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

So no danger of a Forstater line? 😔

It will be interesting to see if they stick. Or people just say the Richmond line

I think that’s a fair point about naming after people being potentially too political. To be fair I think that emphasis may come from the OP (and the rest of us who followed that line). The TFL page doesn’t indicate they’re looking to do that.

Yep, we could invent some great destination-based line names. The Wat-clap line (Clapham junction to Watford). The RichStrat line. The DalGosp line.

You could have the For-Strater line. Forest Hill to Stratford

Glasgow has a subway ...

As a TfL employee, this idea got a HUGE eye roll from across the network.

There is NO NEED to name the lines and it would actually cause more confusion.

I'd love to be in charge of naming train lines but agree they shouldn't be named after people, kings and and Queens excepted.

what about
the thatcher line ( known as maggie line)
the Johnson line ( known as the Boris line)
the Livingston line ( known as the Ken line)
the Churchill line ( known as the winston line)
the khan line ( known as the Sadiq line)
that wouldn’t be annoying and confusing at all
imagine explaining it all to confused and lost tourists wondering where the overground has gone, it would be great fun
people could have their allegiances and refuse to use certain lines or insist they are the only ones they use.

or we could just name them sensible non political geographical names and everyone can get on with their lives.
or just stick to “london overground” which works perfectly well

Or another idea what about the Charles line ( known as the Charlie line to monarchists and drug fans / young people but republicans and Harry and Megan fans call it the Freedom line or sometimes the Harry and/ or the Republic line)

I think names would be useful. It's difficult trying to describe a route to anyone not familiar with the Overground. I agree with PPs that the name should be relevant to the route. It's confusing enough being a foreign visitor in London, without having to guess whether the Marie Curie line takes you to Richmond or Chingford.

I am very happy for the above ground lines to be called by the end destination. Since that is what I call them now and have done for decades.

As a regular user, I do not wish for these to be named to commemorate anything or anybody. I need them to remain logical so I can get around.

Well as a USER of the Overground I can tell you naming the lines is a welcome initiative.

Some of the lines are completely separate of others - it's not an interconnected network, just a brand name for services run by a particular operation.

As I said earlier, it will help passengers easily identify whether their line is affected by disruptions or closures, as these are currently lumped together under "the Overground " and you have to scan through the whole list to see if you're affected. Unlike named Tube lines, where you can just glance at the name of the line the check for problems.

And at least one of the original lines had a name before it was absorbed into the Overground and extended: the East London line. Wikipedia still has an entry for it applying to the Highbury & Islington/Crystal Palace/Croydon route. But it doesn't include the Clapham branch so it will be interesting to see how they accommodate that - a different name for each branch or a single name with reference to branch destinations.

This has DisasterMcDisaster written all over it.

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

I live near the end of the Richmond-Stratford overground. I don't need to be 'represented,' I need it to run on time and to be able to get a seat.

The problem with this is that calling these lines by another name is going to confuse people who have been calling them by their current names for years. Hell, I still call the Richmond line the North London Line occasionally and it hasn't been that for years.

Jealous. We have public footpaths through fields or potholed roads for speeding cars (no pavements).

Oh dear, couldn't the money be spent on track or signal upgrades? Or station maintenance?

I saw this. I was told that it was London Overground because one of the senior managers liked the Wombles, which is probably not true.

Though if it is:
Great Uncle Bulgaria line for the first one- is that the Stratford to Richmond one?
Tobermory line for the one to Watford Junction- the furthest north
Madame Cholet line for whichever line serves the most French people
Orinoco line for the one that crosses the Thames.

@SageHoney thank you for the life size representation of the Glasgow Subway, so small are the trains that Rishi Sunak could have to duck!

I still recall the days of Silverlink and how confusing it was when it became the Overground. It really doesn't need to undergo another change and besides, the Overground doesn't run as frequently as the Underground, so the name is a reminder that they're two different kinds of services.

TFL just need to leave it as it and spend money elsewhere.

I have always liked the way a lot of Paris Métro stations are named after events or people rather than just the district they are in. I can think of Louise Michel (she was an anarchist!). Others current or upcoming are Barbara (the singer) and Bagneux-Lucie Aubrac (Lucie was a Resistance hero).

Liverpool has a subway! You could have knocked me down with a feather.

I put 'morlock' in the .gif drawer (just curious, love ya Liverpool 😘) and got a load of American Football?

Oh and Eddie.

@IcakethereforeIam

I put 'morlock' in the .gif drawer

I don't know what a '.gif drawer' is, but to me, the Morlocks will always be the creatures that are so cruel to poor Weena and the other Eloi.

Naming them will be useful. There are currently too many grouped under the Orange. But agree go with something informative - we had the East London Line for example, revive this.