Has anyone seen that TFL are wanting to name the London overground lines?

[Dinopawus]

Saw this earlier. I don't think it's an official consultation as such but it sounds like interviews will be held with the travelling public.

I'd really like to see women represented (although not holding my breath). When I hear that Sadiq Khan wants diverse representation, I tend to assume that doesn't mean women.

Who would you like to see nominated with links to London? Rosalind Franklin,
Ada Lovelace, Cicely Saunders, Marie Curie, Millicent Fawcett, any number of suffragettes, Rhaune Laslett, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, all spring to mind but there must be hundreds of other brilliant women worthy of the honour.

tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/naming-overground?intcmp=73299#on-this-page-1

Noor Inayat Khan

I just saw her blue plaque and was so excited!

Definitely!

Eurgh, I hate when they do things like this and name these things after people (women or not)

Just call it the ‘river line’ and be done with it.

This is why the fares are so high - wasting money on this stuff. For teh line they are going to name to Watford - call it the Watford line. It will help people remember what the line means or is.

I don’t think lines should be named after individuals ( exception for queens and kings) but otherwise should be something neutral or connected to the start of the line or the end. The tube has some great line names, Piccadilly etc but also mostly just relevant ones like central ( as it goes centrally) or northern ( as it goes north) or metropolitan as it goes into metro land.
I wonder if it will be put to a vote?
politics should be kept out of it.

Another vote for the names bearing some relation to the route!

The London underground lines are named eg "Victoria line" because it goes through the main station "Victoria" or the "Northern Line" because it goes through the main Northern stations, or the "Hammersmith and City" line for obvious reasons.

If they really feel a burning desire to name the London overground lines, just keep it destination based otherwise it'd be so confusing.

There is no reason to do this anyway because the London Overground is the same as any other train line in existence. You check the line for the final destination. You take that train. It's not rocket science.

I guarantee this is a woke wank and a pointless one.

Circle line goes in a circle.
the only recently named line after a person is the Elizabeth line and that was in honour of the queen and timed for her jubilee.
so no lines are currently named after random Londoners. They are all geographical or related to stops on the line.

Yep

Bakerloo line is my favourite

Would be good to have a Westwood or Quant line as a nod to the impact of British fashion.

Also a Nightingale Line, though I do think she’s often overused in comparison to other women (perhaps not in comparison to other great men, though), so maybe the Seacole Line?

Oh the burden for you Southerners having actual public transport lines to name. 😁

Having no public transport to talk about up North saves us from that hardship.

Stratmond

Euford

Barking Oak

LiverChes

HighClap

Rominster

That will do

The point of naming the lines is to make them more memorable and easier to use - a sensible step for an organization tasked with getting people around London without cars. Calling a line The Watford Line, is only useful if trains don’t go to Watford along any other route. Naming lines can also help with tourism - something London is keen to increase.

There are other places in the south other than London and.plenty have no public transport

I agree with the others that feminism should be kept out of naming train lines.

"The overpriced overground train to (wherever) line"

"Probably running late train to (wherever) line"

"This one's always busy train to (wherever) line"

"The (wherever) line"

"Barking Oak" is actually referred to as the goblin (GOspel oak to Barking LINe) - much better!

I agree.

Two tube lines are named after women, both Queens, although I doubt either used the tube much.

Khan needs to get a bloody grip , changing the name of Kensigton Olympia to Maggie Thatcher isn't going to stop crime! better causes to throw £millions at

Glad they're going to name the lines - hopefully it will see the end of reference to disruption or closures on "the Overground" with no indication of which line is affected.

I don't want them named after people either.

Trainymctrainface line obviously. And if that doesn't get nominated/voted for I will lose what little faith I have in Londoners.

Also, for people who are experts in such matters, what if any effect will this have on the game of games?

Calling a line The Watford Line, is only useful if trains don’t go to Watford along any other route.

There were two Edgware Road stations on different lines for years lol, it doesn’t need to be ‘memorable’ it just needs to get you where you’re going.

I can get why they’d call the lines something different, so you don’t have to say ‘the overground that goes from Stratford to Richmond’ or whatever.

I would personally find it much more interesting if they could go along the route and use some sort of feature of the route to name it, similar to how people do when they name a house or whatever.

And it also risks getting political, I just think stick to the geographical.

I agree that having names isn't that useful. And these are all existing lines, not glittering new really deep tube line (where the interconnections at stations are so long you may as well have stayed on the old tube line as the speed of the train time is lost by the miles of walking!)

Its funny isn't it when these "overground" tfl lines were just run by existing train companies before passing to TfL no one needed to name them, you just learnt which route would suit or not, your journey. I wonder if it is to do with them being seen as acceptable public transport for a certain section of society (who wouldn't dream of getting on anything as common as a bus) who are used to being pandered to. You would have thought with all their apps they could navigate their way around, and tourists aren't going to find random names of any help.

If having to name them I would go for something descriptive (like Hammersmith and City) eg Euston Watford, or Stratford Richmond.

I am in fact much more worried by the Circle line no longer being a circle (I think there used to be a song or poem about spending all day going round on the circle line). Now it is either a P that has fallen forward or a d that has fallen backwards.

Although I do remember once on a circle line train inexplicably delayed at Edgeware Road hearing the driver announce that in some magical way the train had ceased to be a circle line and had become a Hammersmith and City line!

Although anyone using the District Line has to be on their toes as it branches off all over the place, so as someone said up thread, you just revert to looking for the name of the head stop.

Oh dear, I've just read the official blurb and thought it was just going to be a lets pretend we are a nice cuddly company and we are all in this together, the hell of getting round London and would get lots of BoatyMcBoatFace and so on.

But I have now read their diversity and inclusion statement:

We'll be carrying out a full Equality Impact Assessment to understand any impacts on customers with protected characteristics, as well as what actions we can take to mitigate these.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has also stated his ambition for the naming of London Overground lines to reflect London's diversity within the public realm.
TfL is working with the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm to establish broad themes we'll use to guide the community engagement.

The programme of community engagement, led by our partner agency DNCO, will take place with a range of audiences, including local groups and transport historians.
The approach is centred around hearing from the many different communities that live close to the London Overground and how we can represent them through the line names.

TfL will engage with stakeholders at local, national levels to ensure that the community engagement programme is inclusive and collaborative. We'll keep these stakeholders updated as the project progresses.

So could end up with trains called Soda Bread to Jellied Eels or Chips to Tofu.