New London Train Line Names

[ScoldsBridal]

Just announced. Definitely a Feminist vibe to them. Love that the line that goes through Wembley has been named the Lioness Line. There’s also:
The Suffragette Line
The Windrush Line
The Liberty Line
The Weaver Line
The Mildmay Line

I laughed as Twitter are making out the Weaver Line is named after Jackie Weaver 😂 It’s actually honouring the textile industries it passes through in areas like Spitalfields and Hackney.

Windrush is fantastic too. Serving areas with people that have strong connections to the Caribbean. Symbolically powerful.

The Mildmay Line - is such a lovely word and honouring a small, charitable hospital that was at the forefront of AIDS/HIV treatment. Also had a tradition for treating Jewish immigrants in the East End.

The Liberty Line - again just a great name - it goes to Havering which was historically a ‘Liberty’ town.

And finally The Suffragette Line which goes to Barking were Annie Huggett lived - the longest surviving Suffragette who lived to 103. And also the spirit of the East End working classes who fought for Women’s Rights.

I know people will moan about it being ‘woke’ (yawn) but I think they’ve balanced out honouring London’s varied communities with some strong branding. I like how they haven’t chosen named people - but have emphasised social history, achievement and recognition of real contribution to the Metropolis of London.

I’m sure there will be some imaginative re-naming by passengers - suffering on the Suffragette line - Stuck in the ‘rush’ hour on the Windrush etc…

But I like them.

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat yes but I often use the Overground from Clapham Junction to Shepherds Bush and kind of forget that the line goes all the way around to Stratford - which is completely the opposite side of London. From Clapham Junction I would be travelling in a west direction - Stratford is over in the east.
Some people might not click that CJ to Stratford is "their" line if they hear that announcement.

Honestly, the Overground is now a very large network of lines that is potentially going to get bigger in future, and one big orange clump is no longer working.

Sure, you can consider it a waste of money, but TfL carries so many people every day that £6m is really small change. There's over 4m journeys a day on the Underground, buses are something like 9m, and the Overground and DLR are quite a lot more on top of that. £6m is probably a couple of hours of TfL's income. Given that it operates 24/7, it's an almost insignificant amount of money, and the potential benefits of this will all have been properly costed up before the project was approved.

I'd suggest that if you want to get angry about something, there's probably better choices available.

Wanton wankery at its best. Man’s a tosser

I'm chuffed with this news. I regularly use several bits of the overground. I think it's good to have different names to distinguish the different bits and I like the feminist/progressive vibe.

It was renamed to TFL Rail, before being renamed again.

So why don't you call it TFL Rail then?

Oh, hell, yeah. It's a million times better than the sucking-up-to-the-establishment Elizabeth line.

TfL Rail was only ever a temporary name used before Crossrail opened in full and was never intended to be permanent.

Perhaps they should've renamed to Charles Line, Edward Line, Henry Line etc? 😈

1980s artist's impression of a Crossrail train. It was always the intention to call it that when it opened.

OMG stop complaining ffs.
I thought you would have all been happy that some of the lines are named after women instead of discussing the trope of ‘the whole world is against women’.
the ‘6million’ this cost wouldn’t have done anything for women as the tories don’t give a fuck so don’t believe the ‘they know what a woman is’ line.

Whereas in reality Khan has made London a lot worse for women.

Spending £6m on this, millions on Maaate adverts etc, and yet sexual assaults on public transport are increasing, muggings during the day on Oxford street, no go areas thanks to LTNs etc.

To add to my forecast re informal names, research suggests the Lioness Line will become the Liney Line.

Absolutely!!!

The money is also incredibly small change for TfL. They'll have made that much today already.

I think it's super useful renaming them. I live in Stratford and sometimes want to go to Hackney, but can never remember which overground lines go where, as two separate lines go through Hackney. So everytime I have to look at the map to figure out what I'm doing. Now I know to just see if its on the Mildmay, or windrush lines.

If you need to plan a route, which people do from looking at the maps every day, there's no indication of the actual routes - Circle and District makes sense visually, Victoria makes sense visually, Northern makes sense (just about, it all gets a bit vague unless you already know whether you need to go past Mornington Crescent or not unless you're standing in front of the split map in the station) - but the Overground is just a tangle of orange which doesn't actually show what bits are directly linked up or where you have to go to one place and then travel back the way you came on a different service for a considerable distance.

Also, if someone hears 'disruption on the Windrush Line at Norwood Junction', they know instantly that this affects their journey and they'd be better off going to ECR to get to, say, Guys (excluding the fact that there are extra express trains from ECR so it would be quicker in any case) because the express trains use a different line to the stopping services from West Croydon.

It’s TfL money, nothing to
do with the tories. they, as in TFL, could have spent it on better services.

Having a line named after women is a nice bonus. What I care more about is the actual service.

Absolutely, in time people will get used to it and it will make navigation much easier.

Imagine trying to find your way around King's Cross if none of the Underground lines had names!

£6m is a few hours of TfL's income and essentially small change to them.

I like the Elizabeth Line because it is also my name. 🙂

I don't like them much. I'd prefer it if the lines referenced a landmark on it, like the Piccadilly Line does. Or were helpfully named like The Circle Line. The Bakerloo Line is my favourite - a useful reminder of its route and also fun.

Exactly.

The £6 MILLION could have helped make things safer for women-better lighting, police presence in/around stations at night, trains being on time etc.
It seems to be more virtue signalling from Khan.

I'm afraid this on top of the posters everywhere saying things like "Pressing" to tell ppl not to rub against others is ridiculous misuse of money. None of the rubbers and pressers are going to read them and stop doing it are they?

And I admit to using and loving the Lizzy Line when it runs to time or at all

edited for spelling

I like it. Makes a lot of sense to split the overground lines up - I used to use them a lot but still got confused as to which bit was which. And as someone said above, given I never went to the ends of the line I didn’t identify it as the “end-to-end line”.

Names seem good. Yes, perhaps a little try hard, but unless they were going to be totally nonsensical then try hard was inevitable!

£6m would be a lot of money to me, but it’s nothing to TFL.

I like the names, and the different coloured lines will be very useful.

It is a fuckton of money though. I imagine I'll see some of it in Sadiq's portion of my council tax in April.

As I've repeatedly pointed out, it's a few hours of TfL's income. It's also about 75p each for everyone in London, if you want to look at it that way.

Yep, would have preferred them to be named after places. Also makes more sense if the point is to avoid confusion.

We were robbed of the Haggerston Line, the Chestnut Line and the Rotherhithe Line!