As the Overground has grown, calls have increased to provide its sub-lines with clearer identities of their own. Behind the scenes, TfL have been working to do just that. Those new identities have now been revealed.<\/p>\n

The Orange<\/h2>\n

\u201cBut I thought it was all going to be orange.\u201d<\/p>\n

These were the words that ensured that the London Overground, when it launched in 2007, would be a single colour \u2013 orange \u2013 on the Tube map. They were uttered by then-Mayor Boris Johnson in his office at City Hall.<\/p>\n

TfL\u2019s original plan had been to give the lines more of an identity somehow. Perhaps not in name \u2013 not in the early stages when there were less sections directly under their concessionary control \u2013 but at least in terms of colour. <\/p>\n

Picking colours had always traditionally come towards the end of a new line\u2019s design stage though. And until then they still needed to be indicated in some way on the various maps and documents that passed through people\u2019s desks. This had been the case with the new sections of Overground that TfL had managed to pluck from the control of the DfT. Most notably the North London Line (NLL), which had been run into the ground by its previous post-privatization operator, Silverlink. Silverlink\u2019s operators had never wanted it, but it had been bundled with other sections of railway that they did <\/em>want. So they had no choice. It had been an unloved and under-developed line, until TfL finally secured its control.<\/p>\n

With the support of Olympic funding, the redevelopment of the NLL and the East London Line (ELL) had begun. Indeed it was perhaps the ELL that had caused the \u201cholding\u201d colour for the new combined operation to be orange \u2013 it had previously appeared on maps as a sort of muddy orange, on the map, bordering on brown. <\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, it turned out that day in the Mayor\u2019s office that Boris Johnson had assumed the colour was deliberate. And final.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s what it became. The Overground would all be orange. It wasn\u2019t a bad colour, after all. It stood out. It passed accessibility. It certainly made a statement and (rather handily) it meant no one had to repaint or update a lot of panels at various ELL stations. The colour there was already a close enough match in the right light (take a look at the panels on the platforms at Wapping to see the evidence of this).<\/p>\n

The Turquoise<\/h2>\n

It would be easy to be outraged that the colour for the Overground was decided in such a frivolous way. But the reality is that Tube colours \u2013 and names \u2013 have always been picked on more of a whim than most people think.<\/p>\n

For many years, for example, a story circulated that the colour of the Waterloo & City line was chosen because it matched the dress of a legal secretary who had worked on its transfer over from British Rail. She had worn it to the project party to celebrate the completion of the process, the tale went, and the project team thought she was rather attractive in it. So when they saw something close to that colour, it was fresh in the memory and they went with that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a story that has the ring of a pub tale about it. A railway myth. It reads too well and too conveniently, with the exact hint of low-level workplace sexism one would expect to find in a story that circulated among older railwaymen over beers after work.<\/p>\n

So many years ago, we actually embarked on a mission to try and track the origins of this story down. After all, we thought, there\u2019s enough clues within it that it\u2019s possible \u2013 with a bit of lateral thinking and access to the right records \u2013 to at least disprove<\/em> it. Especially as TfL were unable to confirm the origins of the colour themselves. If nothing else, we could at least kill off this myth.<\/p>\n

Which is how, some weeks of detective work later, this author found himself chatting on the phone to a senior city lawyer who, with some amusement, confirmed that the Waterloo & City line was turquoise because of her.<\/p>\n

The real <\/em>story was close to the myth, she explained. It just needed the sexism stripped out of it. That was the part that had twisted the story over the years. As a junior lawyer she had worked as part of the transfer team. It had actually been one of her first jobs in transport law. And when it came time to pick the colour of the line, her colleagues had offered her the honour of doing so. Partly as a thank you for her work on what was a complex legal project. Partly because they thought it would be a nice way of marking the beginning of her career. Nobody else would know that was why it was that colour. Nobody would likely ever ask. But it would be a fun reminder for her, they said, so why not?<\/p>\n

She agreed, and was shown a selection of pre-approved colours by the London Underground design office. Any of them would work, she was told. So just pick one. Noticing that one was quite close to turquoise \u2013 her favourite colour \u2013 she simply chose that.<\/p>\n

Did she have a dress in that colour?<\/p>\n

Of course, she confirmed. It was her favourite colour. But she doubted any of the team would ever have seen her in it. She wasn\u2019t in the habit of partying with random, older male colleagues.<\/p>\n

The new names and colours<\/h2>\n

As the two stories above show, line colours \u2013 and names \u2013 have always been somewhat arbitrary and random. So whatever names TfL had opted to use for the newly split Overground \u2013 and whatever colours \u2013 could never be \u201cwrong\u201d. Because there have never been any rules to break. Similarly, Londoners will always shorten any name that a line acquires to make it roll off the tongue quickly.<\/p>\n

But this doesn\u2019t mean that line names don\u2019t matter<\/em>. Or rather, that they can be made to matter if they are done right. Naming a line is a rare opportunity.<\/p>\n

In the novel Going Postal<\/em>, the fantasy author Terry Pratchett described a world where communication took place through a network of semaphore towers known as \u2018The Trunk\u2019. Along the Trunk, occasionally, would pass messages that were never officially recorded. Those messages, it turned out, were names. Names of people who had died in service to the network and which now circulated perpetually on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know they\u2019ll never really die while the Trunk is alive.\u201d The character of Moist von Lipwig mused. \u201cit lives while the code is shifted, and they live with it, always going home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA man is not dead while his name is still spoken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cities are not men. But they are <\/em>alive. They live through the people who call them home and through the events they experience. Both good and bad. People move on, times change but on some level the city\u2026 on some level London<\/em> remembers. And that is what binds us, as Londoners, together. It is our most common ground.<\/p>\n

The names and colours of the new lines are below, alongside the reasons for each one. We pass no opinion on them. We have no doubt many people will. And that\u2019s fine. What we will say, is that they all refer to something about this city \u2013 our <\/em>city \u2013 that does deserve to be remembered. <\/p>\n

Visibility matters, and there is nothing more iconic, and visible, than the Tube map.<\/p>\n

The Lioness line: Euston to Watford Junction<\/strong>. The Lioness line, which runs through Wembley, honours the historic achievements and lasting legacy created by the England women\u2019s football team that continues to inspire and empower the next generation of women and girls in sport.\u00a0It will be yellow parallel lines on the map.<\/p>\n

The Mildmay line: Stratford to Richmond\/Clapham Junction<\/strong>. The Mildmay line, which runs through Hoxton, honours the small charitable hospital in Shoreditch that has cared for all Londoners over many years, notably its pivotal role in the HIV\/AIDS crisis in the 1980s, which made it the valued and respected place it is for the LGBTQ+ community today. It will be blue parallel lines on the map.<\/p>\n

The Windrush line: Highbury & Islington to Clapham Junction\/New Cross\/Crystal Palace\/West Croydon.\u00a0<\/strong>The Windrush line\u00a0runs through areas with strong ties to Caribbean communities today, such as Dalston Junction, Peckham Rye, and West Croydon, and\u00a0honours the Windrush generation who continue to shape and enrich London\u2019s cultural and social identity today.\u00a0It will be red parallel lines on the map.<\/p>\n

The Weaver line: Liverpool Street to Cheshunt\/Enfield Town\/Chingford.\u00a0<\/strong>The Weaver line runs through\u00a0Liverpool Street, Spitalfields, Bethnal Green and Hackney \u2013\u00a0areas of London known for their textile trade, shaped over the centuries by diverse migrant communities and individuals.\u00a0It will be maroon parallel lines on the map.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Suffragette line: Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside<\/strong>. The Suffragette line celebrates how the working-class movement in the East End fought for votes for woman and paved the way for women\u2019s rights.\u00a0The line runs to Barking, home of the longest surviving Suffragette Annie Huggett, who died at 103. It will be green parallel lines on the map.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Liberty line: Romford to Upminster<\/strong>. The Liberty line celebrates the freedom that is a defining feature of London and references the historical independence of the people of the borough of Havering, through which it runs. The name\u00a0references the borough\u2019s motto and historical status as a royal liberty, an area that traditionally had more self-governance and autonomy.\u00a0It will be grey parallel lines on the map.<\/p>\n

The Autumn 2024 Tube map, showing the new line colours<\/p>\n

We had previously looked at the evolution of the devolution of railway lines to London Overground<\/a>, their lengthy and cumbersome official TfL line identifiers, and their commonly used line names. As well as the 2023 TfL process and criteria for Overground line renaming and colour selection. We then ventured a guess at the potential line names and colours \u2013 we were off on all of them, although we picked some of the new line colours correctly. <\/em><\/p>\n

The post The Big Split: Overground Line Names<\/a> appeared first on London Reconnections<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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