Railway terminology, clearing up the confusion of "up" and "down" to those not in the know

On the railways, the terms "up" and "down" are used to reference the directions to the zero mile point of a railway, that is in which the railway begins, for instance the East Coast main line, "up" refers to the direction towards London Kings Cross and "down" away from it, on non-London bound lines this can of course be different depending on where 0 miles is located, the York to Scarborough line has its zero mile point at York where it branches off the East Coast main line as opposed to Scarborough, the terminus of the route, the same is applied to the Tees Valley line where 0 miles is at Darlington railway station, meaning down is away from it towards Middlesbrough

The railways have used this particular terminology for decades, however to those that don't have knowledge of railway terminology this can seem confusing as from the north London is deemed to be down country, as in down south, as this terminology, along with a lot more, is something I have to get used to and it did lead to an argument with a friend who rather than ask why I needed to get used to railway terminology like this was insistent I did not need to leading me to have to explain why.

The railways are certainly interesting and have a way with describing things, of course I have plenty to learn about the railways and no doubt there's more peculiar wording for things on the railways that I don't yet know about, but of course time will tell.

I do have a railway journey in August, this is on a train heading in the up direction on the East Coast main line, of course I'll be on a return on the down direction, I expect this train to be a Class 800/801 Azuma train so I will report on that when the time comes.