Rail directions

Railroad directions are used to describe train directions on rail systems. The terms used may be derived from such sources as compass directions, altitude directions, or other directions. However, the railroad directions frequently vary from the actual directions, so that, for example, a "northbound" train may really be headed west, or a train going "down" may actually be increasing its elevation. Directions are often specific to system, country, or region.

France

In France, railway directions are usually described as Impair and Pair (meaning Odd and Even), corresponding to Down and Up in the British system. Impair means heading away from Paris and Pair means heading toward Paris. This convention is applied not only to the trains and the tracks, but also to items of lineside equipment.

Pair is also quasi-homophonic with Paris, so direction P is equivalent either with direction Pair or with direction Paris.

China

In China, railway directions are described as "up" (上行) and "down" (下行), with up towards Beijing; trains leaving Beijing are "down", while those going toward Beijing are "up". For railways not connected with Beijing, north and west are used as "up" and east and south as "down". Odd numbered train codes are used for "down" trains, while even numbers are used for "up"; for example, train T27 from Beijing west to Lhasa is "down" (going away from Beijing) since 27 is odd.

Trains run through Beijing may have two or more numbers, for example, the train from Harbin to Shanghai K58/55 uses two different numbers: In the Harbin-Tianjin section, the train runs toward Beijing, the train is known as K58, but in Tianjin-Shanghai section, the train is known as K55; the opposite train from Shanghai to Harbin is known as K56/57, while K56 is used from Shanghai to Tianjin and K57 is used from Tianjin to Harbin.

Japan

In Japan, railway directions are referred to as "up" (上り, nobori) and "down" (下り, kudari), and these terms are widely employed in timetables and station announcements for the travelling public. For JR Group trains, trains going towards the capital Tokyo are "up" trains, while those going away from the capital are "down" trains. For private railway operators, the designation of "up" or "down" (if at all) usually relies on where the company is headquartered as "up".

For loop lines, such as the Yamanote Line in Tokyo and the Osaka Loop Line, directions are usually referred to as "outer" (外回り, soto-mawari) and "inner" (内回り, uchi-mawari), where trains go clockwise on the outer track and counter-clockwise on the inner track.

United Kingdom

In British practice, railway directions are usually described as up and down, with up being towards a major location. This convention is applied not only to the trains and the tracks, but also to items of lineside equipment and to areas near a track. Since British trains run on the left, the up side of a line is on the left when proceeding in the up direction. The names originate from the early railways, where trains would run up the hills to the mines, and down to the ports.

On most of the network, up is the direction towards London. In most of Scotland, with the exception of the West and East Coast Main Lines, up is towards Edinburgh. The Valley Lines network around Cardiff has its own peculiar usage, relating to the original meaning of traveling up and down the valley. On the former Midland Railway up was towards Derby. Mileposts normally increase in the down direction

On the London Underground geographic direction naming generally prevails (e.g. Eastbound, Westbound), except for the Circle Line where the directions are often referred to as clockwise and anticlockwise.

Individual tracks will have their own names, such as Up Main or Down Loop. Trains running towards London are normally referred to as Up trains, and those away from London as Down. Hence the Down Night Riviera runs to Penzance and the Up Flying Scotsman to Kings Cross.

Other directions commonly used are London and Country. The London end of a station is the end where trains to London depart. The country end is the opposite end, where trains to the country depart. This usage is problematic where more than one route to London exists (e.g. at Exeter St Davids).

United States

Most railroads in the U.S. use nominal cardinal directions for the directions of their lines which often differ from actual compass directions.

Typically an entire railroad system (the lines of a railroad or a related group of railroads) will describe all of its lines by only two directions, either west and east or north and south. This greatly reduces the possibility of misunderstanding the direction in which a train is travelling as it traverses lines they may twist and turn or even reverse direction for a distance. These directions also have meaning in conflicts between trains running in opposite directions. For example, many railroads specify that trains of equal class running east are superior to those running west. This means that, if two trains are approaching a passing siding on a single-track line, the inferior westbound train must "take the siding" and wait there for the superior eastbound train to pass.

These directions are often referred to as "railroad" north, south, east or west to remove ambiguity with the same compass directions.