The Lemon Fool

With the rebranding of the bits of the Overground, whats your order of names, best to worst.

1 Mildmay - inoffensive, but so, so obscure
2 Weaver - at least as a London expert I've heard of the Huguenots and the East End rag trade, or is in the Merseyside metro
3 Windrush - but its a river in Oxfordshire
4 Sufragette - No idea where in the UK they lived
5 Liberty - could be anywhere, forgotten already
6 Lioness - based on a temporary sporting success

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68296483

I'm still calling the one that goes to Kew Gardens 'the North London Line'. Looks like it's now the Mildmay line but i doubt I'll remember that.

I could have rebadged them for a lot cheaper than £6.3m

Beh, well half of them are just end-to-end straight lines, so the most obvious and clear naming for those would be the Gospel Oak - Barking, Euston - Watford and Romford - Upminster lines.

The one coming out of Liverpool Street could be shown as two lines, as it splits after the first station, and one of those is also a straight line, Liverpool Street - Chingford. That'd leave two lines with forks, Liverpool Street to Cheshunt/Enfield Town and Stratford to Richmond/Clapham Junction, and the multi-fork line that goes through Canada Water....

I get having different colours, but it will mean having to be extra clear to tourists when pointing out that they want the District line, that's the green one, the single green one, not the double green one....

mc2fool wrote:Beh, well half of them are just end-to-end straight lines, so the most obvious and clear naming for those would be the Gospel Oak - Barking, Euston - Watford and Romford - Upminster lines..

Or for ease of use, in turn

Gosking - or Baroak
Euwat - or Watston
Romster - or Upford

I rather like the second one in particular!

the0ni0nking wrote:I could have rebadged them for a lot cheaper than £6.3m

Yes, but had you done it would it have improved staffing numbers and train cleanliness and reliability?

mc2fool wrote:Beh, well half of them are just end-to-end straight lines, so the most obvious and clear naming for those would be the Gospel Oak - Barking, Euston - Watford and Romford - Upminster lines.

There's precedent.

Wasn't the suburban service from St Pancras to Bedford know as the BedPan line?

orangepekoe wrote:I'm still calling the one that goes to Kew Gardens 'the North London Line'. Looks like it's now the Mildmay line but i doubt I'll remember that.

Indeed, it is actually very useful if you live in, er, North London.

The quirky Gospel Oak (Suffragette) line is closest to my house though, at least since the Ally Pally line was closed decades ago.

Lootman wrote:

orangepekoe wrote:I'm still calling the one that goes to Kew Gardens 'the North London Line'. Looks like it's now the Mildmay line but i doubt I'll remember that.

Indeed, it is actually very useful if you live in, er, North London.

The North London line that goes to South and Southwest London....

I reckon there's a fair case for naming the Highbury & Islington west-then-south to Clapham Junction and Clapham Junction east-then-north to Highbury & Islington sections as the Outer Circle Line.....

mc2fool wrote:

Lootman wrote:Indeed, it is actually very useful if you live in, er, North London.

The North London line that goes to South and Southwest London....

I reckon there's a fair case for naming the Highbury & Islington west-then-south to Clapham Junction and Clapham Junction east-then-north to Highbury & Islington sections as the Outer Circle Line.....

I give a special exemption to places in South London that are just south of the river, granting them honourary North London status. Examples are Richmond, Kew, Putney, Nine Elms, South Bank, London Bridge and Greenwich. In fact I lived off Putney High Street for a year or so. And one of my sons bought a flat in Bermondsey, although he is now in Dalston.

The rest of South London is a vast hinterland of which I know nothing.

I like your outer circle idea. But will it mostly be used by homeless folks trying to keep warm and dry, like the inner circle line?

Lootman wrote:

mc2fool wrote:The North London line that goes to South and Southwest London....

I reckon there's a fair case for naming the Highbury & Islington west-then-south to Clapham Junction and Clapham Junction east-then-north to Highbury & Islington sections as the Outer Circle Line.....

I give a special exemption to places in South London that are just south of the river, granting them honourary North London status. Examples are Richmond, Kew, Putney, Nine Elms, South Bank, London Bridge and Greenwich. In fact I lived off Putney High Street for a year or so. And one of my sons bought a flat in Bermondsey, although he is now in Dalston.

Beh, there's nothing North London about any of those but some of South London is north of the river.

Heck, even the King lives in South London ... Buckingham Palace, London SW1A 1AA

didds wrote:

mc2fool wrote:Beh, well half of them are just end-to-end straight lines, so the most obvious and clear naming for those would be the Gospel Oak - Barking, Euston - Watford and Romford - Upminster lines..

Or for ease of use, in turn

Gosking - or Baroak

Urgggh! The Gospel Oak - Barking line already has a perfectly good nickname which I'm disappointed they didn't formalise - Goblin.

Names are not descriptions. Names should be short, pronounceable, memorable, and distinguishable from names for other transport facilities.
All of these are at least as good as Victoria, Elizabeth or Jubilee, which could be objected to on exactly the same grounds.

In particular honouring people who where good at choosing their parents as opposed to people who worked to accomplish something is distasteful.

9873210 wrote:Names are not descriptions. Names should be short, pronounceable, memorable, and distinguishable from names for other transport facilities.
All of these are at least as good as Victoria, Elizabeth or Jubilee, which could be objected to on exactly the same grounds.

Most of the tube line names are descriptions, certainly in origin at least. Bakerloo (Baker Street and Waterloo Railway), Circle, Central, Hammersmith & City, Northern and Waterloo & City are all descriptive. The Piccadilly line (Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway) runs through Piccadilly Circus and the Metropolitan and District also indicate where they go, albeit more generally.

And the Victoria line was named after the main line station which was its original terminus.

"The name "Victoria line" dates from 1955; other suggestions were "Walvic line" (Walthamstow–Victoria), "Viking line" (Victoria–King's Cross), "Mayfair line" and "West End line". During the planning stages, it was known as Route C and named the Victoria line (after the station) by David McKenna, Chairman of British Transport Advertising, whose suggestion was seconded by Sir John Elliot. The board decided that the Victoria line sounded "just right"." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_line

9873210 wrote:In particular honouring people who where good at choosing their parents as opposed to people who worked to accomplish something is distasteful.

What you mean like the Elizabeth line, or the Jubilee line, which honoured an event in the life of someone good at choosing their parents?

mc2fool wrote:The name "Victoria line" dates from 1955; other suggestions were "Walvic line" (Walthamstow–Victoria), "Viking line" (Victoria–King's Cross)

Viking is elegant, I like that, even if the "i" isn't right.

Hallucigenia wrote:

didds wrote:Or for ease of use, in turn

Gosking - or Baroak

Urgggh! The Gospel Oak - Barking line already has a perfectly good nickname which I'm disappointed they didn't formalise - Goblin.

Goblin has the misfortune of not making a politically correct point or otherwise embracing a woke ideology, and so of course was a non-starter.

Moreover "Goblin" could be considered to be insulting to those less blessed with stature or looks amongst our population.

whereas "woke" is pure and simply in its modern day usage a puerile and insulting pejorative.

I hate the Mayor with a passion but this seems like one of his better ideas.

People didn't like CrossRail being renamed the Elizabeth Line at first but now it just seems normal, as I suspect it will with the new Overground line names before long.

HYD

It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago I learned that Crossrail is now named the Elizabeth line. I just thought the latter was a new line and Crossrail had died a death sometime in the 90s and got swept under a carpet.

didds wrote:It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago I learned that Crossrail is now named the Elizabeth line. I just thought the latter was a new line and Crossrail had died a death sometime in the 90s and got swept under a carpet.

I expect when "HS2" is finally finished as a branch line between Slough and Peterborough it will be renamed something like "Wibble Line" to hide the embarrassment ..