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Comment by zimpenfish | Hacker News Reader

In the recent (~5y) past, I've asked Google Maps, from within London, a route to Charing Cross Station and been given the one in Glasgow.

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Ouch!

That’s even worse than a pre-smartphone fail I encountered ~15 years ago.

I was on a train from London to Liverpool Lime Street Street, and somewhere around Nottingham one of the fellow passengers asked me when it would arrive in Liverpool Street Station.

From Cambridge (UK), you can take trains either to Liverpool or to Liverpool Street Station (in London). Refugees would often be released from a nearby detention center with a ticket and instructions to take the train to Liverpool. More than one ended up lost and befuddled in Liverpool Street.

[2nd-hand story from, likewise, 15 years ago. Accuracy not guaranteed]

See also: New York Penn Station and Newark Penn Station are consecutive stops on the North-East Corridor line, and sound identical in conductor-ese. Causes regular panic attacks from first-time riders.

had similar encounters with people asking how much longer it will take to get to Ashford as their Eurostar train leaves soon while on a train that stops at Ashford (Middlesex) instead of Ashford International, in Kent

cf my disaster in Italy when I got off the train at Venezia Miestra (basically an industrial estate at the wrong end of a road bridge) instead of Venezia St Lucia (the bit with the canals and architecture).

"Charing Cross (Glasgow)" Station in Glasgow is the true Charing Cross. I can only applaud Google Maps there.

You were looking for the vastly inferior "London Charing Cross"

Yet, if someone says Charing Cross in London, they do probably mean London Charing Cross nevertheless.

What makes your comment fun is that I can almost hear it in the angry Scottish accent of a Mike Meyers character. “If it isn’t Scottish, it’s shite!”

In the past few months I decided to give Apple Maps another try to see if it's any good. I tried to get directions from Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Victoria. It tried to send me to Victoria BC, Canada.

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