I'm going to go out on a limb and say it'll probably be 'Up Brighton Slow', or failing that 'Up Battersea Slow'?
The photo is taken on approach to London Vic - up/down refers to which way the line is running in this case, rather than the actual physical approach gradient. 'Up' refers to a city-bound line (such as heading towards London/Birmingham from elsewhere), and 'Down' refers to a country-bound line (away from a major station to other areas).
Oh wow, I thought it was just Up or Down in relation to London. How horribly confusing. Far better to have used compass directions.
Just to add to the confusion in the South Wales Valleys it is often the case that 'Up' is up the valley and 'Down' is down the valley, the opposite of the convention used elsewhere.
No, it’s as thchap says in post #3. Up to the major centre, Down away from it. In the UK, for a high proportion of the lines the ‘major centre’ is London (even if you’re a long way from London), but that’s not the case on all lines by any means. It could be somewhere else, such as Manchester or Leeds. On this basis you can have a pretty good guess for most lines which line is Up and which is Down, but ultimately as a Driver in real life you have to know, not guess, so you learn it as part of your route knowledge.
Now I finally understand why my parents used to say 'going up to London' when London was South of us.
Yes, I had wondered whether the railways originated the concept of always going ‘up’ to London, or whether the railways used ‘up’ because it was already commonly said that way. A bit of googling suggests the railways probably did originate the concept, although there’s no clear proof either way.
