UK London Overground: Six new rail line names and colours revealed in rebrand - People will probably "grumble and moan about the names" but the redesign is much needed, says one transport writer.

Note for people who aren't train autists or Londistanis: the London Overground is a series of suburban rail routes operated by TfL (the same transit authority that operates the London Underground and most London buses) since 2007.

Not to be confused with any other train line that runs through London, which are sometimes colloquially (and confusingly) referred to as 'overground', even by some Londoners.

By Dan Cairns for Sky News, Thursday 15 February 2024 11:12, UK
Archive, link to original

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File pic: iStock

The London Overground is being rebranded and divided into six lines with their own names and colours.

It currently appears on the Tube map as a sprawling orange network that some say has become too tricky to navigate.

The six lines will be renamed Mildmay, Windrush, Suffragette, Weaver, Lioness and Liberty.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said they celebrate "different parts of London's unique local history and culture".

Mildmay references a Shoreditch hospital that treats patients with HIV-related illnesses and will cover the Stratford and Richmond/Clapham Junction stretch.

Windrush honours the generation who arrived from the Caribbean and will be the new name for the Highbury & Islington and south London section.

The Suffragette line - between Gospel Oak and Barking Riverside - is in tribute to suffragette Annie Huggett, who lived in the area.

The Weaver line - in east London and Essex - references links to the textile trade.

Lioness - between Euston and Watford Junction - is in tribute to the success of England's women footballers.

The Liberty line, covering the Romford and Upminster portion, recognises how Havering borough historically had more self-governance through a royal liberty.

The six sections will appear on the main Tube map as parallel lines in different colours when the rebranding is rolled out in the autumn.

Six thousand station direction signs and tannoy announcements will need redoing, as well as thousands of new Tube maps. The changes are estimated to cost £6.3m.

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Pic: PA

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The new London Overground map will take effect in the autumn. Pic: PA

London Overground was created in 2007 when Transport for London took over suburban rail lines from other operators.

It's been extended several times, most recently taking over some services from Great Anglia in 2015, and now includes more than 100 stations.

The current map has been likened to a mass of orange spaghetti but the mayor hopes the changes will make things more straightforward.

"Giving each of the Overground lines distinct colours and identities will make it simpler and easier for passengers to get around," said Mr Khan.

The editor of transport website London Reconnections, John Bull, said the change was long overdue.

He predicted people would "grumble and moan about the names" but said that's happened for "every single line that has been given a name over the years".

"Frankly, it's nice to have some stuff that represents things that have changed the lives of Londoners, among the references to queens that have tended to accrue up until now," he said.
 
More background info/train sperging:

Until yesterday's announcement, the London Overground lines were all marked on the Tube Map in the same shade of orange, which was the same colour as the now-defunct East London Line. That line (originally running from Shoreditch to New Cross) was once a part of the London Underground (AKA the 'Tube'), and before that it was part of the Metropolitan Railway.

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2023 map of the London Underground with all Overground lines in orange (click for high res)

For most of the Tube's history, the East London Line was not officially designated as its own line, either being shown in the same colour as the Metropolitan or the District line on maps. After it stopped being a Tube line, it was extended north and south to become part of the London Overground, but it still kept its name as the East London Line, up until this most recent announcement. Meaning that the only part of the London Overground that used to be a Tube line is officially named after the embodiment of Black Britishness.

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1994 map of the London Underground with the East London Line in orange.

For those unaware, the namesake of this line is the Empire Windrush, a ship that transported economic migrants from Jamaica to the UK in 1948, an event now seen as the BAME equivalent of the Mayflower voyage. And the first wave of nigs that began with them are known as the 'Windrush generation'. History Debunked has already made several videos about this. But TL;DR the government did not "invite" them. Even Wikipedia says so. They just really sucked at getting rid of them.
 
So the lines are named after:
Something Londoners hate
Lioness?
AIDS hospital
A mistake
An even bigger mistake
The England women's football (soccer) team, who won the world cup in 2022, are nicknamed the Lionesses.

Which is itself a reference to the men's team being nicknamed the Three Lions after the heraldic lions on their crest.
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I notice you forgot the Weaver Line. I can't have been the only one who thought this sounds like it was named after a person. But apparently the name just refers to textile weavers. Jokes about Jackie Weaver have been pouring in though.

And they gave the best name to the crappiest stretch of railway. The Romford-Upminster Line, now to be known as the Liberty Line, is just a single track from nowhere to nowhere with one train on it that goes back and forth every half hour.
 
Khan is so out of touch with regular Londoners it's not even funny.
 
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You know, the Chicago rail system has been color coded since before I was born. And do you know what brilliant naming scheme they have for the various lines?

they're called by their fucking colors because the point of the color is to be the designator. An additional name is counterproductive.

Imagine taking pride in being forty years behind fucking Chicago.
 
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