Station Cascade

Playing certain stations can initiate a cascade of various sorts.

The commonest by far of these cascades is the Parks and Greens (P&G) cascade, whereby a station with either 'Park' or 'Green' in its name initiates the cascade (and Green Park naturally counts double). Note however that such play will not always cause a cascade – it is usually obvious from the Line Velocity and Beck's Coefficient as to whether a P&G will ensue, but if there is any doubt then the player should declare the P&G rather than leaving it as an implicit result. Some cascades simply run their course – others are terminated by certain specific moves. Garden stations (Island Gardens, Kew Gardens, Covent Garden, etc.) will by convention terminate a P&G for example, as will Framilode's Bung.

Another form of termination is deflection to a different cascade or loop (see those listed below). This manoeuvre can be somewhat complicated and messy, unless a sky-blue-pink token is played. Unfortunately few people bother to use sky-blue-pinks as part of their 'hand', as nobody has yet found another reliable use for the things (which makes them little more than dead weight when there is no loop or cascade in play), so the Loop/Cascade Shift usually has to be done 'the hard way', which usually ends up going via Dollis Hill. (Not a pretty sight.)

Some other cascades are listed below, with a few example stations for each type.

• Royal or Regal: King's Cross, Victoria, Royal Victoria, Prince Regent, etc.
• Noble: All royal stations plus Barons Court, Knightsbridge and so on.
• Holy: St. John's Wood, All Saints, Blackfriars, Temple, Canons Park, etc.
• Arboreal: Burnt Oak, Elm Park, Limehouse, Royal Oak, etc. (A variant is the Trees and Woods cascade, where Woods, Bois etc. are available.)
• Chromatic: Redbridge, Blackfriars, White City, all Green stations, etc.
• Urban: Acton Town, Canning Town, Kentish Town, White City, City Thameslink, etc.
• Aquatic or Nautical: Crossharbour, Waterloo, Canary Wharf, Surrey Quays, etc. : Note the Aquatic cascade is sometimes referred to as The Waterfall.
• Streets and Roads: Baker Street, Bow Road, Finchley Road, etc.
• Parks and Royals: All royal stations as above, and all Parks. Park Royal counts double.
• Streets and Gardens (occasionally known as a suburban cascade): All Streets and Roads, all Gardens. Terminated by a Park, Town or City.
• Hills and Valleys: Kensal Rise, Dollis Hill(!), Harrow-on-the-Hill, Maida Vale, etc.

There are of course various others.

[B] [SM]

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