the Flemings or Walloons have the upper hand. :stir:
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