I'd like to apologise to readers who don't like trains and railways because all of this week's posts have been about trains and railways. I'm aware that many people do like trains and railways, including The Men Who Leave Comments When I Write About Trains And Railways, and their comments often make these posts look popular. But it has all been a bit relentless, sorry, and even my Monopoly interlude failed to bring respite because its prescribed focus had to be Liverpool Street station.
* n.b. TfL have updated their Dangleway consultation. It turns out 20 passengers use the cablecar between 7am and 8am, not the four in each direction they previously claimed, because they initially forgot about people who use carnet tickets. They've also decided that any changes to the timetable will take place in 2025, not this weekend as previously stated. Always go back and read a consultation again.
It means a lot that readers were more interested in my welfare than a new bus. That said, if I hadn't nipped in twice and said "I'm fine thanks (thanks)" the bus would have won. I'm fine, thanks (thanks).
More November 2024 stats
» The most viewed photo:Cromwell Road bus station
» The least viewed photo:ducks at Langtons, Hornchurch
» The number of times readers pointed out I was wrong: 38
» The number of readers who risked a surely: 13
I'd also like to apologise to readers in certain parts of London because I didn't write a post about your neck of the woods this month. The boroughs of Bexley, Brent and Barking & Dagenham were amongst my egregious omissions. I was in fact out in Hillingdon yesterday investigating the proliferation of barbershops on the Uxbridge Road and also in Harrow admiring the listed semi-tower of St Paul's on Corbins Lane, but neither of these passed the threshold for an interesting post which is why you're reading this November summary today instead. My apologies and rest assured I won't do a summary like this next month, nor will December be quite so full of trains and railways because nothing new is happening.
30 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in November 2024
1) In a typical month (April 2024) TfL issued 29,767 Under 16 Oyster Photocards, 6992 16+ Oyster Photocards, 6028 18+ Oyster Photocards and 269 Apprentice Oyster Photocards. 2) The social media management tool used by TfL is called Sprinklr. The current two-year contract costs £309,435. 3) During long-term trials prior to the rollout of 4G/5G mobile services on the London Underground, testing found average field strength between 0.43 and 2.36% and peaks between 0.61 and 3.92% of legal limits (as per Directive 2013/35/EU) at distances of around 20 inches, which is within the limits set by international and TfL standards. 4) In 2023 the total number of times a ramp was requested on the London Overground was 23,747. There were 12,413 prebooked passenger assists on the Underground but it's not known how many of these required a ramp or mini-ramp. 5) Over the last five years TfL spent £49,084,627 on advertising, of which 23% went on digital, 20% on radio, 18% on posters, 14% on TV, 12% on video on demand, 8% on press, 4% on social media and 2% on cinema. 6) In 2014 the London Underground Ventilation, Cooling and Power team were commissioned to carry out a Computational Fluid Dynamics study on the cooling system for New Routemaster buses to assess the existing thermal conditions with the aim of exploring options to enhance performance. A decision was made to initiate a retrofit campaign and install sliding opening windows on both the upper and lower decks, resulting in increased air movement around the passenger saloon area (to reduce temperatures), reduced humidity (less steamy windows) and passengers having some control over interior temperatures. 7) The longest delay on the tube this year was 1313 minutes on 15th August when District line services were suspended between High Street Kensington & Edgware Road from 4.30am for the rest of the day due to points failure. 8) When a passenger refuses to pay a bus fare, the driver presses a button to report fare evasion. This has been the case on all buses since the iBus system was introduced over 10 years ago. 9) The current fixed salary for a full-time Tube driver is £68,096. 10) Bus Stop M at Bow Church closed on 12/09/2019, 22/10/2019, 06/02/2020, 27/03/2020, 06/04/2020, 06/07/2020, 05/09/2020, 11/09/2020, 14/11/2020, 26/02/2021, 14/06/2022, 13/08/2022, 09/03/2023, 29/08/2023, 19/04/2024, 12/05/2024, 16/10/2024, 27/06/2024 and 23/09/2024.
11) Since 2014 TfL have planted 100 trees along the length of Gunnersbury Avenue to replace the 102 trees removed because they were either dead or in a condition that could cause damage to the highway or harm its users. 12) There are 1229 individual retail units available within TfL-managed stations, of which 24% are currently vacant. The most recent change of occupancy is the shop on the westbound platform at Sloane Square station (12th October 2024) and the longest tenancy is the Black Boy Public House at Stepney Green station (since 25th December 1901). 13) £250,949 has been spent branding Superloop bus stops and shelters. The route on which the most has been spent (£47,200) is the SL6 (the peak-hours route with by far the fewest number of passengers). 14) Of the 20,000 bus stops across the TfL network, 2972 are fitted with real time visual information and ten with real time audio information (9 on route 63 and 1 on route SL10). 15) Since 2021 there have been 94 reports of unattended dogs at tube stations and 7 reports of unattended cats. The stations with the most reports are Burnt Oak and King's Cross St Pancras with four apiece. 16) There are 673 licensed TfL Ambassadors and a further 2965 non-licensed TfL Ambassadors. 17) So far this year there have been 1483 prosecutions for contravention of TfL byelaws, 155 of which were for ‘Bringing & Possessing A Potentially Dangerous Item on the Railway’ (for example an e-scooter). 18) During the financial year 2023/24, 388,296,134 completed Oyster journeys were made on all rail modes, bringing in £756,529,536 of revenue. Of these, 28% of journeys were made using Travelcards. 19) Of TfL's 27,378 employees, 2.8% are over 65 years of age, 0.4% are under 20, 57% are White, 2027 are Muslim, 74% are male, 0.07% are non-binary and 28% live outside London. 20) During the financial year 2023/24, only 25% of lost property items were returned to their owners. Of the items catalogued 17% were bags, 16% clothing, 11% mobile phones, 5% keys, 4% eyewear and 3% jewellery. Losses included 1848 umbrellas, 344 passports, 118 bicycles, 44 cameras and 2 drones. Nobody claimed the cufflinks handed in at Mile End on 4th September 2023.
21) Trains on the Mildmay and Windrush lines have 186 seats and a standing capacity of 520. Trains on the Liberty, Lioness, Suffragette and Weaver lines have 177 seats and a standing capacity of 392. Capacity doubles on the Weaver line at peak times. 22) During the financial year 2023/24, TfL reported 147 data breaches. Of these 24 were data posted to the incorrect recipient, 21 were data emailed to an incorrect external recipient, 8 were verbal disclosure of personal data, 7 were failure to redact, 5 were loss/theft of paperwork or data left in insecure location and 2 were failure to use Bcc. 23) There are 3661 Oyster Ticket Stops in shops and outlets beyond the TfL network. During the last financial year they serviced 32,079,385 transactions with a total value of £408,849,428 (down from £574,535,576 in 2019/20). 24) In the last financial year TfL used 1,835,274,429.6 kWh of electricity. Of this 67% was used by the Underground, 17% by the Elizabeth line, 8% by the Overground, 3% by the DLR, 3% by surface transport and 0.006% by Dial-A-Ride. 25) The Waterloo & City line is the least-cancelled tube line. Of the others, the two tube lines with the fewest cancellations are the Northern and Victoria lines, and the two most cancelled are the Central and Piccadilly lines. 26) Four London Overground stations have Station Assistant Dispatch staff. They are Euston, Liverpool Street, Norwood Junction and West Croydon. 27) TfL refuse to reveal their longlist of potential Overground line names "as the information requested is intended for future publication later this year". 28) The axonometric drawing for Charing Cross station with reference to the Bakerloo line platforms has (finally) been released. 29) TfL buses don't have two wheelchair spaces because priority seats would need to be moved just after the middle doors resulting in a reduction in the number of fixed seats in the low-floor area of the bus which would disproportionately affect a greater number of customers. 30) Since ULEZ expansion, residents of Enfield have been issued with more ULEZ charges than residents of any other borough (approx 87,000). Not very close behind are Croydon (63,000), Hillingdon (60,000), Barking and Dagenham (58,000) and Haringey (55,000). Richmond is the outer London borough with the fewest ULEZ charges. Taking account of population, Camden has the fewest ULEZ charges overall.
Sep 2006: The Mayor announced yesterday that he's found a cunning way of extending the tube network without forking out billions on new tunnels. He's taking a couple of existing rail services - namely Silverlink's North London line and TfL's East London line - and plans to link the two together by adding in a short stretch of relatively cheap connecting track in the Dalston area. Throw in some new trains and some revamped stations and, hey presto, you have a brand new rebranded railway. Starting in November next year. And it's to be called the "London Overground".
Oct 2007: Wham, a big tangerine octopus has suddenly grabbed hold of the old tube network. The North London line may have been on the tube map for years but now it's bright orange and unmissable. The Gospel Oak to Barking line appears for the first time although with no indication of how infrequent the service is. The Watford to Euston line reappears while the West London line is brand new, ending south of the river at a rather forlorn looking Clapham Junction. All four lines have been inelegantly embedded onto the map with rather too many bends and several over-long stretches. All in all, not lovely.
May 2010: Suddenly southeast London sort-of exists. This is the first time that the tube map has ever ventured into Bromley or Croydon, and the first time it's ever nudged further south than Morden. That's got to be a good thing. There are nine fresh stations altogether from Brockley all the way down to Crystal Palace and West Croydon. None of these stations is actually new of course, they've merely been swallowed up by a different rail line. But the Overground, like the DLR, is given special dispensation to appear on the "tube map" even though it's not part of the tube network.
Dec 2012: It's been dubbed the M25 of rail, somewhat over-grandly, as it doesn't even nudge as far as the North Circular. But the Overground's southern extension does make possible an orbit of the capital via only two trains, interchanging at Highbury & Islington and Clapham Junction.
May 2015: The current London Overground comes in five orange flavours but on 31st May we get two more, namely the old West Anglia lines out of Liverpool Street and the Emerson Park shuttle. And then it'll start to get really confusing working out precisely which Overground is which.
Tube line diagrams are going to say 'Overground' everywhere but without making it in any way obvious which branch of the Overground it is. At the northern end of the Victoria line, for example, only one of the four orange interchanges leads to Stoke Newington, but your average Londoner isn't going to know which is which. Then there's the new Extra Complicated Tube Map, which'll have more orange lines than a plate of cheesy spaghetti, and no colour-based distinction as to which line goes where. The line diagrams in the new Overground timetables will also suddenly get a whole lot more complicated.
Once there are half a dozen separate Overground lines you'll be seeing their official names more often. And their official names are unexpectedly long. The new West Anglia acquisition, for example, goes by the overloaded moniker of Liverpool Street - Enfield Town/Cheshunt/Chingford, which is hardly catchy. Meanwhile the former East London line assumes the mouthful that is Highbury & Islington - West Croydon/Clapham Junction. Why don't we go back to calling Richmond/Clapham Junction - Stratford the North London Line? And why don't we call Gospel Oak - Barking the Goblin, for heavens sake, it's well established and it's fun.
Jun 2015: And there's another reason why what we call the Overground matters. When part of it isn't working, how do we know which part that is?
London Overground
LONDON OVERGROUND: Sunday 7 June, until 1000, no service between Liverpool Street and Chingford. Use local buses via all reasonable routes between Liverpool Street, Hackney Downs and Chingford. Replacement buses operate between Walthamstow Central and Chingford.
Replacement buses operate Service L3: Walthamstow Central - Wood Street - Highams Park - Chingford First trains will operate as follows: 0955 Chingford to Liverpool Street 1018 Liverpool Street to Chingford
LONDON OVERGROUND: Sunday 7 June, until 1000, no service between Liverpool Street and Enfield Town / Cheshunt (via Seven Sisters). Use local buses via all reasonable routes between Liverpool Street and Seven Sisters. Replacement buses operate between Seven Sisters and Enfield Town / Cheshunt.
Replacement buses operate Service L1: Seven Sisters (for London Underground Victoria line) - Bruce Grove - White Hart Lane - Silver Street - Edmonton Green - Bush Hill Park - Enfield Town; Service L2: Seven Sisters (for London Underground Victoria line) - Bruce Grove - White Hart Lane - Silver Street - Edmonton Green - Southbury - Turkey Street - Theobalds Grove - Cheshunt Note: First trains will operate as follows: 1000 Liverpool Street to Enfield Town 1015 Liverpool Street to Cheshunt, via Seven Sisters 1022 Enfield Town to Liverpool Street 1031 Cheshunt to Liverpool Street, via Cheshunt
LONDON OVERGROUND: Sunday 7 June, until 1230, no service between Gospel Oak and Highbury & Islington due to Network Rail track works. Replacement buses operate between Hampstead Heath and Highbury & Islington, please interchange between trains and buses at Hampstead Heath.
Replacement buses operate Hampstead Heath - Gospel Oak (Agincourt Road / Southampton Road) - Kentish Town West - Camden Road - Holloway Road (for London Underground Piccadilly line and Caledonian Road & Barnsbury) - Highbury & Islington
LONDON OVERGROUND: Sunday 7 June, no service between Clapham Junction and Kensington (Olympia) due to Earl's Court redevelopment works. Please use local London Buses services via any reasonable
Wouldn't these disruptions be much, much clearer if each of the Overground's constituent lines were given their own separate identity? The Chingford line is closed before 10am, the Enfield Town and Cheshunt lines ditto. The North London line is closed all morning between Gospel Oak and Highbury & Islington. The West London line is closed south of Olympia all day. The Emerson Park line is closed on Sundays. And the Watford line, the East London line and the Goblin are all open and unobstructed.
Aug 2015: I think we have a new contender for TfL's worst map. Perhaps not surprisingly it's on the Overground. Until TfL admits that there are in fact several Overgrounds, rather than colouring them all orange and promoting them all equally, this sort of mess is alas increasingly likely.
Apr 2021: One of the most headline-grabbing commitments in Sadiq Khan's manifesto is that he plans to rename the Overground lines. When the London Overground was first introduced in 2007 it made some sense to brand the whole thing under one name. A single orange loop with tentacles flailing out towards Watford, Richmond, Croydon, Stratford and Barking was visually comprehensible, if much less so when service updates needed to be communicated. What really broke things was the takeover of lines out of Liverpool Street, making northeast London a mess of tangled spaghetti and piling on the confusion over what 'minor delays' might actually mean. Splitting up the six lines makes enormously good sense. But what to call them?
Jul 2023: A new page has appeared on the TfL website called 'Naming London Overground lines' and posters have started popping up at Overground stations. They say "TfL and the Mayor of London have launched a programme of community engagement to name individual lines on London Overground. Over the next few months we'll be speaking to London Overground customers and different communities to understand more about the history of the network and the people it serves. London Overground lines are to be named to make the network easier to navigate and ensure the Capital's transport system reflects its rich and diverse history. We aim to make the changes by the end of 2024."
Feb 2024: Here we are three months before the next mayoral election and the six individual line names have just been launched. They'll creep out slowly over the next six months, with a big rebranding burst during one week in August, before taking their place as separately coloured lines on the tube map. The names are as diverse as promised, indeed they're what blinkered grumps might describe as woke, and they reference women's rights, the AIDS pandemic, immigration and medieval history. The overall brand and orange roundels will remain.
Nov 2024: The introduction of the six new London Overground names is finally, tangibly, underway. But the changes are being phased in, as befits a seriously complex operation, with some happening now, some delayed until next month or next year, and some kicked far into the future because cost has outweighed practicality. "This is a Windrush line train to Highbury & Islington. Change here for the Mildmay line to Richmond, Stratford and Clapham Junction via Willesden Junction."
The Mayor turned up at Dalston Junction yesterday morning to officially launch the new Overground names by opening some curtains and revealing a plaque that isn't yet on any wall. There were tote bags for everyone. The Windrush name now appears on signs across the station alongside a stream of posters telling the story of Sam King, an Empire Windrush passenger in 1948 and later the first black mayor of Southwark. Rainbow boards and tube map posters have also been updated. You'll look in vain for a pocket tube map though, here and everywhere else across London, because they've all been removed pending a reprint following the discovery of a typo. Oops.
LIVERPOOL STREET STATION Group: British Railways Purchase price: £200 Rent: £25 Annual passengers: 95 million Borough:City of London Postcode: EC2
The fourth and final railway station on the Monopoly board is the busiest station in the UK, a great contrast to mere Marylebone and Fenchurch Street. Like the others it was an LNER terminus in 1935 when Victor Watson and Marjory Phillips chose the names of the properties after a day trip to London. In today's post I'm going to focus on the mainline station, not the tube nor subterranean Crossrail platforms, and rest assured the text will be fully illustrated because I was only stopped once by a security guard enquiring why I was taking photos.
Trains from East Anglia initially terminated at Bishopsgate, a high level terminus approximately where Shoreditch High Street station is today. The extra push into the City of London took place in the early 1870s, displacing over 10,000 residents, with the creation of a new terminus on a site previously occupied by the Bethlem Royal Hospital. This opened in 1874 immediately alongside Broad Street station, initially with two platforms for main-line trains and eight for suburban trains. An extra ten platforms were added during a phase of expansion in 1890 and covered by a much plainer trainshed roof, with trains still forced to squeeze in and out of the station through a six-track neck under Shoreditch High Street. A major upgrade of the station took place in the 1980s after Broad Street closed, enabling development of the Broadgate complex, and a further massive office-based transformation is proposed if developers can push their controversial plans through.
Liverpool Street, the street, is late Victorian and named after one of the UK's longest serving prime ministers, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool. Station aside its premier building is the Great Eastern Hotel, designed in a Renaissance style by Charles Barry Jr and opened in May 1884. At the time it was the City of London's only hotel, ideal for bankingfolk to stay in overnight, and contained 160 bedrooms, two Masonic temples and a separate restaurant block. A turn of the century upgrade added lavish decoration and over 100 more rooms, then in 1996 the whole caboodle was sold to the Conran Group who spent £65m on a luxurious restoration, and the current owners are Hyatt Hotels whose nightly room rate is twice the price of a weekly season ticket to Norwich. Taxi drivers who cluster in the street outside are generally assured a good tip.
Today's station has 17 platforms with the Overground and Stansted Express departing from the lower numbers, Inter-Cities departing in the middle and trains passing through Stratford up the far end. Stansted-bound ticket gates continue to be emblazoned with red signage warning that contactless is not available on trains to the airport, as many only discover when they're slapped with a huge penalty at the far end. The hubbub of the 'teen' platforms is much diminished since Crossrail started running through journeys a couple of years ago. Only when you step through the barriers do the glories of the trainshed roof fully reveal themselves, and only if you walk to the very far end does that glory subside as you enter the pillaredunderworld beneath Broadgate with its Network Southeast banding still intact.
The main station concourse is below street level and brighter than it used to be in the days when departures were displayed on a clickety clackety split-flapboard. Today's electronic replacement spans the centre of the space, side-on, Network Rail having thankfully not replaced it by smaller boards at floor level and a blaze of irrelevant advertising. Passengers from the tube or Crossrail emerge mid-maelstrom opposite platform 6, whereas those entering from Bishopsgate or Liverpool Street descend via escalators, stairs or baggage-encumbered lifts. A lot of the clutter on the concourse has been removed to streamline passenger flow, leaving an information kiosk, a bank of ticket machines and an inadequate number of seats in situ. A proper customer lounge is tucked away up the side of platform 10 where most travellers will never spot it.
The original ticket office became an Oliver Bonas a few years ago, now accompanied by a much more useful Greggs. The latest ticketing facilities are a few paltry windows in a drab gap between platforms 10 and 11, but are themselves in the process of being relocated to make way for three new shops. Other platform-adjacent retailers include Upper Crust and a burritos vendor, with the remaining outlets having recently been ousted in favour of additional ticket gates (coming soon). A long-underwhelming WH Smiths remains opposite, alongside a snackgrab courtesy of the Camden Food Co and one of London's six Moleskine stores for stationery obsessives. Here too is the access to the underworld, aka the public toilets, where escalators have kindly been provided rather than the miserable narrow staircases some other mainline stations foist upon the desperate.
Liverpool Street station has an upstairs too, a balcony rim populated by further vendors keen to top up your journey with refreshment and tat. M&S Food and Leon are the chief traveller targets, there being less need for smelly bathbombs and rubber ducks en voyage. A tanning shop might seem an unnecessary inclusion at a rail terminus but this is the station that serves Essex so no doubt it has a solid business case. The less mercenary side of the balcony allows passers-by a good close-up of the back of the Great Eastern Hotel and its redbrick facade, along with a few pub stools for perching. Perhaps more imposing is the Great Eastern War Memorial, an 11-column marble marvel which was originally located in the booking hall but was relocated up here in the 1990s. Look out underneath for a set of lift doors and a plaque to Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson who officially unveiled the memorial in 1922 only to be shot by the IRA a few hours later as he returned home.
Sun Street Passage along the western flank was once the dividing line between Liverpool Street and Broad Street stations. Today it accesses a seriously lacklustre bus station where unfortunate passengers wait in a passage for deliverance, then reverts to an alleyway following the surviving side of the Victorian trainshed. At the far end is Exchange Square, a blandly artificial terrace from which you can normally look down from a high vantage point across the terminating tracks. However contractors from Morgan Sindall have just started work on refreshing the station roof, making it resilient to 1-in-10 year storms and replacing lichen-encrusted panels with brighter panes, so this fine view of multiple platforms is currently obscured until 2026.
The station's retail offer was recently extended by the creation of a split-level luxury mall nextdoor at 100 Liverpool Street. The existing arcade with its Boots and chocolate kiosk was seriously up-glammed with the addition of Reiss, Kiehl and Neom and other brands upstairs, plainly targeted at bonus-burdened financial types emerging from the offices above. Round the corner is a glitzy Hackett conveniently facing a Crossrail egress, and the piazza has just been filled with a bobbly sculpture by Yayoi Kusama resembling a string of silver globules, officially called "Infinite Accumulation". You get the feeling that Liverpool Street station is attempting to rival St Pancras as an iconic destination and is catching up, but still at least 20 years behind.
The introduction of line names on the Overground is sure to bring sightseers to Havering to see what the Liberty line is all about. So here's my tip-top tourist guide to help you find the finest places in the locality, some of which are actually rather fine.
10 things to see on the Liberty line
1) Visit Romford
This historic market town marks the western end of the Liberty line. You could watch the greyhounds at Romford Stadium, explore the exhibits at Havering Museum, shop til you drop at the The Liberty Centre, banter with the traders at Romford Market, watch the latest movie at the Vue Cinema, ride the Lodge Farm Park Miniature Railway, cheer on the Raiders at the Sapphire Ice and Leisure Centre, pay your respects in Coronation Gardens, track down the helipad at Queens Hospital or meet Santa in the grotto at Romford Shopping Hall. But all of these are covered in my post 500 things to see on the Elizabeth line, and rightly so, so let's move on to the second station on the line...
2) Enjoy Emerson Park station
Lovers of peace and quiet should make a beeline for the least used station on the Overground network which is Emerson Park. Step-free since the earliest days of the network it's accessed via a long ramp into a sylvan cutting where a single railway track pauses by a rustic platform. You could almost be in the countryside sometime in the 1950s were it not for the giant orange roundels. While you're here look out for the unstaffed cabin, the dangling litter bags, the electronic board pointlessly displaying departures for the next two hours, the grit bin and maybe a passing fox cutting across the tracks. Specific Liberty line signage is only evident on the line diagram between the card reader and the help point. Also don't forget to smile at the Dangleway advert on your way out because transport white elephants need to stick together.
3) Shop on Butts Green Road
You're not going to be short of places to eat, drink and buy motorbikes as you exit the station. Shish Meze restaurant awaits your custom at the top of the ramp, a plush hideaway for skewerlovers, whereas those with less spicy tastes will find more traditional pasties and sticky buns at the excellent Godfreys of Hornchurch. Pride of place in the centre of the traffic island goes to The Chequers Inn, a homely local dating back to the 19th century offering occasional live music and a dartboard. Across the road is The Hop Inn, a much-loved micro-pub and self-confessed lager-free zone which won the coveted title of UK Cider & Perry Pub of the Year in 2022, so probably go there instead. After all that drinking a bag of chips from Oh My Cod! will slip down nicely, and Bestway Motorcycles has you covered if you don't want to leave by train.
4) Grab a seat at the Queens Theatre
The striking brick building on Billet Lane is the QueensTheatre, Havering's premier arts venue. It's been on this site since April 1975 after its previous incarnation was demolished to make way for a new road scheme, and was officially opened by Sir Peter Hall with a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Its latest big production is Cinderella which'll be starring nobody you'll have heard of from now until January. Even when there isn't a show on the cafe in the foyer is very popular and helps give the interior that baked-in smell of coffee and carpets. Look out for the panto costumes at the far end, or if retro orange lettering is more your thing head outside and admire the signage above the wheelchair ramp.
5) Step back in time at Langtons
OK, this is genuinely worth a visit. Langtons is a Georgian manor house set in four acres of ornamental gardens complete with lake, swans, orangery and bath house. Rebuilt many times by many owners, including a sea captain, a Huguenot silk merchant and a coal haulier, it was eventually bequeathed to to Hornchurch Urban District Council in 1929 on the condition that the building be used for council purposes and the grounds remained open to the public. Havering council thus wring every last penny out of the place for hosting weddings and the like, and local people walk their dogs round the lake and feed the ducks and drop into Liana's Tea Shop for a hot beverage, well chuffed to have one of the borough's finest properties on their doorstep. Humphry Repton did the landscaping and there aren't many places five minutes walk from an Overground station that can boast that.
6) See the Ice Age end at Hornchurch Cutting
The last big ice age had to end somewhere and scientists have determined it ended here in Hornchurch. Glaciers from the frozen north pushed their boulder clay as far as the electricity substation round the back of St Andrew's church, this marginally further south than similar icy lobes that reached Bricket Wood and Finchley, thus marking the furthest extent of any Pleistocene ice sheet. This geological extremity was first discovered when navvies were digging the Hornchurch Cutting, which it used to be possible to walk across via a zigzag level crossing but they closed that for safety reasons so the best view is now from the former road bridge by St Andrew's Park. It's not a very good view, sorry. Perhaps best ride a train through the cutting instead, because the most incredible thing on the Liberty line are the glacial deposits that mark our climate's last upward inflection some 450,000 years ago.
7) Shop til you drop on Hornchurch High Street
You might think that that Hornchurch High Street would be best served by Hornchurch tube station but not so, Emerson Park's runty halt is marginally closer. This means you can enjoy such high-class high street stores as Cardzone, Molly's Florist and Stunning Nails, not to mention Greggs, Lidl, Peacocks, Boots and Poundland. The shop window at Best Sellers (est 1977) is currently full of kitsch gingerbread soldiers and reindeer cushions, while £19.99 Christmas trees are already on sale at the Öncü Food Centre. Bodybuilders should instead flock to Healthy Wheys, the weight loss and testosterone centre, while for zingy prawns it has to be The Giggling Squid in the middle of the traffic island. But don't go any further south than the Sutton Arms because if you reach Euronics you've entered the catchment area of Hornchurch station and we're not going there.
8) Ramble round the top end of Harrow Lodge Park
Only the top end falls within our remit, for reasons previously referenced, but that's enough to enjoy a tiny slice of Havering's largest urban park. The cricket pavilion dates back to 1960, four years before the opening of Hornchurch Swimming Pool which in 1987 was redeveloped as Harrow Lodge Leisure Centre. All this used to be the Manor of Maylards Green and Wybridge, as you'll learn if you read the considerable backstory on the park's information board. To one side is the River Ravensbourne, not the significant south London gusher but a minor dribble that feeds into the Beam which you likely haven't heard of either. You might see it better on the other side of the road amid the allotments, but don't feel you have to go and look.
9) Delve deeper into suburban Emerson Park
It would be a shame to come this far and not explore the suburb the station is named after. A few broad avenues were built to the north of the railway line around 1900, sufficiently widely spaced that each house could be awarded a plot of one acre. The story since has been the relentless infilling of the space between these houses with more houses and additional cul-de-sacs, but it still feels lightly packed and these remain desirable streets. The original builder was called William Carter and the estate is named after his son Emerson. The old manor house (called Nelmes) survived until 1967 and was replaced by a neo-Georgian development but if you walk to the end of The Witherings you can still see part of its moat and a 16th century outbuilding. Another cluster of whitewashed cottages survives on Wingletye Lane, by which time you're very nearly in Upminster...
10) Visit Upminster
This historic town with medieval roots marks the eastern end of the Liberty line. You could climb to the top of the smock mill in Windmill Field, visit the Tithe Barn Museum, shop for soft furnishings at Roomes, attend a home match at AFC Hornchurch, enjoy the borders in Clockhouse Gardens, grab a pint at The Junction, see the church where the speed of sound was first calculated, walk the River Ingrebourne, explore historic Corbets Tey or chow down on a Grillhouse Stack at Wimpy. But all of these are covered in my post 1000 things to see on the District line, and rightly so, so best focus instead on taking the Liberty.
Overground line factfile (because all the stats have changed)
Windrush line Operates: Highbury & Islington to New Cross/Clapham Junction/Crystal Palace/West Croydon Colour on map: red parallel lines Joined the Overground: 2010 Length: 24 miles Zones: 1-5 Number of stations: 29 (arguably 30 if you include Battersea Park) Number of step-free stations: 20 (69%) Number of ticket offices: 20 Number of branches: 4 Frequency of service: 16 trains an hour (every 15 mins at each southern terminus) Depot: New Cross Gate depot Number of boroughs served: 9 Most used station: Whitechapel Least used station: Wandsworth Road (586,000 annually) Most southerly station on the Overground: West Croydon Special feature: the only line with a Night Overground service 10 things to see on the Windrush line: Museum of the Home, Brick Lane, Brunel Museum, The Den, Rye Lane, Champion Hill, One Tree Hill, Horniman Museum, Crystal Palace Park, Selhurst Park
Mildmay line Operates: Stratford to Richmond/Clapham Junction Colour on map: blue parallel lines Joined the Overground: 2007 Length: 23¾ miles Zones: 2-4 Number of stations: 28 Number of step-free stations: 22 (79%) Number of ticket offices: 24 Number of branches: 2 Frequency of service: every 15 minutes to Richmond, every 15 minutes to Clapham Junction Depot: Willesden Traction Maintenance Depot Number of boroughs served: 11 Most used station: Stratford Least used station: South Acton (705,000 annually) Newest station: Imperial Wharf (opened 2009) Special feature: the third closest line to the Mildmay hospital 10 things to see on the Mildmay line: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Victoria Park, Camden Market, Hampstead Heath, Freud Museum, Olympia, Stamford Bridge, National Archives, Kew Gardens, Richmond Park
Suffragette line Operates: Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside Colour on map: green parallel lines Joined the Overground: 2007 Length: 15 miles Zones: 2-4 Number of stations: 13 Number of step-free stations: 8 (62%) Number of ticket offices: 2 Frequency of service: every 15 minutes Depot: Willesden Traction Maintenance Depot Number of boroughs served: 6 Most used station: Barking Least used station: Crouch Hill (858,000 annually) Newest station: Barking Riverside (opened 2022) Special feature: fully electrified between 2016 and 2018 10 things to see on the Suffragette line: Parliament Hill Fields Lido, Parkland Walk, London Mets Baseball Club, Markfield Beam Engine, Walthamstow Wetlands, Walthamstow Market, Leyton County Cricket Ground, Wanstead Flats, East End Women's Museum, Footpath 47
Weaver line Operates: Liverpool Street to Enfield Town/Cheshunt/Chingford Colour on map: maroon parallel lines Joined the Overground: 2015 Length: 24¼ miles Zones: 1-8 Number of stations: 25 Number of step-free stations: 9 (36%) Number of ticket offices: 11 Number of branches: 3 Frequency of service: every 15 minutes to Chingford, every 30 minutes to Enfield/Cheshunt Depot: Ilford EMU Depot Number of boroughs served: 6 + Herts Most used station: Liverpool Street Least used station: Stamford Hill (696,100 annually) Most northerly station on the Overground: Cheshunt Special feature: crossed by a public footpath level crossing near Bush Hill Park 10 things to see on the Weaver line: Spitalfields Market, Young V&A, Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum, Gods Own Junkyard, Epping Forest, Abney Park Cemetery, White Hart Lane, Myddelton House Gardens, Lea Valley White Water Centre
Lioness line Operates: Watford to Euston Colour on map: yellow parallel lines Joined the Overground: 2007 Length: 17¾ miles Zones: 1-8 +WatfordJn Number of stations: 19 Number of step-free stations: 6 (32%) Number of ticket offices: 9 Frequency of service: every 15 minutes Depot: Willesden Traction Maintenance Depot Number of boroughs served: 4 + Herts Most used station: Euston Least used station: South Hampstead (429,000 annually) Most westerly station on the Overground: Watford Junction Most central station on the Overground: Euston Special feature: the overlappiest Overground line (shares 10 stations with the Bakerloo line) 10 things to see on the Lioness line: Wellcome Collection, Alexandra Estate, Kensal Green Cemetery, Cargiant, Ace Cafe, Wembley Stadium, Headstone Manor, Harrow Arts Centre, Oxhey Chapel, Vicarage Road stadium
Liberty line Operates: Romford to Upminster Colour on map: grey parallel lines Joined the Overground: 2015 Length: 3½ miles Zones: just 6 Number of stations: 3 Number of step-free stations: 2 (67%) Number of ticket offices: 2 Frequency of service: every 30 minutes Depot: Ilford EMU Depot Number of boroughs served: just 1 Most used station: Romford Least used station: Emerson Park (305,000 annually) Most easterly station on the Overground: Upminster Special feature: the only line unconnected to the other five 10 things to see on the Liberty line: I'll get back to you on that one
Windrush: most stations, most frequent, most branches, most southerly Mildmay: most step-free, most boroughs, most ticket offices Suffragette: fewest ticket offices Weaver: longest, most northerly Lioness: least step-free, most westerly Liberty: shortest, fewest stations, least frequent, least used, most easterly
Stations served by two Overground lines: Canonbury, Clapham Junction, Gospel Oak, Highbury & Islington, Willesden Junction
Other interchange stations: Dalston Junction/Dalston Kingsland, Hackney Central/Hackney Downs, Seven Sisters/South Tottenham, Walthamstow Queens Road/Walthamstow Central
London's Overgroundiest place: The railway bridge on Dalston Lane E8 between People's Wine and the Three Compasses, immediately above the Mildmay line. This is the only place in London to be 500m away from stations on three different Overground lines - Hackney Downs on the Weaver line, Dalston Junction on the Windrush line and Dalston Kingsland on the Mildmay Line.
The introduction of the six new London Overground names is finally, tangibly, underway. But the changes are being phased in, as befits a seriously complex operation, with some happening now, some delayed until next month or next year, and some kicked far into the future because cost has outweighed practicality. Let's call them Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3.
Stage 1(20th-29th November)
i)Station signage unveiled
Directional signs at key points across the network were replaced months ago, then covered over with a vinyl representation of the existing sign ready to be ripped off en masse during the week of launch. A brilliant plan, which also worked to TfL's favour when the renaming was put back by two months following that pesky cyberattack. As yet the orange vinyls have not been officially removed, but some have been surreptitiously peeled and one or two have been partially ripped.
Below are some of the 'before and after's, not all of which are meant to be visible yet, from Hackney Wick, Hackney Downs and Hackney Central. By next weekend all the new signs will be out in the open but for now you could walk round Gospel Oak, Whitechapel or most other Overground stations without realising renaming was underway at all.
Expect to see changed signs on the approach to platforms and more widely at the handful of stations with more than one Overground line. Highbury & Islington will have a lot of changed signage, for example, with Windrush and Mildmay platforms clearly distinguished. But be aware that not all signage at Overground stations is changing. Existing signs pointing towards the 'Overground' are perfectly adequate in most places and will continue to funnel passengers in the right direction, avoiding the need to waste money pointlessly.
Unexpectedly the timetables at stations are also going to be coloured according to the line. I saw this pair at Canonbury where the red Windrush and blue Mildmay serve adjacent platforms.
ii)New tube map posters and pocket Tube maps
I haven't seen any new tube map posters yet, and I've been to stations on all six lines. But I have found the new pocket tube map, it's already out and up for grabs at stations like Bow Road, Blackfriars and St James Street.
This is the first tube map to show the six Overground lines in their six different colours, because of course it is, but TfL first showed us how that would look back in February so it's nothing new. Arguably it's a big visual improvement, replacing a mass of bright orange with tangle of muted colours.
Someone should have checked the key more carefully though. All the new Overground names appear in alphabetical order but only five of them have the word 'line' on the end, Mildmay is inexplicably bereft. It was correct on the February version but inexplicably the word 'line' has vanished in the printed version, which is a bit embarrassing given that hundreds of thousands of people are going to pick these up.
It's even more embarrassing given that TfL have been sitting on this mistake for the last couple of months. This tube map was meant to be launched in September 2024, hence the date on the front cover, but the delay to renaming means its been sitting in storage ever since. And rather than reprint the map with the correct date and a correct key they've distributed it anyway, rather than waste public funds on a reprint, and I bet some manager at the top of the rebranding pyramid is mortified this had to happen. The cover design with its moquette tiles is lovely though, so grab your collector's item soon.
iii)On-train map product switchover
Line diagrams aboard Overground trains have been a bit of a mouthful for as long as lines have been named by their multiple end points. That's one of the main reasons for this renaming and yes, the end result is a lot clearer. Here's a before and after.
Of all the updates this is probably the change that's furthest ahead at present. I rode several Overground services yesterday and around half the trains had the new line diagrams in situ while the other half still had the orange tongue-twisters. All the rolling stock will eventually display include all six line diagrams, even for the runty Liberty line, three on one side of the train and three on the other.
Passenger information systems are also starting to be updated, though only on class 378 trains (the older ones with the yellow front). Not many have been changed yet judging by my experiences yesterday. Meanwhile class 710 trains (the newer ones with the black and orange front) are not included in this month's changes because their software's different. For some people the first time the renaming hits home properly will be when they start hearing this, or something like this, at every single stop.
"This is a Windrush line train to Highbury & Islington."
"Change here for the Mildmay line to Richmond, Stratford and Clapham Junction via Willesden Junction."
iv)First release software update:
At present everything digital is still bundled under 'Overground', whether that's the electronic status boards in ticket halls, the electronic displays in trains or the TfL website. This is due to change on Tuesday morning, as confirmed on the TfL Tech Forum here.
Expect to see disruptions listed by line, the new names appearing in Journey Planner results and several extra rows on various widgets. Apps like CityMapper and Google Maps will also start to show the new lines once the API goes live, but embarrassingly not the TfL Go app because TfL's programmers aren't ready yet despite the two month delay.
Another programming misstep is that digital status boards aren't yet capable of showing if an entire Overground line is suspended. Say the Suffragette line's down - at present this would show on a status board as 'Overground - part suspended'. In future it will still show as 'Suffragette line - part suspended' because the underlying coding never foresaw this situation. That's going to look weird, and a bit misleading, until a further update finally sorts that out.
Stage 2(from December 2024)
Various important functionalities await a second release software update, whenever:
» inclusion of the new names on the TfL Go App
» updated passenger information systems on Class 710 trains
» solving the 'part suspended' issue on digital status boards
» updating older status boards, for example at some DLR stations
Stage 3(not scheduled)
There are no plans to update on-board electronic customer information systems on the Tube, Elizabeth line and DLR. You won't be hearing "There are no trains on the Lioness line owing to planned engineering work" on the Circle line, or seeing "Weaver line: Minor delays" above the doors at Crossrail stations. Sticking vinyl on signs is easy, rewriting software is harder.
You also won't be seeing updates to maps and in-car line diagrams on the Tube, Elizabeth line and DLR. These will only be changed when they need changing for some other operational reason, such as the wholesale change two years ago to show the Elizabeth line, because TfL don't have funding to spare. They're not even going to stick little stickers over the offending orange panels, which means multiple ambiguity will continue to appear on the Victoria line for the foreseeable.
Amazing, you go to all that bother to solve a problem by introducing line names and part of the solution fails because there isn't enough money. But watch out for an astonishing amount of Overground changes taking place, some already, most this week, some next month and some maybe never. They finally did it. It's really happening.
Major roadworks at the Bow Roundabout continue to create long queues of traffic.
They also led to me being assaulted earlier this week.
This is a queue of traffic moving very slowly in brief bursts towards the end of Bow Road. On this particular day the back of the queue was around Bus Stop M although often it goes a lot further. If you remember the seriously wet morning midweek that's when all this took place, just after the brief flurry of falling snow. I was on my way to the supermarket, which I could have done in one stop on the bus to stay out of the rain but because of the snarled-up traffic I knew it would be quicker to walk. This was my first mistake.
The passenger window of one of the cars in the queue wound down and someone threw an empty bottle out into the cycle lane. It was a 331ml bottle of Milbona Banana Flavour High Protein Drink, as sold in Lidl, but I didn't realise this at the time. Instead I was unimpressed that someone had chucked litter onto my street so I walked over to the edge of the pavement and shrugged at the occupants of the car. Not a big shrug, just enough of a gesture to make it plain that I'd noted their misbehaviour and didn't approve. Can't hurt, I thought. This proved not to be correct.
I continued down the street, noting the sounds of muffled swearing coming from somewhere behind me. I then did what I sometimes do in these circumstances which is to take a photograph of the car in question. This is the photo you saw at the start of the post. Don't bother zooming in, I've pixellated the hell out of the offending numberplate, but rest assured I do know what the registration is because that's why I sometimes take photos of offensive vehicles.
I continued down the street assuming our interaction was over. However I had failed to reckon with the roadworks at the Bow Roundabout and this was my second, third or probably fourth mistake. Normally any vehicle would have moved forwards by now, if not as far as the lights then well in front of where I was currently standing. But because of the roadworks and associated lane restrictions this particular vehicle was still behind me and going nowhere fast, thereby enabling what happened next.
A bottle of water suddenly whizzed across the pavement, hurled at speed from behind. Unlike the bottle of banana drink it was still full so spewed water as it hurtled very deliberately in my general direction. Thankfully it missed. Even better it missed by some distance and smashed into a bollard, so despite the unexpected attack I merely smiled. I then walked over and took a photo of the aforementioned bottle. I could have zoomed in but instead I crouched down and framed a shot with the bottle in the foreground and the offending car in the background. Which'd be this photo.
I was quite pleased with the composition. So pleased in fact that I'd entirely failed to notice that the passenger door of the car had opened and a very angry man was stepping out. Don't bother zooming in, I've pixellated the hell out of his face as well as the offending numberplate, but note how perfectly I've captured the split second between the door opening and his foot stepping down onto the roadway.
It took only a few further split seconds for me to realise how incredibly angry the man was and that he was now striding across the pavement towards me in a fit of rage. I can't remember what he was shouting, only that it was loud and getting louder as he made a beeline for me. I was by this point preoccupied with wondering what was about to happen and how bad it might be and whether it would hurt and if so how much and whether there'd be injuries or blood or permanent disability or whether he was instead merely coming over to shout.
And all this, remember, was because roadworks were backing up the traffic. On any normal day the car would have reached the roundabout by now and be driving off towards wherever, but instead it was shunting forward intermittently at approximately walking speed and our orbits continued to overlap. By now the passenger ought to have been a very long way from his original bottle-chucking location but instead he was still close by and knew he had sufficient time to storm over and harass me before his car moved another inch.
They've been busy under the flyover this week, laying the tarmac on what will be the new third lane at the end of Stratford High Street. They're also adding the new kerbstones - chunky near-white cuboids lifted from a pre-delivered stack, all of which must be laid with precision and perfectly flat. The western side of the roundabout also now has a fresh line of kerbstones along its new third lane, plus a curved block on the corner and wheelbarrowfuls of something sandy ready to fill in behind. I blame all of this and the disruption it's caused.
But I digress.
My assailant was in his late 30s and sturdily built, probably a gym-goer. If I'd clocked the banana protein drink bottle earlier I'd have been more sure, and perhaps also even more worried. He was also getting closer at a rapid rate, still furiously, and it is just possible I was wibbling like a small child by this point. It didn't help, he walked straight over and he headbutted me.
Time froze for brief moment and then carried on. Oh good, I thought, I'm still alive. Oh good, I thought, at least he didn't punch me. Oh good, I thought, that didn't particularly hurt so I guess he didn't hit me very hard. He must have made contact because my earbud fell out and my glasses fell off and landed on the pavement. But I was anticipating serious damage and it didn't happen, or at least it didn't seem to have done, almost as if he was an expert in looking menacing and knowing quite how far he could push it without doing permanent damage.
"I hope you weren't videoing me," he said and I assured him I wasn't. I may still have been mildly gibbering at this point but I was interested that video was his default assumption. Now he'd mentioned it yes that would have been a better option, I would have had proper evidence of his wild strop and imminent assault, but instead all I had was one blurry image showing a slightly open door. Next time I'll know better, better perhaps being not to record anything at all.
And then he walked back to his car, climbed inside and initially didn't go anywhere. I therefore suspect he watched me hunting for my glasses on the ground, where thankfully they hadn't smashed or been stamped on, only slightly bent on one arm where they'd hit the tarmac. I also looked for my missing earbud, the plastic cap that ought to have been covering the tiny loudspeaker, but I couldn't see it anywhere. And then I carried on walking to the supermarket.
I worried that the angry car might catch up with me before I got to the roundabout but the congestion was so bad that walking pace was easily faster. By the time I saw them again I was on the other side of the roundabout and they were heading through the last set of lights towards the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road, now in a flow of traffic ensuring they couldn't have stopped even if they'd wanted to. They therefore didn't and it was all over.
On my way home from the supermarket I spotted the offending bottle in the road and snapped a final photo, just before a street sweeper rolled along and brushed it from view. If only I'd ignored it first time round, I realised, I'd never have set in chain the sequence of events that led to me being assaulted in the street. Technically of course the bottle drop kicked things off, but it was my decision to react that caused events to snowball. It sends a bad message that the safest thing to do when someone chucks litter out of a car window is not to respond and simply to let them get away with it.
I checked for bruising on my head and there wasn't any, doubling down on the fact it hadn't actually hurt. I checked the bend in my glasses and it was only minor, not enough to affect sight or stability, merely a small permanent reminder of that time a stranger climbed out of a car and nutted me. And I eventually found my missing earbud lodged in my ear canal, nudged in far enough to make it very hard to remove but thankfully with enough clutchable surfaces that it eventually came out without doing any damage. I'd been lucky.
I'm not expecting to see the black Vauxhall Astra again, nor do I expect the angry man would recognise me in a different context. But it has been a salutary lesson that some people have hair-trigger aggression and you never do know who they are until you set them off. It also showed me that a potentially life-changing situation can flare up in seconds, and all thanks to a misjudged response to a minor offence, and sometimes it'd be much wiser just to let the bastards win.
I'm fine thanks, no harm done. But the roadworks at the Bow Roundabout can't be over too soon.
It's time once again for the annual splurge of passenger data from across Britain's railway network, this batch covering the period April 2023 to March 2024.
Last year's data included the first fruits of Crossrail and this year we feel the full force, a purple bombshell that's upended former norms and shaken up the list of busiest stations. Any interchange between tube and Crossrail counts as entering or exiting a National Rail station so some mighty distortions are skewing the numbers.
The UK's ten busiest National Rail stations (2023/24)(with changes since 2022/23) 1) -- Liverpool Street (95m) 2) -- Paddington (67m) 3) ↑4 Tottenham Court Road (64m) 4) ↓1 Waterloo (63m) 5) ↑1 Stratford (57m) 6) ↓1 Victoria (51m) 7) ↓3 London Bridge (50m) 8) ↑1 Farringdon (46m) 9) ↑10 Bond Street (38m) 10) -- Euston (36m)
In its second year of operation Crossrail has consolidated its stranglehold on this list. Six of the top 10 are Crossrail stations, with the arrival of purple trains having displaced the usual trio of Waterloo, London Bridge and Victoria from the summit. Liverpool Street retains the crown it snatched last year, its complement of commuters boosted by through services on the Elizabeth line. With 95 million passengers it's massively ahead of the rest of the pack and I suspect will be the UK's busiest station every year for the foreseeable future.
Paddington used to linger around seventh place but is now second, again thanks to Crossrail. Tottenham Court Road, which wasn't even a National Rail station until two years ago, leaps to an astonishing third place. Stratford, which enjoyed a chart-topping year during the pandemic, settles in fifth which is an impressive ranking for a station outside central London. Farringdon is boosted by being the sole link between Crossrail and Thameslink. Bond Street opened late so had only five months of usage in last year's data, but a full calendar year sees it shoot up to ninth. Whitechapel, amazingly, lurks just outside the top 10 at 12th.
If you're wondering about other Crossrail stations in the listings, Romford (25th) unexpectedly has more passengers than Canary Wharf (26th), then come Ealing Broadway (31st), Reading (32nd), Woolwich (33rd), Ilford (35th), Abbey Wood (41st) and Custom House (49th).
And if you're interested in comparing London's rail termini, the ranking is Liverpool Street > Paddington > Waterloo > Victoria > London Bridge > Euston > St Pancras > King's Cross > Charing Cross > Blackfriars > Marylebone > Fenchurch Street > Cannon Street. All but Cannon Street are in the national Top 50.
The UK's ten busiest National Rail stations outside London (2023/24) 1) -- Birmingham New Street (33m) 2) ↑1 Manchester Piccadilly (26m) 3) ↑1 Glasgow Central (25.0m) 4) ↓2 Leeds (24.9m) 5) -- Edinburgh (21m) 6) -- Gatwick Airport (19m) 7) -- Brighton (14.6m) 8) ↑1 Glasgow Queen Street (14.5m) 9) ↓1 Reading (14m) 10) -- Liverpool Central (13m)
Poor old Birmingham New Street had always been in the national top 10 but Crossrail has again nudged it out. It's now in 13th place overall, with Manchester Piccadilly 14th, Glasgow Central 15th and Leeds 16th. These last three stations often have very similar passenger numbers so don't read too much into this year's shuffle. Liverpool Lime Street is on the cusp of the top 10, just 300,000 behind its Merseyside counterpart.
Over 280 provincial stations served over a million passengers during 2023/24, thirty more than in the previous year. For comparison 220 London stations exceeded a million passengers. In surprising London/not-London comparisons, West Ham was busier than Sheffield, Surbiton was busier than Nottingham, Lewisham was busier than Coventry, Manor Park was busier than Leicester, Hackney Wick was busier than Norwich and Sidcup was busier than Plymouth.
London's ten busiest National Rail stations that aren't central London termini or part of Crossrail (2023/24) 1) -- Clapham Junction (23m) 2) -- Highbury & Islington (22m) 3) -- East Croydon (20m) 4) -- Canada Water (18m) 5) -- Vauxhall (14m) 6) -- Barking (13m) 7) -- Wimbledon (12m) 8) -- West Ham (10m) 9) -- Finsbury Park (9.4m) 10) -- Richmond (8.9m)
Once you strip out central London termini and Crossrail a rather different picture appears, and rankings are more stable with no changes since last year. Half of the top 10 are Overground stations. All but two are also tube stations, where everyone changing to or from the tube technically counts as an entrance or exit even if passengers don't leave the station. Clapham Junction's total would almost double if the data included interchanges.
The next 10: Tottenham Hale, Shoreditch High Street, Seven Sisters, Surbiton, Willesden Junction, Lewisham, Shepherd's Bush, Old Street, Bromley South, Peckham Rye
London's ten least busy Overground stations (2023/24) 1) -- Emerson Park (305,000) 2) ↑1 South Hampstead (429,000) 3) ↓1 Headstone Lane (437,000) 4) ↑1 South Kenton (555,000) 5) ↑3 Wandsworth Road (586,000) 6) ↑1 Hatch End (595,000) 7) ↑2 Penge West (648,000) 8) ↑3 Kilburn High Road (661,000) 9) ↓3 Stamford Hill (696,100) 10) -- South Acton (705,000)
Emerson Park on the runty Romford-Upminster line remains at the bottom of the Overground heap, by some distance. South Hampstead's total is particularly pitiful for a zone 2 station. South Kenton is also one of the tube's least used stations, and combining numbers from the two modes would knock it out of this list. Barking Riverside was 4th last year based on just nine months of traffic, but a full year has bumped its ridership up to 945,000. Half of the ten least busy Overground stations are on the Lioness line.
The least busy station on each Overground line (2023/24) Liberty: Emerson Park (305,000) Lioness: South Hampstead (429,000) Windrush: Wandsworth Road (586,000) Weaver: Stamford Hill (696,100) Mildmay: South Acton (705,000) Suffragette: Crouch Hill (858,000)
That's a timely list as the new Overground line names spring into place over the next seven days.
London's ten least busy National Rail stations (2023/24) 1) ↑1 Sudbury & Harrow Road (19000) 2) ↓1 Drayton Green (20000) 3) -- South Greenford (38000) 4) -- Sudbury Hill Harrow (41000) 5) -- Morden South (70000) 6) ↑1 Birkbeck (82000) 7) ↑2 Coulsdon Town (93000) 8) -- Reedham (95000) 9) ↓3 Castle Bar Park (102000) 10) -- Crews Hill (113000)
Sudbury & Harrow Road is once again London's least used station, nine years after it surrendered its title to a now defunct Angel Road. It sees a measly four trains in the morning peak and four in the evening peak, so most locals use the nearby Piccadilly line station instead. Drayton Green is close behind, a station that's only a short walk from West Ealing where its trains terminate. South Greenford and Castle Bar Park are also on the little-used Greenford branch. Reedham and Coulsdon Town continue to suffer from a post-pandemic reduction in services on the Tattenham Corner line.
The next 20: Woodmansterne, South Merton, Greenford, South Ruislip, Brent Cross West, West Ruislip, Northolt Park, St Helier, Knockholt, Sundridge Park, Belmont, Bromley North, Ravensbourne, Sutton Common, West Sutton, Wimbledon Chase, Kenley, Riddlesdown, Haydons Road, Emerson Park
And now outside London...
The National Rail stations with NO passengers in 2023/24 0) Stanlow and Thornton [this year 0, last year 0, the previous year 44] 0) Teesside Airport [this year 0, last year 2]
Stanlow & Thornton, an industrial halt in Cheshire, is entirely surrounded by the UK's second largest oil refinery. It used to get a few peak services but has been closed since February 2022 "due to safety concerns of the footbridge which is the only entry point to the station". It also had zero passengers last year. Teesside Airport is new to zero this year, losing its weekly train in May 2022 after the westbound platform closed due to safety issues. Its eastbound platform closed in 2017 after the footbridge was deemed unsafe, cutting the number of weekly trains from two to one. The minimal service and inconvenient location made it the UK's least used station in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Technically both Stanlow and Thornton and Teesside Airport are only temporarily closed, but given their miserable passenger record it's hard to see anyone stumping up for repairs.
The UK's ten least busy National Rail stations (2023/24) 1) ↑1 Denton (54) 2) ↑7 Shippea Hill (70) 3) ↑5 Ince and Elton (86) 4) ↑9 Polesworth (118) 5) -- Reddish South (128) 6) -- Coombe Junction Halt (140) 7) ↑7 Chapelton (186) 8) ↑7 Clifton (202) 9) ↓6 Elton and Orston (212) 10) -- Kildonan (240)
These are the stations that can't even muster five passengers a week, such is the inaccessibility of their location or the paucity of their service, and most have appeared in this Top 10 on many previous occasions. Denton was also the UK's least used station five years ago. Along with Reddish South on the Stockport-Stalybridge line it's served by only one train a week in each direction, currently on a Saturday morning.
Shippea Hill is back in its usual doldrums after a brief bump in visitors inspired by being a least used station. Ince and Elton is Stanlow and Thornton's underwhelmed neighbour. Polesworth on the West Coast Main Line gets one northbound train before 7am but no southbound trains. Coombe Junction is a unpopulated reversing place between Liskeard and Looe. Chapelton is a request stop in the Taw Valley south of Barnstaple. Clifton in northwest Manchester gets one morning and one evening train. Elton & Orston is also served by just two trains a day, one to Nottingham and one to Skegness, and was 2021/22's least used station. Kildonan is the least used station in Scotland, taking over from Scotscalder.
The next 20: Scotscalder, Altnabreac, Beasdale, Kirton Lindsey, Culrain, Pilning, Buckenham, Thorpe Culvert, Lochluichart, Ardwick,
Locheilside, Invershin, Duncraig, Lakenheath, Rawcliffe, Achanalt, Acklington, Kinbrace, Lelant Saltings, Barry Links
For aficionados of least used stations over the years these are all very familiar names. Altogether 26 stations failed to attract 10 passengers a week and 133 stations failed to attract 10 passengers a day. But they all soldier on because closing a railway station remains a very tough legal wrangle, and better to have a little used halt on your doorstep than no station at all.
Sep 2006: The Mayor announced yesterday that he's found a cunning way of extending the tube network without forking out billions on new tunnels. He's taking a couple of existing rail services - namely Silverlink's North London line and TfL's East London line - and plans to link the two together by adding in a short stretch of relatively cheap connecting track in the Dalston area. Throw in some new trains and some revamped stations and, hey presto, you have a brand new rebranded railway. Starting in November next year. And it's to be called the "London Overground".
May 2015: The current London Overground comes in five orange flavours but on 31st May we get two more, namely the old West Anglia lines out of Liverpool Street and the Emerson Park shuttle. And then it'll start to get really confusing working out precisely which Overground is which.
