please empty your brain below
If we could keep away from what you think the 6 lines should have been called instead, that'd be great. Been there, blogged that.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 15.02.24 - 8:00 p.m. | #

Not sure I see any of these readily slipping into common parlance. Weaver line is quite nice. Mildmay, for a line that doesn’t go there, had a wide geographical spread and had a perfectly good name under BR is bizarre and openly invites accusations of tokenism. Lionesses is tokenistic and embarrassing. But of a wasted opportunity and a waste of money.

David B | 16.02.24 - 7:26 a.m. | #

If you're going to give the lines names - and most people agree that's a good idea - it costs the same whatever you call them.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.02.24 - 7:34 a.m. | #

I’d love to see the minutes of the meetings that decided these names. I wonder if they’ll ever be FOI’d.

Dan | 16.02.24 - 7:34 a.m. | #

Ever scared of offending anyone, The BBC kept to the facts with their headline “new names for the 6 overground lines” whilst ITV instead said what I was thinking with “Mayor accused of ‘virtue signalling nonsense’ over multi-million pound London overground rebrand”. The Same story, but totally different!

Mackay | 16.02.24 - 7:45 a.m. | #

Mildmay - without reading the blurb, my first thought was the area between Canonbury and Dalston.

Lioness - how many members of the team can you name off the top of your head, probably the most contrived.

It's odd that BoJo never took the 'open goal' opportunity to name the lines, perhaps renaming Crossrail was presented by his handlers as an alternative.

Still Anon | 16.02.24 - 7:46 a.m. | #

To be honest when the list came out yesterday, first I was angry, then mildly angry, then Mildmay angry, and now after a day accepting. For me I don't care what they are called as realise that the most important aspect of all this is to remove most of the tangled confusion that is the Overground by giving the lines proper names. That for me is an key objective met. And I will always call it the goblin

Sai | 16.02.24 - 7:47 a.m. | #

I think Mildmay is geographically located due to the original Mildmay mission at St. Jude and St. Paul's church in Mildmay Park, Islington. There's also the former Mildmay Park station that was between Canonbury and Dalston Kingsland on the North London Line, which is now the Mildmay line.

TW | 16.02.24 - 7:55 a.m. | #

Yes, there's a cluster of Mildmay-named places between Canonbury and Dalston, but the line is specifically named after the hospital.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.02.24 - 7:59 a.m. | #

The only name I truly like is Liberty, but for what it’s worth, I like all the names more than ‘Elizabeth Line’.

My complaint is that I wish the orange colour was kept for one of the lines (preferably the Windrush Line). Seems odd that none of the lines match the base roundel colour of the transport mode. Now the map lacks orange completely!

Jacques | 16.02.24 - 8:00 a.m. | #

It will be interesting to see if people adopt and actually use these names in daily conversation. Rather than say use the older more geographical names. Or perhaps just the colours (the green line, the yellow line etc). I’ve been surprised how in general conversation people seem to have accepted and refer to “the Elizabeth line”. It will always be Crossrail.

Andrew | 16.02.24 - 8:00 a.m. | #

While the Mildmay line is named after a hospital, I think the naming of the hospital is sufficiently tied to an area that the line passes through that I'm happy with the geographical claim implicit in the name, albeit at one remove.

Chris | 16.02.24 - 8:17 a.m. | #

How long until we can confidently say which names have stuck and which haven't? I still call the Elizabeth line crossrail, but can't see myself clinging on to East London Line.

Ed | 16.02.24 - 8:18 a.m. | #

Perhaps we can now look forward to the reopening of Mildmay Park station, closed as long ago as 1934.

Crispy | 16.02.24 - 8:21 a.m. | #

Dare I ask, are there any similar proposals for the DLR network? Onboard the DLR trains, there are maps displayed colour coding the different branches in various shades of teal. Thankfully, the subtle colour coding isn’t displayed on the main train and underground maps.

dg writes: there are no such plans.

pml | 16.02.24 - 8:22 a.m. | #

Most of the selected names are fine, although Lioness is the most jarringly clunky. Remain of the opinion that numbers would have been simpler on the map, and easier for visitors to understand.

Frank F | 16.02.24 - 8:22 a.m. | #

I feel like my main aversion to it is this: we do not normally name our infrastructure (other than streets) for cultural reasons.

I'll quickly point out that Waterloo station was named after the bridge and Victoria after the street it was on.

I'm not a big fan of Jubilee or Elizabeth as names for lines either for the same reason.

If we must name lines (and I think we should), then I feel the names should be geographically or service pertinent. I know that the Metropolitan and District don't fit that, but they are not manufactured names. Neither was Bakerloo.

I'm very happy that we feel able to talk about the Sufferage movement, Windrush and equality of sporting championships. They're all important parts of British heritage that need celebrating. But I'm really not convinced that the way to do it is via rail line names.

Kirk | 16.02.24 - 8:24 a.m. | #

I'm not annoyed by Mildmay because I have always associated it with the area around Canonbury. I should think the residents of Mildmay Road will be very pleased to be 'on the map'.

Once the names are on the signage and in the announcements, they'll become second nature.

NickW | 16.02.24 - 8:25 a.m. | #

I'm not sure 'Goblin' will hang on - firstly it's being called the Suffy G already, which is likely to become a 'ting' - and Crossrail hasn't hung on despite being a better name and description. 'Mildmay' is an area, rather than a hospital, to me as well (as a North Londoner who often travels through the area).

Steve | 16.02.24 - 8:33 a.m. | #

I hope I'm not the only one that finds the new full tube map very very beautiful.

Alfie | 16.02.24 - 8:38 a.m. | #

Some of the choices are a bit weird. I personally would've gone with numbers like metro systems in other countries. But I'm sure people will get used to them and this debate will have been forgotten about in the near future.

The choices have upset a certain set on people on Twitter who don't live in London and never visit London, which is pretty funny.

Even in these comments there are the usual complaints about women's football. Just because you don't know the players or don't have an interest, doesn't mean that millions of other feel the same. Get over it, lads.

Charlie | 16.02.24 - 8:39 a.m. | #

“Mildmay Line” is actually quite difficult to say, which is annoying.

Philip | 16.02.24 - 8:47 a.m. | #

Emmeline Pankhurst later became chummy with the British Union of Fascists - whose logo is proudly carried on every electric bus.

M | 16.02.24 - 8:48 a.m. | #

I'm broadly in agreement with your assessment, though I'm not convinced Romford-Upminster actually needed a name at all.

On the geographic accuracy front, to me the press release doesn't actually claim links, but puts two statements in close proximity and leaves the reader to make a (sometimes incorrect) link.

dg writes: read beyond the press release.

Andrew S | 16.02.24 - 8:50 a.m. | #

Considering London's resistance to European-style line numbering, these names do the job well enough... more meaningful than Metropolitan, District or the absurdity of the Northern line anyway.

Anonymous | 16.02.24 - 8:53 a.m. | #

I think what I find jarring is that two (perhaps three) of the names have connections with already-named parts of London, but the others are a bit abstract. It feels like it ought to be all or nothing.

martin | 16.02.24 - 8:54 a.m. | #

There will still be people who say “I caught the Overground”, just as people say “I got the tube.” But where the line names will work is when giving instructions to get someone somewhere, enforced by the map, the regular onboard announcements, radio/TV travel reports (“On the London Underground, delays on the Jubilee line and on the Overground delays on the Mildmay line.”)

You will always get people who wither refuse to use the new names. Long time users of the Goblin will hold on to that name but newcomers to the area won’t. The Goblin’s identity coming in many ways from the pressure group which fought so hard for its survival and schedule.

Names can catch on, particularly if they are focused on specific area. “The c2c” is embedded in the language of those living on that line. Critics moan that it means nothing but for 25 years and several operators it’s become its own self contained mode of transport. Yet Greater Anglia is still “the train” party perhaps because of its abundance of operators or because its wide geographical reach.

ruminant | 16.02.24 - 8:59 a.m. | #

In the year I was born the number of lines named on the tube map was eight, which now makes me feel both very old, and very impressed to have lived through so much expansion/ development/ change.

Wilfred | 16.02.24 - 9:13 a.m. | #

As the lines are denoted by 2 parallel lines, it would have been good to have had a yellow and green pair to represent Jamaica on the Windrush line.

Mike | 16.02.24 - 9:14 a.m. | #

Background to the Liberty line put me in mind of “Passport to Pimlico”, a tangential and doubtless unintended reference.

Labourer | 16.02.24 - 9:31 a.m. | #

It’s still the Fleet Line to me, which is miles better than Jubilee Line anyway.

Bryn Davies | 16.02.24 - 9:32 a.m. | #

It may be that I am a blinkered grump, but I know enough to think naming a train line after a few footy match wins is plain daft, and an insult to other successful sports over the decades.

blinkered grump | 16.02.24 - 9:33 a.m. | #

ruminant:agree. c2c is my local line and it says what it does on the tin (well, more so when Southend became a city in 2022). Greater Anglia, which also has a terminus in Southend, feels very disconnected to me. Is Southend in East Anglia or the Southeast? Many locals see Southend as part of London, gosh we have London Southend Airport to boot, and we've just got tap in tap out barriers!

David | 16.02.24 - 9:41 a.m. | #

In my youth I used to love "taking the Liberty"....except we (anachronistically) called it the "push-pull" then.

Liberty is a good and fitting and appropriate name, and a clever nod to the specific social and political outlook of Essex Haveringites, too.

Lioness is silly and ephemeral, even more irrelevant than the previous harlequin branding of that line.

Suffragette does not work as a line name ans has no real connection with the area, it will be the suffering line before too long, and also, why celebrate terrorists rather than the peaceful and arguably more successful suffragists? "Part and parcel", you say....? (Think the -ette form was a pejorative anyway)

The intense irony of the Windrush line sailing through and over Brixton (and also East Brixton) without stopping...

That one and the others are ok and seem to work. But bah to these sort of consultations

Dominic H | 16.02.24 - 9:45 a.m. | #

This is all very interesting, but at the same I can't shake a vague April-1-feeling.

A. Fools | 16.02.24 - 9:53 a.m. | #

There is an emphasis on East London, not entirely explained by the greater prevalance of the Overground in that area. The only Overground line to penetrate west and south west London is called "Mildmay", of little relevance to us for whom the line's usefulness ends somewhere near West Hampstead.

No line is officially orange, but the so-called "yellow" of the Circle and Lioness Lines is decidely more orange than it used to be - necessarily so in the latter case as it needs to stand out against the white background beyond Harrow, where there is no parallel colour to contrast with.

The blue of the Mildmay Line is unfortunately too similar to that of the DLR, making the Stratford area rather confusing. And, at least on my computer, the Liberty Line looks almost the same colour as the Elizabeth Line.

It would be useful to show the Elizabeth Line on the Overground map, as it is essentially an Overground line (National Rail route finded by TfL and operated as a "concession", and ties together all five the Overground lines in east London.

Timbo | 16.02.24 - 9:53 a.m. | #

In the video (which is otherwise pretty well done) they mistakenly label Walthamstow Central as being an interchange for the Mildmay line.

I suspect Autumn will be a golden season for TfL signage inaccuracy spotters.

Dan | 16.02.24 - 9:56 a.m. | #

As a tourist I find the the distinction between overground, underground, tube and DLR very confusing. I just need a good map to show me how to travel and I care nothing for the various system names. Just make it simple to understand.

Andrew | Homepage | 16.02.24 - 10:20 a.m. | #

I think overall they are fine. I'm not surprised that it has been called "virtue-signalling" but that seems completely wrong. Virtue signalling would be doing things just for the effect, while these choices appear to have been made with sincere intentions.

Lioness definitely seems a bit too ephemeral, and you make a good point about the Windrush line vs South Asian immigration - Wembley, Harrow and Watford have significant proportions of residents from that background so something to reflect that could have been a better choice.

Overall I'm fine with the choices, I hope they don't become some stupid political football every time a mayor from a different party is elected

Herned | 16.02.24 - 10:23 a.m. | #

given their frequent inability to run a service a suspect the Euston Watford line will quickly become the "LyingLess" Line

Peewit | 16.02.24 - 10:28 a.m. | #

Can we •please• let the Boris story be known for everyone.

In 2015 TfL came up with Geographic Names for the lines (Barking line, East London line, Emerson Park line, Lea Valley line, North London line and Watford local line) along with six new colours.

But when the new map landed on the desk of Boris Johnson - London Mayor. - for final approval, he said “No! The Overground must be Orange!” and immediately dismissed it.

dg writes: I tweeted about this yesterday. The tweet’s had quarter of a million views.

David G | 16.02.24 - 10:42 a.m. | #

The Mildmay line is the only name that could cause any confusion about its pronunciation. Is it pronounced as in "A pint of mild may be good for you", or as in "A coin inaccurately milled may be valuable"?

Stuart R | 16.02.24 - 11:06 a.m. | #

The interchange symbols on the station diagrams unveiled yesterday show an Overground roundel with the respective line names and parallel in their particular colours. Yet the interchange with London Trams is shown as a tram symbol and avoid of either the Trams roundel or green block.

I also wonder how in-car digital displays on rail services which offer live status updates will cope with the change. Can they be easily reprogrammed or will they still show a generic Overground?

pernickety | 16.02.24 - 11:09 a.m. | #

Yesterday when the story broke I read the Windrush Line as the Washing Line - well, I had been doing laundry all day!

Love the different colours which really help separate out the various lines, but as I use the Overground so rarely the names are going to be harder to get to grips with.

I would have preferred them just being named for their colour, eg the red one, the maroon one etc as that's what I'd probably say if trying to direct tourists!

Cornish Cockney | 16.02.24 - 11:12 a.m. | #

The in car displays can be changed via a software update. Indeed sharp-eyed travellers will have noticed that the class 710s on the Weaver line had their displays updated recently.

Dan | 16.02.24 - 11:14 a.m. | #

Boris must be kicking himself that he didn't rename them with sensible geographical names when he had the chance. Whilst I'm hugely in favour of line segregation, some of these names are absurd. Mildmay sounds like a mid-year promotion by CAMRA (which sounds lovely in that context only) and Lioness line sounds like the start of an alliterative tongue-twister.

In the hall of mirrors that is the UK, lip-service and empty symbolism is the easier option than actually improving lives. To avoid real social improvement we simply rebrand other things and smugly sit back thinking how better we are than everyone else.

daveid76 | 16.02.24 - 11:23 a.m. | #

1. People would get upset regardless of what was chosen

2. Perhaps the 'celebrating London's rich heritage' part was overstated and made it seem like the money was being spent on some so-called virtue signalling when in reality the money was going to be spent anyway to make the Overground more legible.

3. A shame about the bright orange going. The orbital nature of the Overground doesn't look as visible anymore. The Overground seems to fade into the background now that it doesn't have the bright orange to help counter the parallel line format which doesn't stand out as much as a solid line.

4. Is it time to stop distinguishing different heavy rail modes? Or at least group Crossrail with the Overground?

matthieu1221 | 16.02.24 - 11:31 a.m. | #

At a brief glance, Liberty line colour looks very similar to Elizabeth line. Imagine the disappointment of your tourist in the Liberty upon discovering that, unlike the Elizabeth line, the Liberty line runs only every 30 minutes.

anon | 16.02.24 - 11:32 a.m. | #

What annoys me is that most of the overground lines are not really any different from London’s other national rail lines. (The east London line being an exception due to its very frequent service.) I have always hoped that other routes would gradually be integrated into the Overground, especially in south London. Perhaps that’s a separate issue, but giving each line its own colour and name seems unsustainable in that case, unless the name is intuitively obvious or already widely used.

Alan | 16.02.24 - 11:32 a.m. | #

Pink would have been better for the Mildmay Line - better contrast with the DLR at Stratford, and with the red of the Windrush Line it would highlight the orbital feature. And the colour has been adopted by the community most recognised by the name.

Timbo | 16.02.24 - 11:40 a.m. | #

Names selected by the same consultants who got paid £££ for devising a name for a new in-town housing development at Brent Cross. Their incredible choice - “Brent Cross Town”. Nice work if you can get it.

Kim | 16.02.24 - 12:00 p.m. | #

Can only hope that TFL take over all suburban rail services across the whole of London and indeed perhaps too those terminating just outside London too.

Jonathan | 16.02.24 - 12:04 p.m. | #

I notice they haven’t shown a preview of the Rail & Tube map (London Connections map in old money). That will make interesting viewing with the different combinations of colours: solid, broken and parallel ones.

Rob Healy | 16.02.24 - 12:07 p.m. | #

It strikes me there is an unspoken acknowledgement that there won't be any more lines being Overgroundised and that after the West London orbital opens that'll be it. If huge swathes of suburban rail services terminating at Victoria, Charing X etc. are taken over by TfL then fancy little names are hardly appropriate.

daveid76 | 16.02.24 - 12:13 p.m. | #

Not sure everyone in the LGBT+ community will welcome being “commemorated” by an Aids hospice.

Kim | 16.02.24 - 12:24 p.m. | #

I'd be interested to hear the Geezer's take on current Underground line names - if they had been announced this week - using the same measures.

"Northern
Geographic accuracy:"

"District
Rationale:"

Alex ‘4D’ Gollner | 16.02.24 - 12:27 p.m. | #

TfL also drew up a plan to number the LO lines, Metro-style, whilst keeping the orange route colour, and Boris vetoed that too.

The DC Line would be better off as the Wembley Line, thus also marking the 1966 final, plus the 1948 Olympics (just as ‘ancient’ as Windrush). Referencing the South Asian communities by recalling the 1924 British Empire exhibition might be going a little too far though!

Upminster/Romford should be branded as shuttle part of the District Line or Crossrail. It doesn’t matter what colour the trains used are.

Kim | 16.02.24 - 12:31 p.m. | #

I wonder how long till the DLR gets individual line names.
I've always found it's service patterns much more confusing than the Overground, and it likely has more tourists and irregular commuters aboard.

Simple Simon | 16.02.24 - 12:58 p.m. | #

Dire. Suffragette and Lioness abysmal, embarrassing, unspeakable.

Strabismus | 16.02.24 - 1:22 p.m. | #

In the period referenced by the Weaver line description, the colour maroon was often called "murray".

If extra cleverness was wanted, the colour of the Suffragette line could have been green one side, maroon the other, which with white in the middle would match suffragette sashes. Might not look so good next to the other lines on the map, though.

MilesT | 16.02.24 - 2:18 p.m. | #

I was pretty underwhelmed when they finally announced the names. I guess anything more interesting would also be more controversial.

To me Lioness is clearly the worst as it feels like a passing fad. A bit disappointed in Sufragette given they get all the glory when its debatable whether the Suffragists achieved more. I'd liked the Mildmay name until I discovered here that the hospital isn't in the area of Isington of the same name.

Anders | 16.02.24 - 2:21 p.m. | #

The geographical inaccuracy irks me, too.

I feel similarly regarding the West Coast Main Line, which is poorly named for a geographical referencing for most of its journey.

Penny | 16.02.24 - 2:48 p.m. | #

I doubt the rail unions have okayed the line which is being named after terrorists who maimed and burned so many railwaymen.

The Chingford Line and the Enfield/Cheshunt line should not be branded as the same line, because they have different stopping patterns between the three stations they share, and the line guide on the Victoria Line needs to say where to get off for Chingford and where to get off for Enfield / Cheshunt / Cambridge Heath.

Basil Jet | 16.02.24 - 3:05 p.m. | #

The "Windrush" line would be a jolly sight more appopriate if they would re-open East Brixton station, in between Clapham and Denmark Hill. But then, that would require some effort, and would achieve something useful, which I'm sure would never do.

cau1khead | 16.02.24 - 3:28 p.m. | #

A complete and utter total waste of £6.3m.

dg writes: see third comment.

Barry Coppock | 16.02.24 - 3:42 p.m. | #

If you’re going to give names to overground lines you’re not going to satisfy everyone. Would have I chosen these names? Probably not . Would you lot have 100% agreeed with my choices? Also no.

Dave Joned | 16.02.24 - 4:42 p.m. | #

It’s easy to forget that for every new person that is born in or moves to London these names will be second nature to them in the same way that there must be now 10s of thousands of people who have come to London post-renaming of Crossrail to Elizabeth and for who the Elizabeth line IS just the name of that line.

Joe | 16.02.24 - 8:07 p.m. | #

I look forward to the return of orange to the map at some point, as the most obvious colour now (or, perhaps, once again) missing. I wonder what the reason for it will be.

Chris | 16.02.24 - 8:59 p.m. | #

Today I have learnt the difference between Suffragette and Suffragist. And that they are in fact different in the first place.

Steven Saunders | 16.02.24 - 9:42 p.m. | #

To my eyes at least, by separating out the Overground to many colours that are double lines, it does now look like the Elizabeth line is now just another Overground line on the tube map.

I wonder if they will need to re-think it's 'not a tube' status on the map to emphasise the frequency that it has

Paul | 16.02.24 - 10:32 p.m. | #

The difference with the Elizabeth Line, is that it was renamed before opening, as was the Jubilee Line, whereas these new lines are like an existing football stadium getting a new sponsored name that nobody cares about.

Mikey C | 16.02.24 - 11:56 p.m. | #

I ride the Bakerloo, so do I ride the Lioness?
II might say I’m ’on the Piccadilly’, so am I on the suffragette?

Anyway, goblin goblin goblin.

Edward | 17.02.24 - 1:08 a.m. | #

It's more akin to a public space being renamed to commemorate a public figure than a sponsorship deal for a football stadium. Very common in France, not too sure about here.

A sponsorship deal would be quite something else and we should be happy that TfL weren't tempted by the (perhaps) millions for a Burberry Line (though individual station sponsorship names would be a more palatable alternative if it got to that!).

matthieu1221 | 17.02.24 - 1:12 a.m. | #

Did this really need TfL to spend just over £115 thousand to come up with these names. Given the ubiquitous Windrush, and in hindsight the obvious addition of Lioness, then how did it take a branding agency five months to come up with the other four. I would have sat down with a couple of social history of London books and had a shortlist of 10 drawn up within a week.

Given the amount of speculation and names suggested when this exercise was formally announced, why couldn't TfL have simply done this themselves. This is another example of how they now spurn their knowledgeable customer base rather than involve everyone who would have been happy to help, and for free.

Ken | 17.02.24 - 8:48 a.m. | #

Has Susan Hall promised to cancel this “on day 1” yet? I can only hope.

Kim | 17.02.24 - 12:03 p.m. | #

Of course,the ship that brought the emigrants from the West Indies was the "Empire Windrush", so anyone who considers Windrush Line excessively woke could use the other half of the ship name.

Crispy | 17.02.24 - 2:52 p.m. | #

Suffragette Line might have its virtues, but I think that the wisdom of linking the word SUFFER with a railway line is asking for trouble.

Petras409 | 17.02.24 - 10:31 p.m. | #

Frankly, only North Koreans would name their commuter railway lines so politically. I really hate Sadiq Khan now.

Patrickov | 18.02.24 - 1:37 p.m. | #

Surely…

dg interrupts: never risk a surely.

dcs34 | 18.02.24 - 1:50 p.m. | #

Wokery from this woke mayor at its finest!

H | 21.02.24 - 12:06 p.m. | #

Whilst looking at the TfL graphics for the new lines more closely, I noticed a mistake: the Mildmay shows trains from Richmond heading to either Clapham or Stratford, not Stratford heading to Clapham or Richmond!

dg writes: see post from 23rd February.

Stanley | 20.03.24 - 8:19 a.m. | #











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