New Overground line names progress?

[vuzzeho]

I was at Surrey Quays last night and heard an announcement about the lines being renamed soon and that line becoming the Windrush line. Does that mean it's getting close?

 

[Turtle]

It makes absolute sense to untangle the orange spider’s web into distinct lines. There’s a very good reason why every single metro system in the world has got distinct lines.

The cost is the same whether you call it the S1, the Mildmay Line, or the Nigel Farage Line.

Some of the new names are better than others and some are definitely a bit weak. But beyond that it’s all just wibble and frothing. With the way some people are going on you’d think they were renaming the Northern Line as the Karl Marx Line.

Interesting. Could set a trend for lines named after German philosophers. Take the Kant Line and change at d for the Hegel Line to x.

 

[thomalex]

This is somewhat irrelevant as London is the only major city expected to try and cover entirely its own costs without central government funding.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Sep 2024 ==



There might be a difference in the Tube map and the London & SE rail map.

For instance on the Tube map the Elizabeth line is an “outline” purple but it is a solid purple on the latter map.

This is because how maps and line diagrams have worked so far are the TfL mode you are viewing, so the Underground on the tube map, gets a solid line. All other modes get the double lines. This is why the when you look at a line diagram on the Elizabeth line for example you have a solid line, but it appears as a double line on the tube map. You also have a solid purple line on the top of wayfinding signs.

With these new Overground names they seem to have changed this so you're now getting double lines on the line diagrams and wayfinding signs.

 

[Horizon22]

I wish! The tube map already has an enormous colour palette. The more colours are introduced the more cluttered and unintuitive it becomes, it's all colour theory.

Geoff Marshal had a video with the Head of Design for TfL who talks in great detail about colour theory and the need to keep things uncluttered & how the colours were selected.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Sep 2024 ==

This is because how maps and line diagrams have worked so far are the TfL mode you are viewing, so the Underground on the tube map, gets a solid line. All other modes get the double lines. This is why the when you look at a line diagram on the Elizabeth line for example you have a solid line, but it appears as a double line on the tube map. You also have a solid purple line on the top of wayfinding signs.

With these new Overground names they seem to have changed this so you're now getting double lines on the line diagrams and wayfinding signs.

As I said, it's a new way of doing it because there's no equivalence; everything to this point has been it's own distinct mode and colour (or LU line). The Overground remains the "umbrella" brand so there's going to be no perfect fit on how this is displayed.

 

[BankQuayLowLvl]

I was at Surrey Quays last night and heard an announcement about the lines being renamed soon and that line becoming the Windrush line. Does that mean it's getting close?

They've been playing that announcement on the to-be-Windrush line for some time, I'm afraid.

Recent FOI response from TfL says "by the end of the year". https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transp.../foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-1867-2425 (via diamondgeezer)

 

[wanderingriver]

According to TfL staff on the “TfL Tech Forums”, the renaming is delayed until the cyber attack is fixed. https://techforum.tfl.gov.uk/t/london-overground-new-names-colours-post-updated-18-sept-24/3176/18

 

[talldave]

According to TfL staff on the “TfL Tech Forums”, the renaming is delayed until the cyber attack is fixed. https://techforum.tfl.gov.uk/t/london-overground-new-names-colours-post-updated-18-sept-24/3176/18

They're milking it for all it's worth, aren't they?!

 

[Goldfish62]

They're milking it for all it's worth, aren't they?!

4th week now and most staff still have little or access to internal systems.

 

[wanderingriver]

They're milking it for all it's worth, aren't they?!

There is quite a lot of TfL systems down at the moment. There are projects that are on hold because of the cyber attack. There are even updates for things (can’t say what at this time) that are ready to go that have been put on hold because the technical team is so focused on trying to fix everything. It’s not just the general public who are annoyed about these delays

 

[OVERGROUND6]

Weaver line at Stoke Newington

Left image was taken last week, with the old map diagram. This was before the new enamel sign was placed in.

Right image was taken today (October 5th). It has the new Weaver line enamel sign, with vinyl pasted over, showing a graphic for the old map diagram. I even circled the part of the photo with the text from the new sign.

 

[announcements]

Signage up at H&I. I am still not particularly keen on the colour they've gone for, but I suppose this is the risk they took - the risk of running out of distinguishable colours!

 

[thomalex]

That image sums up one of my issues with these signs, my eyes are immediately drawn to the orange colour of the Overground roundel rather than the line colour which becomes less prominent due to it being a unclear shade (is it supposed to be brown, maroon?) and being a double line.

This looks like the 'orange' line, which for a system which is largely made legible by colour, isn't great.

 

[announcements]

Wouldn't have been better to have retained the colour orange for the Windrush line? After all, orange is not being used for any other lines, and it is the colour most associated with this Windrush line - even way back when it was the ELL.

 

[CapitalStar378]

Wouldn't have been better to have retained the colour orange for the Windrush line? After all, orange is not being used for any other lines, and it is the colour most associated with this Windrush line - even way back when it was the ELL.

Yes, agreed. Although it's first colour was Metropolitan line colours so guess it's actually going way back!

 

[Acton1991]

I do wonder whether it would make more sense to have a solid bar colour on signage vs the double line. That’s what the Elizabeth line has done and it’s more clear

 

[announcements]

They couldn't go solid because the colours they've chosen are too close to existing colours. Had they have stuck to orange and supplemented it with letters, they would not have ran out of colours:

A-Richmond-Stratford
B-CJ-Stratford
C-H&I-West Croydon
D-H&I-Crystal Palace
E-H&I-Clapham Jct
F-Dalston Jct-New Cross
G-Goblin
H-Watford DC
(I not in use could be mistaken for 1)
J-Liv St.-Cheshunt
k-Liv St.-Enfield Town
L-Liv St.-Chingford
M-Romford-Upminster

Much more precise with no room for confusion over routings/branches... and, more importantly, a lot cheaper because they don't need to replace all the orange signage or older tube maps. They could just erect some letter signs and henceforth use letters on any new editions of the tube map. But hey, I'm staying into "fantasy" now - the decision has been made!

 

[vuzzeho]

unclear shade (is it supposed to be brown, maroon?)

The shade isn't that unclear in person. The lighting of this image makes it very clear, but in person it's a pretty clear red.

 

[announcements]

Meanwhile the Lioness is a kind of amber colour.

 

[Recessio]

Wouldn't have been better to have retained the colour orange for the Windrush line? After all, orange is not being used for any other lines, and it is the colour most associated with this Windrush line - even way back when it was the ELL.

East London Line orange and Overground orange were two different shades.

 

[William3000]

Thinking further about it, using line numbers would actually be a *terrible* idea given you'd be mixing them in with platform numbers and departure times, particularly at interchange stations with different numbered lines. "Platform 5 for the 0745 line 6 service to x, Platform 7 for the 0654 line 5 service to y "? Too many numbers mixed in meaning different things.

Using plain letters would also be bad because they can be too short to be distinct in announcements. You'd probably want to do something like use the NATO/Police type alphabet, so lines A, B, C would be announced as Alpha, Bravo, Charlie. Or I suppose it might work reversed, call them the the A-line, B-line, C-line etc. (don't they do that in the US sometimes?)

But then you might as well have memorable names; however to add to my previous remarks on this, I think ideally they should all be either two or three *flowing* syllables with both an obvious pronunciation and spelling, and scan well with or without "line". So "Weaver" and "Liberty" work well, the others not so much. I dislike "Elizabeth" for those same reasons, too many syllables (and "Liz" is too few!).

Elizabeth has 4 syllables, the same as Victoria and Piccadilly, fewer than the Metropolitan which has 5 syllables, and the Hammersmith & City and Waterloo & City which both have 6 syllables.

 

[wanderingriver]

Seems someone updated the TfL toilet map with the new lines here.

Doubt this means anything though because as far as I’m aware it’s the technical team who have paused a lot of stuff because of the cyber incident. So I guess we gotta keep waiting till the cyber incident is sorted

 

[Dstock7080]

Now rescheduled for Go live - Between Wednesday 20 and Friday 29 November 2024.

The London Overground network covers 100 miles of railway, 113 stations and all nine TfL fare zones.

Customer information updates to the London Overground (LO) train fleet, delivery of new Tube maps to stations and station signage unveiling, takes place between Wednesday 20-Friday 29 November.

Digital channel switchover will be a phased introduction, starting during week commencing Monday 25 November.

LO Class 710 trains will have maps and car-line diagrams updated during this period, but updates to the on-board electronic customer information systems will commence by the end of 2024.

Car-line diagrams and on-board electronic customer information systems on other modes, such as Tube, DLR and Elizabeth line services, will not be updated in this phase of the project. They will continue to advertise an interchange for London Overground only. Updates are proposed in the future when funding is available, or to coincide with other major system updates affecting the information on the line.

 

[Class15]

Wonder if they’ll change the DLR announcement coming in from the Poplar direction which currently says “Change for… London Overground - North London Line”. The above suggests maybe not.

 

[Wolfie]

Wonder if they’ll change the DLR announcement coming in from the Poplar direction which currently says “Change for… London Overground - North London Line”. The above suggests maybe not.

That may end up waiting for the new DLR rolling stock.

 

[wanderingriver]

Now rescheduled for Go live - Between Wednesday 20 and Friday 29 November 2024.

What was the source for this? The developers on the TfL Tech Forum were supposed to be updated by TfL staff as soon as this info was made public and seems they haven’t said anything yet. Not denying your claim, thought I’d post the source there since TfL hasn’t told them anything

 

[GoneSouth]

B

 

[bnc2018]

Car-line diagrams and on-board electronic customer information systems on other modes, such as Tube, DLR and Elizabeth line services, will not be updated in this phase of the project. They will continue to advertise an interchange for London Overground only.

This is pretty disappointing. If Google Maps et al start telling people to "change to the Mildmay line" and there's no indication that the stop has that interchange from inside the carriage, that's going to be pretty confusing to those unfamiliar.

I get that some of the systems are legacy, but the Elizabeth line? How hard could it be to change the PIS?

 

[kacper]

I get that some of the systems are legacy

All of which were updated with no problem when the Elizabeth line was opened

 

[Wolfie]

All of which were updated with no problem when the Elizabeth line was opened

Seems like Khan can't win on here. He's either condemned for being spendthrift or unreasonably parsimonious, often for the same thing....

 

[boiledbeans2]

Now rescheduled for Go live - Between Wednesday 20 and Friday 29 November 2024.

Seems like quite a wide period. I was thinking a specific date would be set, so there can be a ceremony, and Khan would turn up and cut the ribbon (peel the stickers?) on his pet project.