Monopoly still the only place I can win £10 in a beauty contest.

I think they should have picked one flagship station from each of the big four. Owning all four would mean you had a monopoly on the railways. So my choice would be Kings Cross, Euston, Paddington, and Waterloo.

During the 90s I used to work at Marylebone LU station. Early one Saturday morning a young Australian couple came to me with a British Monopoly board. They were visiting all the places on the board. I stamped the board in the appropriate place with the biggest station stamp I could find and signed it.

It may also be significant that, if you get off the train from Leeds at Kings Cross, you are at the junction of Euston Road and Pentonville Road, the latter leading to the Angel, Islington. So, on their fact-finding mission, that was the pale blue squares taken care of

Had I known you were going to make this video, I could have let you have sight of a pre-War Monopoly board with all the stations marked as LNER.

I quite like how Marylebone Station has recognised its role on the Monopoly board. A couple of years ago I was travelling from Marylebone and made use of the toilets. Above the wash basins was a big picture of the Monopoly board with 'you are here' marked on the Marylebone Station square. Each of the wc cubicles had one of the silver counters (dog, top hat etc), on it's door. I don't know whether this still exists, but I would be interested to know.

When I was 13 I created an expanded version of Monopoly (based on my home town,Watford). It had 12 property sets,each in its own pretty colour,instead of 8,with 3 on each side of the board instead of 2. The middle sets on the two most middle-range priced sides had 4 properties to collect in them rather than 3. I think it had 5 stations including Bushey & Oxhey,and it had 9 utilities to collect including the familiar Electric Company and Water Works as well as some quite silly ones. In addition to Chance and Community Chest there were a couple of extra sets of cards,one of which you had to take if you landed on a particular square,and one of those was an extra nasty pack called "Crippling Cards" which were red with a skull and crossbones on the back. Games on this version,involving several players,could be long-drawn-out affairs. One of my schoolfriends created his own version too,called Insaneopoly,which had roads with names like Warp Drive and Bend Avenue and was as mad as its name suggests,as you could win or lose almost anything in a thrice. We played both these versions at times,as well as the standard version.

I often use the term "go directly to ..., do not pass go and do not collect £200" in different situations. People probably think I'm mad, but I don't care! Nice video as always, thank you!

The Landlord's Game was invented to illustrate the ideas of the economist Henry George, which you can read about in his book Progress and Poverty.

In my house Monopoly was banned, and doubly banned on Christmas Day & Boxing Day. There were those in the family who took it too seriously.

The original Monopoly board on the other hand, is based off Atlantic City, NJ (a gambling city that has...fallen off to say the least). Just like Coney Island in neighboring NY, Atlantic City was made a popular seaside destination thanks to rail. Atlantic City was once served by the Atlantic City Railroad which opened in 1889, a Philadelphia and Reading Railway subsidiary that later became part of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in 1933. Due to the construction of the Atlantic City Expressway where everyone ditched the train in favor of cars, the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines lasted until 1976 where the line taken over by Conrail and was discontinued by the NJDOT in 1981. Rail service to Atlantic City wasn't revived until Amtrak stepped up to the plate and upgraded the line with new stations, this new Atlantic City Express by Amtrak (with routes originating from DC, Harrisburg, Richmond, Springfield Massachusetts, and NYC) via Philadelphia began in 1989. NJ Transit service along the Atlantic City Line from Lindenwold to Atlantic City began in September of that year. To further promote it, Amtrak had a partnership with Midway Airlines for service to Atlantic City from Philadelphia International via SEPTA but this was short-lived as the airline went bankrupt in 1991. This was only the beginning of the end of the Amtrak service The Amtrak service just never hit the passenger levels they were hoping for, even after extending it to Springfield, so the service ceased in 1995. Luckily NJ Transit opted to stay and extended their service from Lindenwold to Philadelphia. A summer seasonal service between NYC and Atlantic City with a stop in between at Newark Penn Station was created by NJ Transit as a partnership with Caesars Entertainment (who owns a couple of the Atlantic City casinos) and began in February 2009 called the Atlantic City Express Service to honor the name of the former Amtrak train (as they called it ACES for short; because gambling of course). They transformed the bi-level cars with first-class seating and a lounge. Like Amtrak's service, this service also reported nothing but losses, with the last service operating in September 2011 and was formally discontinued in March 2012. A connection between the River Line light rail (or tram-train in this case) that runs between Trenton and Camden, which the AC Line goes over in Pennsauken wasn't built until 2013, this was the number one complaint when the River Line opened in 2004. And rather than keeping the line running while they add automatic train control like other NJ Transit lines...NJ Transit shut the WHOLE line down temporarily for over eight months from Sept. 2018 to May 2019. In summary, the line is cursed, the line's future isn't that bright with a station at Atlantic City International Airport that might not even be built, but at least they can say they've tried

In Australia we traditionally used the British Monopoly board, with questionable pronunciations of places we had never heard of at the time! 😂

RIP LEMMY. I spotted that, thanks jago. Interesting tie in fact, Ian Kilmister and some or all of his band were spotted at the Horticultural Halls where the Model Railway Club we’re holding their annual exhibition ( post Central Hall). They spent a long time leaning on the barriers watching trains running at the Gauge One live steam railway

Your LNER - British Monopoly game theory is supported by something else you didn't mention in your video, Jago: The locomotives are green with a black smokebox. That was the standard livery for LNER passenger engines when the British Monopoly game was released. Just look at A1 and A3 locomotives like LNER 4472 Flying Scotsman.

Excellent stuff Jago, a real first class exercise in turning a mere mater of curious conjecture into a full on investigation and analysis of the business practices of two British icons, namely Waddingtons and LNER. Amazing what one can unearth and, even more, how one’s own curiosity and imagination can be sparked by the evidence one finds! 😅 Brilliant stuff as ever! Cheers! 👍🍀🍻

Fascinating (as always) I personally would have picked one from each of the big four, so Paddington, Euston, Kings Cross and Waterloo

We definitely need a series from you covering the other 20-ish street names! I know it’s not really railway/underground or DLR related but you could tie the streets to underground’s or something tenuous?

“RIP Lemmy”. Nice touch 😎

The Swedish board is based on Stockholm with the rather unimaginative Central, North, South and East stations. The South station in game is probably the old one (the first station build in Stockholm) and not the current that is under ground. There have been two North station in Stockholm even. West station is not a railway station at all, but a restaurant. 🙂 Central Station is, well, Central station.

When it comes to "kill time on a rainy afternoon, or take things too seriously and alienate your family" those 2 themes are synonymous with Monopoly, at least in our family. Dull Boxing days came to life when, on hand and knee, the family (usually minus one, sulking upstairs), could get together searching the living room for all those cards, banknotes and little plastic houses which had been angrily scattered. So for me, those 4 stations are collectively synonymous with, say, finding the missing top hat under an armchair. There can be no others!

This is totally tenuous but there is a TFL version of monopoly (along with other milking the brand such as Paris and David Bowie) which was made a while back. A 'Chance card' in this version says 'advance to the nearest' Overground Station'' etc, many family disputes have occurred given the definition of 'Overground' on the card versus the stations on the board ie only Liverpool St is an 'overground' one if you take the tfl orange map. :)

Very interesting! More of these "railway-related but not directly about railways" videos please.

Another great video, Jago. The Norwich version of Monopoly had to diversify for the "stations" front as, by 1969, we only had one terminus station left and there were only three to start off with! So, they went for "Norwich Station", "Bus Station" (well, close enough, I suppose), "River Wensum" (the river that runs through Norwich on which you can find the Norwich Yacht Station) and, erm, "Bishop Bridge" which is a bridge over the aforementioned Wensum not far from the yacht station - I suspect they were running out of ideas by that point.

I used to play that board game so many times in primary school. I recognized Old Kent Road on the board, because I went through there so many times.

As a former Regent/Landmark Hotel staffer it's always nice to see the hotel in your videos.

Excellent. I enjoy speculating about things like this. We have my grandparents' copy of Monopoly from the 30s, and the stations are shown as 'LNER'.

According to _Mallard_ by Don Hale (2009, pages 89-90), Waddington produced more than 50 different packs of LNER-themed playing cards between 1925 and 1939. "LNER express drivers became almost as famous as today’s football stars. The company also promoted paperweights, scale models, commemorative plates and playing cards, mostly made by John Waddington of Leeds." Waddington "also produced the Monopoly game and other travelling board games such as snakes and ladders - all based on LNER railway themes. One London store, Gamages, even used LNER platform equipment, posters and uniforms to create a special Christmas display based on the Silver Jubilee in 1935." So it seems the arrangement continued until the outbreak of war, which probably impacted games manufacturers with the paper shortage, etc. Though Monopoly sets with escape equipment hidden in them were apparently produced for prisoners of war.

Interesting facts about the British Monopoly board! That made me real curious to check our German edition. The original board version from 1936 took names from Berlin, so as railway stations they used Lehrter Bahnhof (which today is the new Hauptbahnhof), Bahnhof Alexanderplatz, Görlitzer Bahnhof (only remains as a park and U-Bahn station) and Potsdamer Bahnhof (south of Potsdamer Platz, no longer exists, instead there is an underground regional and S-Bahn station Potsdamer Platz today). After WW2 the (Western) German version used generic street and station names, so we have Süd-, West-, Nord- and Hauptbahnhof now.

loved this, “get out of jail card …. “ I really thought you would use the Community Chest reward card or something like that. Top work as ever Mr H.

Here in Poland the basic Monopoly board is based on Warsaw so the stations are named after the three biggest stations on the cross-city line (Western, Central and Eastern) and the fourth one interestingly is Dworzec Gdański (Gdańsk Station), historically a terminus for trains to and from Gdańsk up until the cross-city tunnel got finished in the 1930s and as such it is now just a minor station on the ring railway handling only agglomerational and regional trains

Still got the 50s Monopoly set inherited from my parents, with the metal tokens including Mallard, the houses and hotels are made of wood

Entirely up to your usual excellent standard, Mr H, and most interesting to boot. Thanks. Simon T

Loved the Lemmy reference! Thanks again Jago...

"Great detective work, Hazolmes!" "LNER, my dear Watcher!" I always feel they should have vaguely, North, South, East and West termini; with North being Kings Cross, South Waterloo, East Liverpool Street and West Paddington (vaguely gateways to their respective compass point). Cracking video as ever, bwana. Best wishes.

I like your hypothesis. Far, far more than I like playing Monopoly. ♡

It’s interesting that on the US board representing Atlantic City, the “Short Line” was not a real railroad. There was the “Shore Fast Line”, which was an interurban trolley line connecting Atlantic City with the other beach towns in the area. Apparently, that was too long to fit in the box on the version of the board that Charles Darrow saw, and so it got mangled down to “Short Line”. Also, the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) railroad never served Atlantic City directly, only via a transfer to the Central Railroad of New Jersey, which the B&O had a controlling interest in at the time. I suppose the B&O was much better known, since it was a major player in the Northeastern US at the time, and CNJ advertising of the time did aggressively push their through connections to places like Chicago and St Louis via the B&O.

6:10 much appreciated tribute to the great Motörhead man 🤘

In my LAST game of Monopoly, aged 9 (I'm 62 now), I picked up said board and hit my poor mother over the head with it. I have yet to live this down. Mum is still hale and hearty and suffers no physical effects from the assault.

I like that they're all from the LNER - they were made to be regional monopolies, so it makes sense to have them all in a game named monopoly after the grouping into one of the big four.

I can't get my head around the idea that Marylebone was an LNER station. I only know of it as the terminus for commuters from the Chilterns - although I'm aware there are services to Brum. But the Midlands were served by LMS, so all of the Marylebone services were to the west of LMS region! As Jago said, it was part of Great Central, which was amalgamated into LNER, so perhaps was easier just to merge the whole company rather than split it between two. As ever, a fascinating video from JH. I'm sure anyone who has played the London Monopoly board will have wondered "why those stations?" and it seems he has answered it.

The part around 8:31 is interesting, because that probably explains why those stations were simply called Station Noord, Oost, Zuid and West in most older Dutch versions of Monopoly. The names of those stations were later dropped, because nowadays there only seem to be pictures of a little locomotive there, but lacking any other good alternatives, the original Dutch names of those stations "North", "East", "South" and "West" were apparently inspired by the names of those railway companies that built those four stations in London.

At 4:16 "...down the East Coast Main Line to King's Cross." Surely, sir, you mean up!

I was interested that Fenchurch St was an LNER station - yet the trains operating out of it on the former LT&SR were definitely operated by the LMS! How curious!

Wonderful "stuff", Mr. Hazzard! I have often wondered exactly the same thing! As a child, I used to play upon a friend's board which belonged to his mum. This was British editioned and had "L.N.E.R." under the station names. This would, I suspect, be quite a collectible board now! (I'll look on eBay.)

The last time I visited Marylebone Station (over 30, maybe even 40 years ago), it was like visiting a time capsule. It was charming and I hope they haven't changed it. As for the other stations on the board, I can't remember ever visiting Fenchurch Street Station but I've been to Liverpool Street Station and King's Cross was my regular terminus when I arrived at or departed from London via the East Coast Mainline.

Monopoly is still addictive today. I remember playing it when I was very young with my parents and it was lots of fun. Monopoly will never disappear.

Jago,thanks again for an interesting video,and Monopoly being such a worldwide favorite,and still going strong,it was overdue for a treatment by your eminently versatile historical wit!! Reference to the original game,Atlantic City,literally owed it existence to a railroad! The Camden and Atlantic laid out the city,and that was,again,there was no one there except for the railroad employees! The main street- Atlantic Avenue- had a two track rail line right down the middle,and the railroad provided local horse car services,and later the line was electrified,by Frank Sprague,and to make a long story short,it was all abandoned in 1955! The political powers that were,destroyed the hand that fed them!! As of now,Atlantic City,is a pale shadow of its past glory,and as usual,as Santana said,[paraphrased],"Those who forget their past,are doomed to relive it"!! Thanks again,Jago,and I hope my small contribution will make people ponder,why choices tend to rebound on the most unlikely of people! Basically,politicians don't learn from their mistakes,they just go deeper,and destroy everything they touch! Thank you 😇 😊!

2:25 you caught that guy littering, smh.

Little known fact when Lemmy got bored of singing the Ace of Spades , he would sing the Eight of spades. To see who would notice.

That was fantastic I was born beside Paddington Stn., lived next to Marylebone, worked at King's Cross for The Midland by way of Westinghouse but never even considered the Monopoly question..

I'd love a railways series themed monopoly board, with the station names being the ones featured in 'Gordon Goes Foreign'.

In The Netherlands, the monopoly stations are North Station, East Station, South Station and West Station. Other than the first two streets ('the village') and the last two streets (Amsterdam), all streets are groups of three from different large trading cities in The Netherlands. The lay-out and the colouring are the same as the London monopoly board.

Nintendo also got its start making playing cards...in 1889. Somewhere there's an alternate universe where Waddington eventually became one of the titans of the video game industry (and maybe where Parker Brothers, the marketer of the original American Monopoly, is also primarily a video game producer).

Thank you for paying respects to that legend.

Pedant's Note: At 4:15 they'd have gone _up_ to London 😱 Great video as ever though Jago 👍

This reminds me that I only have recollection of Kings Cross and Marylebone Station when I did the Monopoly Board pub crawl. For the life of me I couldn't tell you what Fenchurch Street Station looks like or how I managed to get a drink there and move on to the next pub (which applies to most of the board to be honest).

I always liked the thought I could own whole streets and stations playing Monopoly. Losing was pretty bitter though.

Fenchurch Street is architecturally a nice compact, even "cute" station. I wonder if it has survived because of association with "Monopoly". Also the first sets of streets also have a rail connection: Old Kent Road, the only "Monopoly" street south of the Thames, still had trams in 1950, as did Islington ("The Angel, Islington"). Pentonville Road also; I'm not sure about that.

I think you're definitely on to something here. The real giveaway is the fact that they're *stations* at all. In the original American version, these squares are the Reading Railroad, the Pennsylvania Railroad, the B&O, and the (apparently non-existent, or at least mis-named) Short Line. If Waddington's had wanted a direct equivalent, they could easily have used, not the largest London stations, but the Big Four themselves. But, for whatever reason (perhaps, as you say, the difficulty of getting their agreement), they didn't. So it seems reasonable to imagine that they fell back on the pre-existing relationship with the LNER. Which, of course, set the precedent for all future versions of the game. They're always stations (or, in more modern versions, some kind of transport hub, such as an airport) now.

Hello, in the case of the French version, the board refers to genuine Paris stations too, but which are roughly scattered around Paris and which belonged to different pre-1936 (pre-SNCF) stations : gare Montparnasse (state-owned État), gate Saint-Lazare (État also), gare de Lyon (P.L.M.) and gare du Nord (Nord evidently). So, no apparent logic there.

Well done for mentioning Lemmy! Like others have said, I would go for four big stations representing north, east, south and west, so: Euston, King's Cross, Waterloo and Paddington.

My number #1 strategy when playing Monopoly with my family is buying only the 4 stations and making bank off them. I've actually won using this strategy a few times. Kings Cross and Liverpool Street are my 2 favourites simply because they were served by two of my all time favourite railways.

I think there should be a new version of Monopoly where the railway stations are replaced by two Crossrail Stations (Paddington and Liverpool Street) and two Thameslink Stations (St Pancras and London Bridge). Furthermore, I think that all the coloured blocks of streets should be replaced by streets on specific railway lines. This should mostly be London Underground lines, but London Overground lines could also be used if necessary (with the new colours). Given that Metroland was built by the Metropolitan Railway, with stations being used to get people to move into the area, I think that people would understand the idea of Monopoly being a game where a bunch of developers buy up land and build houses and hotels and have their land connected up by electrified underground railways.

Sir, once again you have outdone yourself!

the "rip lemmy" brought a laugh to me. incidentally, railway trivia for you fact fans: motorhead andtheir managment formed a record label in the 80s called GWR, promoted it with a photoshoot on a GWR 2-8-0, or so i'm told!

Don't feel so bad, the railroads mentioned on the American (the real) Monopoly no longer exist.

Paddington, King's Cross St Pancras, London Bridge and Waterloo or Victoria would have been good choices - however the existing stations are pretty much what one expects to see on the board after so long...

Moorgate and Cannon Street, and as was the now defunct Broad Street,are another two/three fairly obscure London terminals.

Another interesting video. I think most of us railway geeks realise the fact that these are all ex LNER stations. Yes I agree it would have made more sense to have the main flagship stations from each of the big four ie. Kings Cross, Euston, Paddington and Waterloo. Also preferred the original more British style locomotive outline on the squares as opposed to the current Americanised loco style.

Walked passed fenchurch station a few weeks ago with my wife - she didnt even think it was a real station until then. Then she asked this exactly question why pick those 4 monopoly stations out of the whole of London?! Thanks for explanation

Who is this enigma called Jago Hazzard ? Another great educational video to keep us all on track .

Just a thought - if you were to approach a few major (rival) companies and ask if you could use their name on a game board, it's possible that some might not have answered and others might have wanted money for the use of their names. If so, it would make sense to go with a single company (LNER) and just have the one arrangement in place. After all it's not like the game will still be around many years later ...

First instance of the old excuse, "I was only taking my secretary to London in order to research train stations for a board game."?

I would have chosen ones where the lines head in the direction of the four compass points. So maybe Kings Cross (north), Liverpool Street (east), Victoria (south) and Paddington (west).

The Lemmy tribute was a nice unexpected touch

You never fail to delight, surprise and amuse me with your remarkable videos. I’d have never imagined that a quick Lemmy gag would pop up in. Although knowing your old mate Yerkes he probably founded Motorhead anyway.

Why not do the Monopoly board streets in blocks? Start with Old Kent Road and Whitechapel and see if it generates an interest. You could do transport; history; current state; and modern house prices to see if the browns are still the cheapest and the blues the most expensive.

I am surprised you did not mention the mistake on the Monopoly Board which is Vine Street. When I first did a Monopoly run you had to answer questions to prove you had been to places. Vine Street always had a problem since all was there was a police station and 28 bicycle parking slots. But the last time we did the Monopoly Run with a laminated piece of paper which was our game piece. We only had to take photos of the places and out game piece.

1:56 And only a small part of Essex at that: only the line to Shoeburyness.

When you said about killing time I was expecting the sentence to take a darker turn, especially given Monopoly's reputation.

Fenchurch Street, Baker Street, Broad Street, Cannon Street. All faves of mine.

Some absolutely gorgeous buildings.

I can't believe they didn't put St John's Wood on the Monopoly board. No respeck!

Fascinating stuff, Jago ! I for one would have liked Waterloo on the board, but then I am an old Southern region, BR Driver !!

Keep the stations as they are! The Monopoly board layout is: 1. A long-standing British tradition 2. Available in other, special and sometimes "one-off" layouts for those that disagree.

Very informative. That Azuma Train in the closing shots could have been travelling to Middlesbrough, they go there once a day!

As both a board gamer and a rail enthusiast, I like this. Perhaps in the future, you could consider a series on UK Railway games.

Marylebone is my favourite train spotting there in 60s you could spot ex LMS and LNER locos there and could get a train to Lancashire as well as Midlands

As always, excellent research into an interesting topic that most of us haven't thought much about. Great work ... and a beautiful video.

Having lived in London all my life, I did not even know where Fenchurch Street station was until I was about 15 so...

St. Pancras. 1) That’s the station that my trains to London use 2) It looks stunning post-restoration

In France, Paris is the city used for the french edition of Monopoly, and the four stations are : Gare de Lyon, Gare du Nord, Gare Saint Lazare, et Gare Montparnasse. So, four out of six, Gare de l'Est and Gare d'Austerlitz don't exist for Parker Brothers.

The most vital questions, answered. Years of wondering ended.

I've long thought the stations were odd. They are lesser known ones. Waterloo, Paddington, Euston, and Kings Cross would have made more sense. Some of the streets are odd too. The Angel Islington is a pub! Mayfair a district, perhaps it should be rationalised.

I had noted that the stations weren’t necessarily the most important but I never knew why - thanks for filling in my limited board game knowledge!

You LNEaRn something new every day.

1:21 *and hogsmeade

Liverpool Street Station runs trains to Southend too. Old Kent Road is the only property South of the River Thames.

I've always wondered this. Thanks Jago.

I was actually making a Londonopoly: every property is a station!