Is it correct to say "We will be arriving into <station>"?

Question

Often, when getting the train to work in the morning, shortly before arriving at our terminus the conductor will announce "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be arriving into London Euston".

This sounds so wrong to me, but so many of the different conductors say it that I'm now starting to doubt myself.

Is what they're saying correct? As far as I'm concerned they should say "We will shortly be arriving at London Victoria".

I know that similar questions have been asked (e.g. When do we use "arrive at" versus "arrive in"?), but they don't deal with this specific usage of arriving at a train station.

Answer 1

This seems to be the accepted railway jargon for main-line London stations (possibly other stations too). This is probably due to the fact that Euston, like Paddington, Kings Cross, Waterloo, Liverpool Street etc is an 'enclosed' station, which is a terminus.

Having said that, and not being a regular rail-user myself, I suspect that the idiom is employed elsewhere, for large city stations. I would be interested to know if it is used for stations which are not termini.

I'm not sure why but 'into Euston' seems to carry a more portentous significance than 'at Euston'.

Answer 2

You are right; customarily we would arrive at the station or stop (at, as the station represents a point on the line), and arrive in a neighborhood, city, or larger area (in, since you are surrounded by it).

On the other hand, the action of travel lends itself to into, because you are physically entering something or somewhere:

• I drive into town.
• I walk into a restaurant.
• I ride into the mountains.
• I fly into an airport.
• I pull into a driveway.

Where the mode of transportation is known, it would not surprise me that arrive gets substituted; the passengers on that train are not suddenly going to arrive by stagecoach, and the announcement needs to be clear that the train is in fact arriving somewhere, not for example stopping for a moment to let another train pass.

Besides, I could argue that arriving into is slightly different from arriving at. In the last minute or so before my train pulls up at Penn Station, I'm clearly inside the station— I can see the signs and people waiting on the platforms— but we haven't stopped and the doors haven't opened. We've arrived into the station, since we're inside of it now, but we haven't arrived at the station till we're at a fixed point.

Answer 3

At is definitely the preferred form when describing approaching the platform itself (at least in AmE…).

But, as you are arriving into the station I don't think you can argue it semantically. You are literally heading into a structure.

Think of it as an extension of "What time does the train get in at the station?" You wouldn't find fault with that statement (at least I wouldn't). You see two different choices in that statement.

Hence, I think the chosen preposition is a bit fluid when it comes to train stations. You arrive at the platform but at or into the station.

Answer 4

On my train they say, 'We shall shortly be arriving at XXXXXX'

I would say, 'We shall shortly arrive at XXXXXX', from what I can remember in school 50 years ago, I think that be arriving is a participle. In simple terms - We shall arrive! The question, would be When? Reply - Shortly. Therefore linking Question with answer - We shall shortly arrive! Would you say, 'We shall be arriving'?

As for the use of at/in - I would say IN, we have, 'in the middle' and 'at the edge'. You could not reverse these and say at the middle and in the edge!! Unless the station was on the edge of town, which largely they are not, then it should be, 'We shall shortly arrive in XXXXXX'.

Answer 5

We use the verb arrive with at or in to talk about ‘coming to’, ‘getting to’ or ‘reaching’ a place where a journey ends. If we see the destination as a point, we say arrive at. If we see it as a larger area, we say arrive in: …

from Cambridge English Dictionary.

However, 'we' does not seem to include UK rail companies.

Answer 6

"Be arriving" means the subject is in the action of being there, while the sentence reads. The preposition "at" indicates a place and "to" indicates a movement. Past tense of this verb is set stone with "to, at or in", because there is no movement any more.

The present continuous form of the verb to arrive, "be arriving", may however imply that the subject of the sentence may be in movement to "be or arrive" there. Therefore, I believe, this becomes the point of dissent in how to interpret the present continuous with this verb and to decide what adjectives shall accompany.

If the meaning of arriving emphasises on reaching instead of being at a place, then I believe to or into befits rather well, as it reflects movement of the subject of concern. If the meaning of arriving emphasises rather on being at the place, then position prepositions would be the right choices. (But my experience of 20+ years of speaking English still beckons whether I have ever heard I am arriving to mean I am just standing/being there, after reaching there.)

Answer 7

'Arriving into'is used at all UK railway stations and by airlines, I shudder and mutter 'arriving at', it sounds as if we are hitting the destination rather hard and embedding ourselves in it. It seems like the announcers are trying to sound more official by using a long phrase, when a simple phrase would be more correct.

To add substance to my earlier post, 'arrive' is defined as to reach a destination, it implies finality. 'Into' is defined as a position within, and implies motion. One can go into, or come into, but 'arrive into' is self contradiction, it is an inappropriate preposition and verb combination. I support the views expressed in the original question, both from a reason of grammar, and from personal experience. 'Arrive into' was not used on public transport until the 1980s, I don't have a reference for this, but my memory suggests it is so. It is intriguing to discover how it came about, it has certainly become commonplace in the UK.