Londoners are still coming to terms with having different names for the six Overground lines, a change introduced just two months ago. But they could have been renamed ten years ago, indeed plans reached an advanced stage only to hit the buffers when Mayor Boris Johnson decreed everything had to stay orange. This was confirmed this week in an FoI response which revealed three official documents from 2015 detailing why the new names were needed, what they'd be called and how they'd look on maps and signage. You can find that FoI response here, or you can read on.
This document, which is exactly 10 years old, starts with a bold statement that we now know to be wildly premature.
"From the 31st May 2015, when London Overground takes over the West Anglia service we will be introducing a new approach to wayfinding on the network with each line on the network adopting a line name and colour. The overarching name London Overground will be retained. This is the same approach that we take for London Underground."
TfL's intention was to rename all the Overground lines to coincide with their takeover of the suburban lines out of Liverpool Street towards Enfield, Cheshunt and Chingford. They recognised that adding a lot more orange to the network might be confusing so were preparing to press ahead and rename things, indeed they'd already confirmed names and colours.
"After some consideration, it has been agreed that we will adopt a more traditional route and in the majority of cases use the historic names. Where this is not possible new names have developed or enhanced to ensure customer understand the route that is served."
And here are those names.
There's no long discussion here about why these names were selected, not like there was with the current lot, because most of them already existed. Instead the point of the document was to report on what passengers thought of them.
A total of 895 face-to-face interviews were conducted at 11 stations, the chief outcome being that "Overall there was broad support for line names with many expressing ‘strong support’". The report also notes "A minority already spontaneously call the line names by the names we will be using", because that's what happens when you randomly interview nerdier members of the public.
Not everyone liked North London line and East London line, the most traditional of the names, particularly if their part of the line wasn't in North or East London. Passengers on lines out of Liverpool Street were also "less sure that the name sets the line apart", perhaps because they weren't yet part of the Overground or perhaps because they understood Lea Valley line to mean an entirely different route. Note that 'Goblin' was never under consideration.
The document also included draft signage.
This looks incredibly similar to the designs we've got now except that the name and colour are different. Indeed none of the six names they picked are those we're using today and nor are any of the colours, other than the grey selected for the irrelevant shuttle between Romford and Upminster.
We jump ahead to 11th June 2015, which is interesting because the new names had been due to be introduced in May and plainly weren't. Instead the document is titled "Overground Line Renaming Proposal" and reads like it's trying to persuade somebody important that renaming is a good idea.
• The London Overground is rapidly expanding.
• This will continue with rail devolution.
• Customer feedback is that the network has reached a critical mass of individual lines.
• A clear way of route identification is needed for the purposes of wayfinding and journey planning.
• London Underground has a world-class and proven method for wayfinding and journey planning – Underground mode with line differentiation – we recommend this is extended to Overground
On page 3 TfL included feedback on the recently released May 2015 tube map, freshly splurged with orange, and I was fascinated to see whose reactions they'd included.
He makes a very salient point, that fourth gentleman.
A 2030 tube map was included to show what the network might have looked like with full rail devolution if everything remained orange, i.e. extremely complicated across south London. It also showed Crossrail 1, Crossrail 2 and the Metropolitan line extension, so do give it a look if diagrammatic hypotheticals are your thing.
More relevantly, the report included a tube map using the new colours to show what the effect of separating out the lines might be.
It's pretty much exactly what we've ended up with except that none of the colours are the same. I have to say I prefer these, particularly the use of orange and brown for the Overground's inner orbit around London, but instead this became red and blue because the final choice of colours followed active consideration of visual impairments. If you're colour blind you may be glad TfL didn't jump the gun in 2015.
Also it wasn't yet 100% certain how the line out of Liverpool Street should be rebranded.
Five alternative names were in the mix, the intention being to "run a competition asking customers of the service the name that they would like us to adopt. The competition would run in July."
POTENTAL ALTERNATIVE NAMES FOR THE LEA VALLEY LINE
• Hackney line (Branch lines converge at Hackney)
• William Morris line (famous English Artisan associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. Born in Walthamstow)
• Jazz line (Historical reference to the 1920 services from Liverpool Street high frequency suburban service)
• River Lea line (Geographical reference)
• Southbury line (Historical reference to the line linking Edmonton Green to Cheshunt)
Of those Hackney possibly makes the most sense, River Lea is worse than Lea Valley, Jazz would have baffled most passengers and Southbury didn't have a hope. William Morris probably came closest to making the cut, and committee-friendly Weaver is what we've eventually ended up with.
In that last graphic you may also have noticed the use of a pair of colours to depict each line, which brings us to the next document...
By October renaming the Overground lines was very much a proposal, no longer a done deal. This 20-page document kicks off with all the usual arguments regarding why renaming would be a good thing, without actually suggesting new names, then suggests four possible design options for depicting the lines on the map.
Option 1 is what we eventually ended up with nine years later. Options 2 and 3 reflected a perceived need to retain Overground orange alongside the new colours for overall branding reasons. They look very odd to our eyes now, and when you see them on a tube map they look odder still.
Meanwhile Option 4 was to do nothing and leave the Overground as two parallel orange lines. And what I believe happened is that when these four options were placed in front of the Mayor he chose option 4, i.e. the status quo, and the entire renaming project bit the dust.
These three documents from 2015 therefore exist only to show what might have been, indeed confirmation that if Boris had grasped the nettle we wouldn't have ended up with the six inclusive names Sadiq chose instead.
Windrush, not East London
Mildmay, not North London
Suffragette, not Barking
Weaver, not Lea Valley
Lioness, not Watford Local
Liberty, not Emerson Park
