“It is a gutter title” complained The Railway Magazine. “Not what we expect from a railway company.” The line in question was the Bakerloo, and just how it got that name has always been subject to a certain amount of debate. What’s certainly true is that it opened as the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway in 1906, and that the London press soon decided this was too cumbersome for day-to-day use. Precisely which of the papers coined the actual name Bakerloo, which the company itself swiftly adopted, however, isn’t entirely clear.
According to Underground historian Mike Horne the most likely candidate is journalist and historian G.H.F. Nichols, who wrote for the Evening News as “Quex.” At least, he points out, that’s what Quex’s obituary proclaimed in 1933. We are unlikely though, ever to know for certain. Only that despite Railway’s dislike, the name remains.
Given the amount of column inches and screen time given over to the subject since yesterday’s announcement that Crossrail is to be renamed the “Elizabeth line”, it is clear that such decisions can still evoke considerable debate today. Yet as the Bakerloo’s own nominal adventure demonstrates it was hardly a unique act.
Nor does one need to look too far back to find the last line that went through a similar transition. As LBM and Jonathan Roberts pointed out in our look at the origins of the Jubilee line, that line too suffered more than one identity crisis – “the Fleet” and “the Thames” were both considered before a final decision was made:
With Fleet line stage I being scheduled to open in 1977 in time for Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee, Horace Cutler – by then the GLC’s new Leader – announced the renaming of the Fleet line as the Jubilee line. This cost London Transport £50,000 in 1977 prices, worth £310,000 in today’s money.
As author John O’Farrell once wrote in Things Can Only Get Better, this choice of name was deeply problematic for many of his most left-leaning friends, with one particularly staunch republican refusing to ride the line in protest until it was renamed. This meant the occasional tortuous journey to otherwise convenient pubs or venues when the Jubilee would have been the more viable option. Whether that friend ever admitted defeat is unknown.
Crossrail, then, is not the first line which will be renamed. Nor will it be the last. Indeed it is certainly not the first to be named after a monarch. Indirectly, the Victoria line got there first. Nor is it arguably the first to be named after a reigning monarch or even the current one – as we’ve seen, that honour goes to the Jubilee. One might think it slightly greedy, perhaps, for the Queen to have helped herself to a second Tube line when she already had one, but as the fact that London keeps building them demonstrates, they are terribly more-ish.
The simple truth is that much of the discussion around the subject online is thus noise and the origins of the suggestion are simple enough. Although not mentioned in the official press release TfL have confirmed the idea belongs to the current mayor, Boris Johnson. It is not a new suggestion for him either, having first been raised in 2013 in the Evening Standard (we tip our hats to Mayorwatch for the link):
We need a proper name for Crossrail, the vast new line on London’s underground network — and who better to give her name to that line than someone who has served her country so unfailingly and well for 60 years
That suggestion was finally, officially put to the Palace last year, with the Queen formally approving it in September 2015.
Nor does it signal some kind of precedent. Crossrail 2, should it be built, is not now suddenly guaranteed to be “the George” (although should Her Majesty’s longevity extend to after its opening then it would perhaps be ungracious to deny her the opportunity to complete a unique hat trick).
Instead it is largely a simple act of opportunism on the part of the mayor and TfL.
And that opportunism does extend to TfL, even if the idea itself does not. For the change can only have been put forward with the organisation’s blessing and just why that blessing was forthcoming is worth pausing to ask. Republican issues aside, it is a name hardly designed to trip off the tongue and a colloquial abbreviation to the “Liz” seems highly likely. A ‘love it or hate it’ reaction was thus inevitable. There is also the issue of rebranding those Crossrail signs which already exist on the network, although it is true that they are currently limited in number.
So why support such a change? The answer perhaps lies in understanding TfL’s careful appreciation of brand and symbolism. Whilst one must avoid assuming that every act by the powers-that-be at TfL is a machiavellian scheme (or perhaps, now, ‘Mike-iavellian’), they have always been very careful about how they present Crossrail to the world and it would be thoroughly out of character for the organisation to suddenly become blind to that now. The decision to launch the Crossrail concession’s first services as TfL Rail was a cool and calculated one, for example, ensuring that passenger expectations would not be raised excessively before the arrival of new trains and services:
In general, the public see TfL branded services as better (or at least very different) to their equivalents on national rail – even in situations where statistically it is not always the case. Building this image was a significant challenge at the beginning of the London Overground, and it is an image that TfL are no doubt keen to protect.
Perhaps more pertinent here though is something we pointed out in 2013 – that granting Crossrail a roundel was also a carefully measured act:
This is thus more than just a roundel, because it tells us that Crossrail will not be a railway that just happens to be run by TfL, it will be a fully-fledged member of the TfL family. That suggests that there are some interesting times (and debates) ahead in the world of suburban services not just on the subject of Crossrail, but also beyond.
It is this that perhaps provides the likeliest clue as to why TfL were happy to go along with the mayor’s suggestion. For they have declared that the name change will happen when the line opens and not before. This thus allows two brands to be leveraged now not just one. Crossrail the successful construction project can beget Crossrail 2, for which backing and funding are still in the balance. Meanwhile the operational railway that is the Elizabeth line becomes, to the wider public, the newest addition not just to the TfL family, but to the Underground.
That last part is a clever piece of nominative determinism. For it no longer matters that operationally Elizabeth will be a mainline railway, with mainline tunnels and rolling stock, mainline branches reaching as far as Reading and a mainline management structure all operated by TfL at (ultimately) the grace of the DfT. To the public at large it is now a Tube line. It may act like Thameslink, but it looks like the Bakerloo.
And it would be a brave civil servant or transport minister that, at some point in the future, tried to justify taking a “Tube line” back under “national” control, no matter how silly its name might be.
With thanks to Briantist for his TfL queries and Del_Tic for the title
Right. Just to note. This is emphatically not the place for a big debate about monarchism or republicanism. Any comments that do so will be moderated out.
What a relief.
I lived in fear that the outgoing Mayor might name it after himself.
Shame I was looking forward to Thameslink, Crossrail 1 and Crossrail 2 being renamed the Tom, Dick and Harry lines in celebration of British tunnel innovation.
“The name makes it look like a Tube line” also sprang up some blogger’s mind, apparently. The only thing I want to complain is that: Don’t they think the Queen’s name has been used for far too many times?
Thanks for the interesting background. Maybe you can put away the screen cleaners as I assume that you will be able to leave the screen for a while – but maybe not before changing “torturous” to “tortuous” in para 5? ?
So, as I noted originally … Funny how ‘the powers wot be’ can name an unopened line yet can’t give separate names to all the orange ones just called ‘Overground’, innit.
I mean, you’d think the apparent prime mover was after a new job in the near future …
ps. I’ve already seen a number of friends elsewhere saying “if this is a ‘line’ doesn’t that mean it will be 24-hour when the night tube starts? And despite my pointing out the obvious essence of the matter that this ‘line’ uses the main lines to the West and East they remain oblivious to the difference. “What’s in a name?” as Romeo asked …
It may now be the Elizabeth line rather than Crossrail 1, but has it been established whether it will be considered part of the Underground, TfL Rail, or a new Crossrail group that would also include Crossrail 2 (or the George VII line or whatever) and perhaps Thameslink post-2021?
btw, I couldn’t decide whether “One might think it slightly greedy, perhaps, for the Queen to have helped herself to a second Tube line when she already had one” was tongue-in-cheek or just an error, given that Crossrail (a perfectly acceptable name, frankly) is not “Tube” at all.
Indeed, maintaining ‘Crossrail’ as the name would emphasize to all that it is _not_ your average mass transit line. Or does this promote CR2 to a more active future?
It’s not a Tube line though, is it? If it was it shouldn’t have its own colour roundel.
My problem with the way this has been presented so far is that it’s really conflating the branding between travel mode and line. The renders show a purple roundel with the words “Elizabeth Line” written on it. But under the current TfL system of use, individual lines don’t have roundels, different travel modes do.
Following the rules, the purple roundel should probably have Crossrail written on the bar, and Elizabeth Line should be confined to signage in other places around stations etc. Crossrail 2 should also be branded with the same roundel, regardless of the line name and colour it ends up with.
As it is, it’s all a complete bloody mess.
It’s worth remembering that when the Fleet Line name was used the line was planned to continue from Charing Cross under Fleet Street towards Fenchurch Street Station and in fact cross the River Fleet at Ludgate Circus. So had it retained this name then it’s name would not have fitted its route via Waterloo Station when JLE was built.
As for change if name from Crossrail well Crossrail could be used as a project name for similar lines built to link together different lines with a permanent name allocated when line becomes operational so Crossrail 2 could become The Livingstone Line !!
Of course names for mainline railways are not new given we have The Bittern Line and of course the East West rail project is about recreating The Varsity Line which used to link Cambridge and Oxford.
As for Elizabeth Line well that may attract headlines when things go wrong attract like “Lizzy service on Elizabeth Line !”.
Anyway, this project has come one step closer with opening of first new platform at Abbey Wood Station for South Eastern services .
Elizabeth Line comes one step closer –
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/news/2016/feb/first-passenger-services-Abbey-Wood-station-platform-opens/
To commuters it will be indistinguishable to the other tube lines, except for the larger and longer trains, so it makes sense to give the line a name.
Crossrail always struck me as a project ‘holding’ name anyway.
“There’s a lawn here that still belongs to the DfT, but TfL’s tanks are now dug in on it. And they’re flying a royal flag”
Excellent article, as always. I think you’re absolutely right that ‘promoting’ the Crossrail brand so that it sits above the two lines (and, potentially more to come) is a savvy move.
Interesting that it’s been branded as the ‘Elizabeth Line’ rather than – as would be more conventional – ‘Elizabeth’ (eg on the sign, or the – somewhat cluttered – roundel). Presumably ‘riding the Elizabeth’ didn’t sound suitably majestic.
Aside from the branding issues, we’ve just created a fantastic, ambitious engineering marvel, one of the biggest projects in Europe, an 85 mile heavy railway that swoops under central London, and we’ve called it… Elizabeth.
It’s just a bit belittling isn’t it?
Like the “Old Oak Common High Speed 2 – Crossrail Interchange” sounds serious and impressive. “The Old Oak Common High Speed 2 – Elizabeth Line Interchange” sounds rather less grand.
A couple of weeks after opening and I reckon it will become known as the ‘Busy Lizzy’.
It’s not often that I disagree with an article on LR but I do disagree with the points made here. Crossrail isn’t a tube line. It is and will remain a National Rail service. It is procured by Rail for London. It is being built by TfL subsidiary Crossrail Limited. Crossrail has been the name for 40+ years. It has always struck me as being apt and uncontroversial. You need only to look at TfL’s press release about the renaming to see the garbled and confused intermingling of names. They don’t even seem clear about how the names are to be used.
*If* it is only the service that is being renamed then that is not clear at all from anything else I’ve read on this topic. Having two brands running in parallel (Crossrail for the project and Lizzie Line for the service) for what has always *one* thing in the public’s mind strikes me as a mess. This is just the decision of a departing Mayor who seems determined to leave just about the worst possible legacy as a result of decisions taken / made public in the final 3-4 months of his term.
Anyway it’ll always be Crossrail as far as I am concerned. It will be fascinating to see what the public decide to call it, come 2018, when they get to ride on new railway infrastructure that they’ll associate with the *Crossrail* works they’ve seen going on for the best part of a decade. That nicely brings up back to the article’s opening point about people outside the railway really deciding what something is called in common parlance.
Well said Walthamstow Writer re Crossrail being part of National Rail. This has just been reiterated over at the Oyster and National Rail website where it states on the new Fare Finder: “No distinction is made between National Rail, London Overground and TfL Rail – they are all NR”. Plus, like LOROL trains, Crossrail is not a tube line.
On the subject of renaming Crossrail the Elizabeth Line. Well, I for one will just use the phrase “Crossrail”.
As soon as I heard the news – my first thought was “that’s why ages ago they chose the colour purple” – its the ancient sign of royalty. Of course I could be completely wrong, but when I googled “purple and royalty”, this is what came up:
Why Is the Color Purple Associated With Royalty?
The color purple has been associated with royalty, power and wealth for centuries. In fact, Queen Elizabeth I forbad anyone except close members of the royal family to wear it. Purple’s elite status stems from the rarity and cost of the dye originally used to produce it. A lot of work went into producing the dye, as more than 9,000 mollusks were needed to create just one gram of Tyrian purple. Since only wealthy rulers could afford to buy and wear the color , it became associated with the imperial classes of Rome, Egypt, and Persia. Purple also came to represent spirituality and holiness because the ancient emperors, kings and queens that wore the color were often thought of as gods or descendents of the gods . . . Purple’s exclusivity carried over to the Elizabethan era (1558 to 1603), during which time everyone in England had to abide by Sumptuary Laws, which strictly regulated what colors, fabrics and clothes could and couldn’t be worn by different classes within English society. Queen Elizabeth I’s Sumptuary Laws forbid anyone but close relatives of the royal family to wear purple, so the color not only reflected the wearer’s wealth but also their regal status .
http://www.livescience.com/33324-purple-royal-color.html
My view is that TfL decided this ages ago and carefully chose the right moment to officially rename the line. I could be wrong of course, but it seems an uncanny conicidence.
Perhaps if we are referencing a person who has sought to serve the *whole* United Kingdom since 1952, ‘Elizabeth’ would be a better name for HS2? I suggest this as someone whose elder sister shares a first name with Her Majesty & who is doubtless delighted to be on the TfL map (as a Cambridge resident).
I am fairly sure that a number of readers (ideally the majority) of readers of Lord Gnome’s organ will (more or less loudly) articulate the case for the nickname to be Brenda. (possible back formation: Bankers REading aND Abbey wood).
@ Anonymous – best not to shout too loudly about those Sumptuary Laws. It’ll give the government daft ideas. Interesting history lesson though – I was unaware of all of that.
Re: para 1: perhaps when the brown line reaches further into south east London we can call it the BakerLew?
To the public at large it is now a Tube line
They’re going to be disappointed by the service frequency, then.
I’m completely with WW on this one.
Crossrail is *not* a Tube (LUL) line….it is a mainline high-frequency surburban railway that happens to criss-cross London through a lengthy tunnel. In fact, it wouldn’t even strictly meet the definition of a metro or rapid transit railway, as one that *operates on its own right of way for its entire length* (which Crossrail plainly doesn’t).
I am not opposed to the idea of an Elizabeth line per se…..IMHO, I just think the name should be saved for the time when a LUL line needs a new name, whether brand new (e.g. Chelney pre its hijacking by Crossrail 2) or for an existing service (e.g. one of the Northern line branches post-separation). Allocating non-descriptive line names to mainline rail services (as opposed to, say, East London line for that part of LO) is fairly pointless, I think, and just makes it appear on the map as a Tube line when it clearly isn’t one!
Since the trains will be articulated, it will be called Brenda the Bender.
… ignoring the minor problem that the trains aren’t articulated.
Crossrail isn’t a London Underground line, but it is very much a Tube (deep bored) line.
I trust that any gas fitters engaged on the Elizabeth line will have to be C.O.R.G.I. registered,
What a disappointing waste of the first opportunity in 40 years to name a new line in London, especially given that you have to go back to 1907 to find a new cross-London railway* that wasn’t named in connection with a Queen.
*Which I define as crossing the Circle line, so the DLR doesn’t count
The “Brunel Line” would have been much better
The most appropriate name for this line is Thameslink as it connects communities along the Thames, but that name was given to a route that barely spends any time anywhere near the Thames.
Hmm….
It seems very odd to me that they (TfL) can make this kind of decision without a consultation. Even if they are sure that it is the right decision, they have both legal requirements and public policy documents saying they will consult.
It’s not like it’s cost-free (as the Crossrail name already has 1,230,000 Google results and many years of highly valuable marketing). Even if it’s free, they are supposed to consult, are they not ?
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/policy/transparency
I’m 100% up for asking for a Judicial Review of this decision-without-a-consultation. It’s deeply embarrassing for those involved that they didn’t ask the people who are PAYING FOR THIS LINE what they want to call it.
They should have at the very least allowed other names (“Crossrail”, “Padpool”, “Lizline”) to brought forward and rejected.
When Horace Cutler decided to rename the Fleet Line to the Jubilee Line (and incidentally change the colour of the line on the tube map to silver as it marked the silver jubilee) – there was something of a guerilla campaign against the renaming – with “Don’t Jubileeve It” stickers appearing over the name of the line on station tube maps.
Hard to see this move as anything more than Boris’s pitch for a gong, á la Cutler. And people still give him the time of day. Remarkable.
THC
I’m finding it a little boring that nigh everything is now names after QE2. Seriously, it’s become almost difficult to find something recently named _not_ after her. On a somewhat separate note, my suggestion would be renaming the Crossrail to “Freddie Mercury Line”, so it’s both named after the Queen, and has a pinch of English humour to it too.
Particularly with the expanded “overground” now including e.g. the line out to Enfield, I feel TfL is doing tourists a real disservice by leaving e.g. Thameslink and the Northern City Line off the tube map.
I have read lots of arguments about this renaming, including some on another forum where it shifted into a Brexit debate! Well done to LR Towers for laying down the law on monarchism discussions.
One essential feature of any good public transport network is that it’s users should have a simple way of referencing between different routes and service types. London does it by naming lines, and giving each line a different colour on maps and signs. DLR and London Overground only partly fit into that but do demonstrate how well the Underground works for new customers, by comparison.
No passenger needs to know that the Elizabeth Line is part of National Rail where it runs away from its central sections. They will just know that it’s an integral part of London’s high frequency rail system.
It’s interesting that TfL have slightly confused matters by giving it an Underground type name, but with its own distinct rounded. Is there a purpose here?
I’ll see where this gets me…
“[email protected]
Thank you kindly for your fast and detailed response.
I wonder if you would be kind enough to add some more detail?
The nature of my enquiry was about the location and timing of the public consultation for this decision to change the name of the line as there doesn’t seem to have been one.
Is that because there wasn’t a need for one on this occasion?
If that’s the case would it be possible for you to direct me the relevant policy or policy documents that I should have read before asking such an obvious question about the consultation? I’d didn’t realise there was an exclusion for this.
I seems my understanding that TfL was supposed to consult on all decisions about the spending it does on behalf of the London public is flawed!
Thanks in advance.”
I’m slightly surprised by the emphasis you put on TfL having to agree any changes. Although they could make life a bit difficult for the mayor in a ‘yes minister’ sense, don’t they ultimately need to do as they’re told by the mayor? He even has a power of statutory direction as well as the soft power he wields.
“For they have declared that the name change will happen when the line opens and not before.”
More than that, the name change will happen only when the central section opens, by which time purple trains will have been running to Shenfield for more than a year, and to Heathrow for 7 months—will they be Crossrail in the meantime?
Until this week it was fairly clear that Crossrail was its own transport mode, with a dedicated roundel: it’s then uncontroversial that lines within it would need to be given names. And I’m not sure we have any evidence this position has really changed, one commemorative plaque and a photoshop does not make a strategy.
Why should unveiling the name suddenly change TfL’s position on whether [they want the public to think] Crossrail is part of the Underground or not? That’s just opening up a can of worms unnecessarily.
I suspect that the line will end up being called whatever the travelling public decide by custom and practice – rather like the District (simply because Metropolitan District Railway was both a mouthful and confusing) – didn’t require Quex to do that for them.
I do think the Elizabeth Line is too much of a mouthful ( and it sounds like a shipping company anyway) but whether TfL will bow to the inevitable Liz Line, we shall see.
I fear I have – for once – to disagree with WW on the question of sticking with CR1 ..CR x . Yes they are different institutionally, but the travelling public doesn’t actually care whether they are travelling on an LU train on LU metals, or a franchised operation wholly (LO) or partly (CR) on someone else’s kit. It’s the service “promise” and the fares that they notice. Only geeks like us on this site are interested in the minutiae of ownership.
That colour purple is much closer to lilac than the genuine Roman purple (as in that famous miniature of the Emperor Basil II ) which is a much redder shade altogether, but I suspect it’s essentially a question of what can be reproduced in enamel. At least, as noted in the aged thread on the unmentionable tube line, that’s what we were told when choosing the colour for that. (Yes, I know we use different materials now but the purple goes back into the remoter past).
Just for amusement, for a general to “don the purple” in Roman times meant that he intended to revolt against the Emperor of the day and replace him. Boris will have known that…
BTW, for the benefit of our American cousins, we don’t “ride” transit lines here, we “take” them, so “riding the Elizabeth Line” sounds totally alien to the London ear.
@Fandroid
“It’s interesting that TfL have slightly confused matters by giving it an Underground type name, but with its own distinct rounded. Is there a purpose here?”
Isn’t that also true for DLR, trams and buses and Overground stations where they use the roundal with colourways other than Blue/Red?
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/lu-signs-manual.pdf page 107
If the ‘Elizabeth line’ is to be seen as a tube line, then where does it leave gate lines at interchanges? My understanding was that there may well be gate lines at interchanges (perhaps like the one at Waterloo East where an LUL gateline is separated by just a couple of metres from a NR gateline). Perhaps my understanding iswrong, but if gatelines exist then any suggestion that passengers will see this as part of the underground will disappear at the speed of light.
Pondering, as is my wont, on the recognisability of line names (as opposed to numbers) for those whose command of English is poor, I realised that ‘Elizabeth’ is an internationally recognised British name. Cunning ploy to get tourists to use it?
One minor omission – “is a Machiavellian (or perhaps, now, ‘Mike-iavellian’)” what? I think you’re missing a noun at the end there.
I wonder if naming will be applied to the Ginger line, sorry, Overground, and suburban rail services acquired by TfL or if more mundane letters or numbers will be used where some differentiation is needed.
One thing that’s really worth remembering, I think, is that talk of gatelines and the semantic or technical differences between a railway and a metro system is something that the vast majority of travellers don’t think about.
That’s not to say it’s not important. Obviously it is or we wouldn’t write about stuff! But I do encourage people to remember that when thinking about this as a subject.
JB
Your first comment – if anyone wants that sort of thing, they are recommended to “Diamond Geezer’s” take on this & the comments on that blog.
Not here ….
Anon @ 00.13
LURVE IT!
( How do you do smileys? )
Ugh. I thought Crossrail was a perfectly cromulent name. First time TfL have messed up on branding/naming/etc. in a long while, in my opinion.
Possibly the point about the Bakerloo line has been missed.
When Quex or whoever started calling it this (and I suspect Quex was just the first to put it in print) it was done as a derogatory term. Rather than the “posh” Baker Street & Waterloo Railway” with Baker St at least symbolising wealth it was given a portmanteau term when such things were not exactly seen as aspiring names. It was strongly resisted by the company who apparently didn’t like it at all.
This would not have been the first case of a derogatory term of that era coming into common use. Famously the “Crystal Palace” was a scathing remark in Punch about the 1851 Great Exhibition building. More recently advocates of “the steady state theory” that believed the universe always existed referred to the rival idea of a creation as “the big bang theory” – an intended term of derision.
For many years the London Transport was generally meticulous about the use of “tube” which was generally avoided but when it was used it was taken to only mean the deep level tubes. Now they have accepted and even embraced the term and use it, as most of the public did, for the entire Underground. It remains to be seen not only whether they are successful at getting the public to use the formal title (mixed results here with the cable car/dangleway and Boris bikes but somehow the O2 seems to be accepted). I suspect if people insist on calling it Crossrail or the Lizzy Line they will eventually give up and go along with it – just like the Baker St & Waterloo Railway did.
I don’t like the idea of naming things after people when they’re not dead
Re Reynolds,
As SE split their metro route lines with names (e.g. “Woolwich”) then TfL really need to do something especially if they take over more routes but they appear to have largely blind spot in this area. I suspect they might have to resort to numbering services as anything with “Overground” as prefix in the line name will already be long but I still looking forward to an orange Goblin logo!
Crossrail is 2 syllables; Elizabeth Line is 5. It’s a mouthful. It doesn’t trip off the tongue.
Re PoP,
I suspect shortness of name has a lot to do with success
e.g. Boris being shorter than any of the official names (and why the O2 has succeeded in very rare event for a sponsored name which people generally dislike)
Re Flubber,
“I don’t like the idea of naming things after people when they’re not dead”
It had better open on time and work well else those responsible will get a trip to the tower!
I don’t think this was always the plan or TfL wouldn’t have unveiled the Crossrail roundel, they would have left the Crossrail construction project logo in place surely?
I think an LUL style Crossrail branded service and a named line would be fine, just like LU and LO.
I feel that this naming thing is a backward step. Was it always planned ? The network gets more complicated and the names fail to help travellers, even though I can see that some of us Londoners “like them” for posterity and so we have our own “coded” way to navigate and confuse visitors. The current names plus random North/South/East/Westbound tags (which are highly inconsistent) do nothing to inform. The Overground network (and DLR) start to look like spaghetti on the map, and sure one reason for going orange was to untangle the mess for users
I would prefer to see London adopt the practice of German cities, Paris etc with line numbers, and different numbers for different parts of lines where they split. For instance:
Deep level – underground:
U1 Northern Line (U11, U21, U31 etc for different branches and City/West End route)
U2 Central Line (U12, U22, U32 etc for different branches)
U3 Bakerloo Line
U4 Piccadilly Line
U5 Waterloo & City Line
U6 Victoria Line
U7 Jubilee Line
U8 Part(s) of Northern Line if that is one day split
Surface and Sub-surface:
S1 District Line (S11, S21, S31 etc for various branches to the West)
S2 Hammersmith & City Line
S3, S13, S23, S33 etc Metropolitan Line
S9 or S25 Circle Line
Crossrail, if separate from the S category above – it is a bit of a hybrid:
X1 Crossrail 1 (X11, X21 etc for splits in East and West)
X2 Crossrail 2
X3 Perhaps a case for Thameslink here …
DLR, Overground, Trams:
D1, O1, T1 etc for various routes
AirLine:
BJ1 Denoting that this is Boris’s folly (and for a chuckle)
Anyway, I know many will disagree
I guess we will soon start to see a dotted purple “Elizabeth Line – under construction” appear on our tube maps …
ngh – I think alliteration matters as well. Hence Boris Bikes. I’m not sure if they would have been called Ken Bikes. So Liz Line or Lizzie Line are quite likely.
Up here in Glasgow we have gone through a similar controversy with our new £850m hospital replacing the Glasgow Southern General. It was renamed the South Glasgow University Hospital in 2014 before a similar political decision without public consultation led to the announcement it would become the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in 2015.
Interestingly however the Bakerloo process is already underway with it having two alternative local names the “Death Star” based on it’s looming appearance and “Betty’s” as a suitably respectful abbreviation of Elizabeth.
Betty’s seems to be particularly popular with staff and is now frequently used in internal mail / clinic letters, etc.
So I wouldn’t be surprised to see Crossrail undergo this same process and it seems likely that alliterative temptation may mean the “Liz Line” has some potential…
TFL can decide the name but cannot control how it is abbreviated of course. I suspect that the line will end up being known as ‘The Liz’, unfortunately.
If there is a rational plan for the services thay TfL gradually takes over from the TOCs , and TfL sorts out the various interlinked services with simplified junctions and more interchange to eliminate bottlenecks, then it will be sensible to give individual services or small groups of services names. I am using Euston-Watford Junction as an example of a service and the East London/South London line as a small group of services.
My punt is that all services from London radius 50 miles (straight line) should be “in scope” using Reading as a precedent – that should be worth a few dozen comments! If one looks south of the river, I can imagine the howls of protest from Brighton, but would the be similar howls is TfL took over the slow/semi-fast services to Milton Keynes or Cambridge?
If “TfL Rail” was not to raise expectations by from the Crossrail name, then does that not suggest that “Crossrail” already has good brand awareness and positive perception? Shame to ditch that.
Altnabreac,
This seems to be a thing about hospitals e.g. Jimmy’s, Bart’s though the Royal London survives intact as do many saints. In Farnborough (Orpington) they called it the Princess Royal University Hospital. Everyone calls it the Pru. If you called it by its proper name people sometimes get confused.
Berlin in particular has a long history of giving buildings etc disrespectful names when they don’t like the official one – Hitler never liked Berlin and never thought he could trust its citizens. Back in London, I do wonder whether they will deeply regret this renaming a few years later.
THC 25 February 2016 at 07:07
I did not vote for Boris but is LR the place for blatant political comment without even an attempt to make it transport related?
It’ll be interesting to see if it sticks; everyone I know called Thameslink “Thameslink” throughout the period First tried to rebrand it “Capital Connect”.
Re Martin Smith,
The First rebranding – that was because First didn’t want to pay DfT licensing fees for the use of the “Thameslink” name. They now seem happy to pay DfT for the use of GWR however…
Re Stuart
“U1 Northern Line (U11, U21, U31 etc for different branches and City/West End route)”
Surely U11, U12 U13 etc would be more logical as every northern line service would then start with a 1? Even better pair each service so U11 is North Bound and U12 is south bound or vice versa?
It’s true that the majority of people do not care about the precise mode of the train, but what they do care about is how long they’re going to have to wait on the platform for it to turn up. Crossrail is only truly delivering metro frequency in the central section and by branding it as another tube line, I think it’s going to give people an unrealistic expectation of service levels on the branches. For example, the Piccadilly line runs approximately every 5 minutes to Heathrow, whereas Crossrail will be every 15 minutes. There’s not may tube passengers that will tolerate waiting 15 minutes for a train without heavy tutting, deep sighs and grumbles about what actually constitutes a ‘Good Service’.
@James: you have to go back to 1907 to find a new cross-London railway* that wasn’t named in connection with a Queen
The Post Office Railway opened in 1927. Then again it was run by an organisation that used the Queen’s crown as its logo.
When Horace Cutler decided to rename the Fleet Line to the Jubilee Line (and incidentally change the colour of the line
What colour was it going to be before he changed it?
@Fandroid: No passenger needs to know that the Elizabeth Line is part of National Rail where it runs away from its central sections
You are standing on a platform at Reading with a ticket to Slough that you bought from the (non-TfL) ticket office. The ticket has the National Rail logo on it but no TfL roundel. An Elizabeth Line train pulls into the platform. Is your ticket valid on that train?
@Deep Thought: First time TfL have messed up on branding/naming/etc. in a long while, in my opinion.
Have you ever heard anyone who wasn’t a TfL employee refer to the “Emirates Air Line”?
@PoP: This would not have been the first case of a derogatory term of that era coming into common use
The word “Tory” derives from the Irish word for a robber, for example. But moving swiftly on, can we have a sweepstake on how long after opening before the Evening Standard first applies the cliche “misery line” to the new line?
This seems to be a thing about hospitals
Including the hospital in Welwyn universally known as the QE2 – the other popular abbreviation for things named after Mrs Windsor.
I always had a hope Crossrail would become part of the Overground.
But nonetheless, I do miss the “Crossrail Line X” naming. It gave a nice stark contrast to the named Underground Lines to appear more modern and sleek. But perhaps it will be in preperation for the fact that while Crossrail will be the line grouping, like how the Underground is. I wouldn’t mind that, but I think the “Elizabethan” Line would have sounded better, It rolls of the tounge, and it fill forever be historic as long as London stands the line was create the in Second Elizabethan era.
I look forward to CR2’s name-perhaps, seeing as it goes to both Alexandra Palace and Hampton Court Palace they could call it-
Actually I won’t say it.
Remains to be seen how much the new name will actually get pushed. No one calls it the Elizabeth Tower but then again it doesn’t have signs with that name all around it. If all wayfinding says “Elizabeth line” I expect it’ll stick and get an Elizabeth-based nickname.
(I suppose an Elizabeth line is better than a Boris airport)
Anonymous, 10.54
Maybe, maybe not, but unless you’re JB in disguise or a mod here then your opinion carries as much weight as mine. But if you really think that this renaming is not a political move then I have a number of bridges that I can sell you.
THC
The new moniker of the Elizabeth Line almost feels like the renaming of a thing/brand/place/etc. due to having a negative perception in the public eye e.g. Windscale/Sellafield, EuroDisney/Disneyland Paris.
As Crossrail seems to have had a mostly positive construction phase and looks to be on budget and time it seems odd to do away with the name.
Great article title BTW.
@PoP…..You might refer to it as the Pru, but I know plenty of people (including my parents) who continue to refer to it as Farnborough Hospital. Similarly, the QE2 bridge is rarely referred to as such, but is just lumped in with the tunnel as the ‘Dartford Crossing’ (or occasionally on its own as the Dartford Bridge). And I’ve yet to hear anyone refer to the Olympic Park by its full official name.
@Graham H/John Bull…..Yes, I realise that I am being a bit geeky / OCD by bringing up the whole ‘Is Crossrail really a Tube line?’ issue. I’m just in favour of some level of consistency (which is not very British, I know…..people here do seem to love our quirks, oddities and exceptions!). I still stand by the argument that there is no precedent within London for giving a non-LUL line its own official, non descriptive line name, and I would prefer if this was adhered to.
If Crossrail does end up becoming a network of similar lines analogous to the RER, then I can see why it might then be a good idea to give them individual line names (cue lengthy debate as to what CR2 will end up being called…..my money is on the King’s line). But since this won’t happen for many years, I expect people will continue to refer to it as Crossrail for the foreseeable future.
Incidentally, the phrase ‘Riding the Liz’ heard out of context sounds borderline treasonous! ‘Taking the Liz [line]’ sounds far less risqué, I think ?….
@Fandroid…..Given how busy Crossrail is likely to be on opening, coupled with its relatively low number of stations within the central area, I’d much rather that tourists who aren’t using it to get to/from Heathrow stay well away from it! Hopefully enough space will freed up on the other Tube lines for tourists to use as they please, leaving Crossrail primarily for commuters, business and leisure users from the suburbs.
@Ian J….AIUI, the Fleet line was going to use battleship grey (another ploy on the ‘Fleet’ name), which as you can see on a Navy ship is quite distinct from the silvery grey adopted for the Jubilee line.
THC
Your assessment may well be right, although I suspect not as I don’t think it will make any difference either way as to whether Boris gets a gong or not. I just think there are better places than LR for people to make political comments that have no more than a passing nod to the subject at hand. Enough said before the scissors arrive.
I understand the point that Graham H disagrees with me on but I do feel that the tube vs National Rail distinction is important. Does anyone seriously believe that the “Tube” is now running to Shenfield or will run to Reading? Furthermore there are fundamental issues, touched on by Ian J, about ticket availability and other terms and conditions and consumer rights that apply to NR services that do NOT apply to Underground ones. Does LU have any obligation to get you home if the last train doesn’t run because of their own failings? Nope. I understand all TOCs *are* required to do this. If your Crossrail train to Reading (last one of the day) conks out at West Drayton due to issues within the control of the railway then you’re entitled to be transported to your final destination at the TOC’s cost. There’s one example (assuming my understanding of the rules is correct!) where muddled understanding / branding is not helpful. We also can’t ignore the fact that Crossrail, as part of the National Rail network, will facilitate a number of journey options that are cumbersome at best at the moment. Again people need to be confident and clear that their tickets and travel arrangements will be seamless. This is different to any “geekery” that may be on display on this blog!
@ Quinlet – I am not aware of a single instance where Crossrail are proposing to gate themselves off from other lines / services. It is worth bearing in mind that interchange gatelines (as used to exist at Stratford JLE) are incompatible with Oyster / CPC PAYG ticketing logic. It works on the basis of “in” then “out” then “in” etc validation. Interchange gatelines create “in” then “in” logic which Oyster can’t cope with. The only intermediate logic Oyster copes with is “I went this way” (pink validator) touch ins. I have not given any great thought as to whether Crossrail will increase the number of outside of Zone 1 interchanges compared to what already exists and is covered by existing priced routes.
Mind the Gap.
http://www.businessinsider.com/rebranding-disasters-and-what-you-can-learn-from-them-2014-4
http://www.canny-creative.com/2013/10/10-rebranding-failures-how-much-they-cost/
Bring back the Crossrail name, much better….
@WW/Ian J – I entirely accept the point about ticketing and different Ts and Cs (hence my cautious remarks about people being more concerned with a service and commercial offer than the ownership of the kit). In the circs, TfL made a rod for their own back when they applied the roundel to LO and CrossRail; as we have seen ad nauseam on this site, that aroused expectations about both service levels and fares which have not been met (and are unlikely to be met). I don’t have a glib answer to this. I understand the political pressure on TfL’s masters to mark the territory they have acquired; perhaps the long term objective should be to draw longer distance fares entirely into the TfL structure. [At the time when we,in DTp, encouraged LT to introduce the zonal fare scheme, we jested that the ripple effects would influence bus fares in Wick.We are still laughing…]
I’m with WW on this.
A further – and big – issue is Heathrow. I presume the Elizabeth Line will have premium pricing there and the Piccadilly will not. Explain that – and free transfer between lines elsewhere – to non-Londoners.
The argument that regular cusomers (forget passengers) will see the Lilabett Line as an Underground line holds partially. The line it most closely resembles is the Metropolitan. But the Met goes nowhere near as far as the Betty. On the other hand, Crossrail 2, if it ever gets built, would be rather similar in extent to the Met.
In terms of communication to users, the naming is at best difficult. In terms of politics and constitutionality, well that’s a story for another website.
@All
The title “Elizabeth” line is simply incorrect, if intended to be a tribute to our current reigning monarch. There is no Queen Elizabeth, we are ruled by Queen Elizabeth the SECOND, or, Queen Elizabeth II.
Only monarchs with unique Christian names can be so described, e.g Stephen, John, Anne, Victoria. Jane (for one week).
This does not apply to a queen consort. Hence Cunard line’s Queen Elizabeth (wife of George V1) but QE2!
We did have a Queen Elizabeth, until February 1952, when she then became Queen Elizabeth I.
The citizens of Purley are not the only ones of pedantic disposition.
@Tiger tanaka
” [CR2] goes to both Alexandra Palace and Hampton Court Palace”
Not to mention Nonsuch Palace (in Ewell) and (Victoria for) Buckingham Palace.
@THC
“I have a number of bridges that I can sell you”
Three bridges across the Thames in or near London are named after royalty, and another after a jubilee. Most people would have trouble locating the Alexandra Bridge though.
@Alan R
Between 1936 and 1952 “Queen Elizabeth” could mean Elizabeth Tudor or the then Queen Consort, depending on context – hence the naming of the Cunard liner she launched. And had she not named her daughter Elizabeth, she would probably have continued to be known as Queen Elizabeth to this day.
Her official title managed to get the word “Queen” in twice – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
The style of Queen Mother was not invented for her, but it was unusual for a dowager to use it. Neither Queen Mary nor Queen Alexandra were commonly referred to that way during the reigns of their respective sons – and I assume I don’t need to spell out which Queen Mary I mean.
Re Timbeau,
Alexandra Bridge – Cannon Street?
Re Alan,
The original “Queen Mary” was actually a Clyde booze cruise ship and the owners got a good deal from Cunard to add a “II” to the name so Cunard could use the QM name, nothing is ever simple…
ngh,
And the story goes that originally Cunard went to King George V asking permission to call the ship Queen Victoria which was chosen partially because Cunard normally had the ships name ending ‘ia’ e.g. Lusitania.
So they said how they would like permission to name the ship after one of the country’s greatest queens and what an honour it would be etc. George V was delighted and said that her majesty would be so pleased. No-one had the heart or nerve to tell him they meant Victoria so Queen Mary it was – with the added problem you mention.
I will now have to chastise myself for going off topic.
Just a reminder that Elizabeth Tudor was never Queen of Scotland, hence current queen should be called Elizabeth 1 of GB.
Hey we could play these pedantic games all day.
@ngh
And: There was an HMS Queen Mary,battlecruiser, blown up at Jutland. As you say, complicated.
@answer=42
I’d agree that the half-again crowsfly distance to Reading, compared to that of Chesham, means that the Met goes nowhere near as far out, but distance isn’t of concern to customers as much as time.
West Ruislip – Liverpool Street is 47 minutes
Maidenhead – Liverpool Street will be 48 minutes
Moor Park – Liverpool Street is 49 minutes
Uxbridge – Liverpool Street is 53 minutes
Tywford – Liverpool Street will be 55 minutes
Amersham – Liverpool Street is 59 minutes (on a fast Met)
Reading – Liverpool Street will be 61 minutes (not using the already-quicker change-at-Paddington option)
Chesham – Liverpool Street is 64 minutes (on a fast Met)
Journey times to Maidenhead and beyond are equivalent to the western edges of the tube.
And on the other side, though there’s not really any doubt.
Epping-Oxford Circus is 47 minutes
Shenfield-Bond Street is 48 minutes
I hesitate to criticise the erudition of our esteemed editor and DEL-TIC but surely the credit for the title should go to one Shakespeare W. who would have had an intrinsic understanding of the merit of ongoing good relations with Queen Elizabeth.
@timbeau “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother”
Which gets abbreviated to QEQM on things named after her (eg the hospital in Margate), due to being a mouthful.
@Si – then there will be Brum in 45 by HS2, not to mention a raft of other places which will be dangerously near the outer reaches of CR2 – eg Guildford in about 34* now. Not sure time is/should be the main determinant.
Used to be doable in 32 until the performance regime kicked in (and have done it 29 including a Woking call on one memorable occasion.)
@Alan Robinson
“The title “Elizabeth” line is simply incorrect, if intended to be a tribute to our current reigning monarch”
As a Doctor Who fan, I’m convinced that the line is called after the late Elisabeth Sladen (aka Sarah Jane Smith).
At the risk of going off topic but anyway:
I am currently, tentatively in the planning of writing a novel, (a novel with a small “n”) set in the closing years of the 24th century set in London. Last year, I envisioned in the far flung future of the late 2300s London would become so enormous that the 21st century built Crossrail lines would eventually just become part of the tube.
You can imagine the surprise I felt then to see this article. Looks like I was right after all, but just by 300 years off the mark.
I beg to disagree on the issue of differentiating between the ‘tube’ and National Rail in this instance. The purity of the distinction was lost years ago when BR trains and Underground trains ran on the same tracks. I am thinking of the District out of Richmond, and the Bakerloo north of Queens Park. I say BR but the practice was happening even before LPTB was created. For most passengers at Reading buying a ticket which has Slough written on it will mean that they get on a train of any colour and go there. There are subtleties of obligation, but how many existing passengers know the details? A tiny informed minority. I have travelled by train over a lifetime and only twice have I been put in taxi by the operating company. If you talk of these things with the ordinary punter, their eyes will glaze over and they’ll think “I just want to get from A to B”. Elizabeth Line is just another name, that together with the roundel, indicates that it’s part of an interconnected London Network.
A shame that “The Lavender Line” is already spoken for. Anyway as mentioned a few times already, as with many other routes, in time, public and commentators will arrive at a suitably catchy alternative name for everyday use.
When things go wrong we’ll see headlines like
‘Balls up on the Betty Line’
‘Betty’s Bolloxed’
WW
– apart from the err “paranoid oddity” shall we say at Waterloo East, perhaps?
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned in the comments yet is the fact that they have already spent money on putting up the Crossrail signs (temporarily covered) at Tottenham Court Road, some of which have been unpeeled… When I saw these I assumed it was a done deal, but evidently not!
Funnily enough, Crossrail 2 have decided to refer to ‘Crossrail’ as ‘Crossrail 1’, so as to distinguish between the two. I can’t imagine they’d have rebranded it to ‘Crossrail 1’ until such time Crossrail 2 opened. You occasionally see ‘Crossrail Line 1’ and ‘Crossrail Line 2’, although these are a little less catchy.
As the comments so far have captured, the ‘Elizabeth line’ as a title poses an identity crisis. Moreover, I am not against the fact it is named after a monach (although I question the occasion that it is marking i.e. the opening doesn’t coincide with any particular Elizabeth II milestones), it is the fact that it doesn’t roll off the tongue very well and risks being shortened to the cringey ‘Lizzie line’!
I am just to annoyed to comment in full, all I would say in brief is that this is a very shameful decision, end of.
Wouldn’t Windsor Line have had the advantage of avoiding the need for new names when we have new monarchs?
PoP 14.47: the version I heard was that “Victoria” had been specifically chosen as it combined the “-ia” of Cunard with the “-ic” of White Star, since the lines had recently merged.
@si
The total mileage of the Met beyond Moor Park (on three branches) must get quite close to the mileage of Crossrail/Elizabeth/whatever it gets called after the revolution beyond West Drayton.
@anon
“Just a reminder that Elizabeth Tudor was never Queen of Scotland, hence current queen should be called Elizabeth 1 of GB. ”
Apparently a convention has been established that in the event of such a discrepancy the higher number will be applied, so for example in the event we have another King James he will be James VIII, not James III.
One possible advantage of the “E” name is that, for visitors to London unfamiliar with the language, having readily distinguishable names for the lines can be helpful, and we already have two lines with names beginning with “C” and ending with “L” (albeit followed by a silent “e” in one case).
Clearly the aim of the name, so to speak, is to encourage a widespread boycott and so avoid overcrowding on the newly-built line…
Good job that no-one uses cockney rhyming slang any more, as the “Elizabeth” isn’t something that most people would want to say they are getting to work.
Of course the rhyme doesn’t work for QE the first, as she was Elizabeth Rex.
(I already have my hat)
@Greg
“WW
– apart from the err “paranoid oddity” shall we say at Waterloo East, perhaps?”
That is not a separation of two TfL operated areas though. There are plenty of places where there are separate barrier lines for different lines (Hammersmith is an example where both halves are TfL-operated, Euston (Tube to LO) is another). The oddity about Waterloo East/Southwark is that there is no access from the street to the area between the barriers.
@Ejt
The “Windsor Line” is a long-established name for the lines running from the north side of Waterloo station, through platforms 3-6 at Clapham Junction. There’s probably a reason for the name………
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2011/the-rus-the-windsor-lines-and-a-question-of-crossings/
In 1917 George V decided he wanted a railway line named after him, so changed his surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor – something like that anyway.
The Royal House of Crossrail – there’s a thought.
@timbeau – I thought you were going to suggest the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Line for a moment. Now, the Hanover Line would be distinctly possible for CR1…
Surely the real test of a name especially on a complicated metro network is whether it works when giving advice as to the route to be followed !
So – Take the Bakerloo to X change to the Central Line to Y .
Now Take the Jubilee line to Bond Street then change to the Elizabeth line to Liverpool Street then change to the Overground … Remember that Liverpool Street Station Crossrail will have an exit to Liverpool Street and an exit to Moorgate Station which may also have Overground services in a few years !
Those who argue that Crossrail is not a tube line will need to get used to the fact that it’s central section will in all intents be a tube line just like the GN south of Drayton Park just with bigger trains .
Boris has in fact made this suggestion a few times in the last few years but most people have simply ignored him .
Of course the real farce was TFL issuing a map of the Elizabeth Line with the description of step free access the reverse of what is shown on tube maps re access to Platform/Train I hope they did not present the Queen with one of these maps …
The other point in today’s world is searching the internet where there must be an enormous number of entries for Crossrail going way back to when an earlier plan was voted out by a committee when Thatcher Was PM
Timbeau16:55
Thanks, I never knew about that convention, clearly didn’t apply in 1603!
@ Greg / Timbeau – trust me not to mention out of station interchanges thus leaving a chink in my explanation that allows further comment! We’ve done Southwark / Wloo East umpteen times before and we all know you think it’s daft. All the other examples are out of station interchanges where “in” then “out” logic still applies. It also applies to the first example. You simply can’t have one gateline at that point if the rest of Waterloo East is gated (as I believe it now is) because someone exiting Southwark LU and then attempting to exit anywhere else (Waterloo East itself or a destination accessible via a South Eastern train plus any rail connections) would present a card whose last transaction was an exit. Therefore a fare couldn’t be calculated and people would be charged a maximum fare (if travelling anywhere within the Oyster area).
@Graham H 15:40
I wasn’t saying time is the main determiner of whether a line should have a tube-style name. I’m objecting to the objection that as Reading is a long way from London it clearly isn’t a tube/tube-style line and thus shouldn’t have a tube-style line name – for Joe and Jo Public, the difference in distance is irrelevant as the stopping train takes little-to-no time longer to reach the end of the line.
Fast trains to Guildford and High Speed ones to Birmingham are clearly a different kettle of fish as even the average punter can spot.
The convention (on monarch-numbering) has been recently invented, to try to avoid (for the future) the protests which happened all over Scotland in the 50s (and maybe later) with people daubing paint over the 2 (or II actually) on letterboxes and stuff. People in Scotland have of course more recently found other ways of showing any disgruntlement they may feel with the union. Now let’s get back to transport.
As with James, I think the Brunel line would have been better. It will be interesting to see if overground lines will be named if and when tfl get hold of more surburban franchises.
When the news reached my office yesterday that Crossrail was to become the Elizabeth line, it was met by laughter. However none of them were aware that a purple Crossrail roundel had previously been announced. There was then much Googling of the Crossrail route. This suggests that while Crossrail is a known brand it’s perhaps not quite as cemented in the average Londoner’s mind as we here on LR like to believe – especially those who don’t own property along the route.
I agree it’s a weird branding decision. If CR1 and CR2 were being built at the same time then it might make more sense: Crossrail as the parent brand (like Underground) with Elizabeth and (eg) Margaret as the two lines. Stock on both lines would feature Crossrail roundels, as would stations, with Elizabeth and Margaret represented by two different colours (or shades) on tube maps and as rectangles on line maps, just as existing tube lines are. But CR2 is a long time coming.
The same principle could be applied to Overground as a parent brand with orange roundels on all stock but lines named and represented by different colours. DLR likewise.
Tramlink goes some way to doing this. A parent brand with individual lines shown as varying shades of green on local maps, although not on the London Connections map where it is one system. (And not at all on the tube map!)
I agree that Elizabeth line is a mouthful. I wonder if take “the QE2” might become a colloquial variant on account of it being shorter and many of us remembering the ship.
If you live in Gidea Park you might say “take Crossrail to Bond Street” but at Bond Street, people for who this will be a brand new connection, might say “change on to the Elizabeth line to…” Who knows.
The Evening Standard might shorten the name to Lizzy, Betty, QE2 (I’m trying with that one lol!) because it suits headline writers but I think it would be a long time before you hear it on BBC London News travel updates.
As Pop and Anonymous mentioned, the Princess Royal University hospital can be the Pru to some, Farnborough hospital to others and even the Princes Royal to a few. Just like growing up in suburban south east London everyone in my family referred to central London as “going into town” or “I work in town”. Never the city, never the west end but sometimes “up London.”
Old final thing (sorry first post in months and I know I’m going on!) shouldn’t the new map show an interchange between the terminating Liverpool Street branch and the cross-London-rail route? As discussed many times on this forum, it’s far easier to be directed through subway tunnels than across crowded mainline concourses.
[Deleted comment by Malcolm, who realised that he had made a stupid comment, and asked a moderator to delete it].
Anon5 says “but CR2 is a long time coming”. True it is, but TfL would like to keep up the momentum, and the more imminent CR2 looks, the less danger there is of losing it in some future bit of “austerity”.
@Si – sorry to have misunderstood you! I quite agree with your point, now I know it better.
@Melvyn
“Those who argue that Crossrail is not a tube line will need to get used to the fact that it’s central section will in all intents be a tube line just like the GN south of Drayton Park just with bigger trains .”
No doubt the same could be said about Thameslink, especially post 2017 when it is meant to take 24 mph in the central section. But I have no doubts that very few people will think of this as a tube line.
Re Phil,
And previously discussed in even greater detail in the previous LR crossrail thread starting here:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2015/purple-train-a-look-at-crossrails-rolling-stock/#comment-263894
@WW 25 February 2016 at 12:44
The only intermediate logic Oyster copes with is “I went this way” (pink validator)
Would it not be possible to put pink validators on an interchange gate line?
There’s also the “continuation exit” validator mode which could surely be used on an interchange gate line?
@Graham H: TfL made a rod for their own back when they applied the roundel to LO and CrossRail; as we have seen ad nauseam on this site, that aroused expectations about both service levels and fares which have not been met
I disagree, because the roundel itself as a shape has never symbolised the Underground alone – it started off as a bus company logo and that has never caused confusion. But it does have a strong association with London‘s transport network. There is no way people in Slough who commute to Reading will start talking about getting the Tube to work.
@PoP:No-one had the heart or nerve to tell him they meant Victoria so Queen Mary it was
There is a similar urban semi-myth that Cunard only ever intended their replacement for the Queen Elizabeth to be known as the Queen Elizabeth 2 (ie the second ship named after the same person), but when asked to name it, QEII naturally assumed that it was named for her and pronounced the name accordingly.
Actually, I have just realised why the name sounds weird to me – it’s because almost no-one refers to the person in question as Elizabeth – she’s almost always just “the Queen”. So why not the Queen line? The objection that it doesn’t specify which monarch could also be made of the Jubilee line.
Speaking of regal numbers, and the failed attempt to get people to call what is generally known as Big Ben as the Elizabeth Tower: great foresight is shown in the gilded inscription at the base of each clock face of Big Ben, which says (in Latin), “God save Queen Victoria the First”.
@Ian J – “I disagree, because the roundel itself as a shape has never symbolised the Underground alone – it started off as a bus company logo and that has never caused confusion.”
In turn, I am not confident that I completely agree with you that it started off simply as a bus logo but I stand to be corrected. By 1934, the London Transport Passenger Board had a whole series of registered trade marks in several TM Classes, including roundels, that had wording within the horizontal bars such as “GeneraL”, “UndergrounD”, “TrolleybuS”, “London TransporT”, “TramwayS” and “Green LinE”. I extracted that from UK TM Registration No. 550,280 as an example.
There seems to be a ‘rule’ (so there will be exceptions) that statues are not erected for living persons, so, in my opinion, a Line should not be named after the reigning Monarch.
Too easy for the name to be corrupted, and, in the context of the route, this line name is meaningless.
I’d prefer something as simple as “City Line” . No confusion with Waterloo & City, say, and describes where the bulk of the traffic will be going.
@Graham F: The official line seems to be that the roundel came about as a combination of the LGOC’s 1905 winged-wheel-with-crossbar and the Underground’s 1908 disk-and-bar when the two organisations merged. So I was half right! Or to put it another way, the roundel has always been a symbol of integrated transport, including as you say coaches, trolleybuses, plus trams, even an electricity company…
Another more surprising roundel that TfL own: the Southern logo. But have they registered “Elizabeth line” as a trademark yet?
@IanJ – you misunderstand me, perhaps I should have been clearer – hitherto, the roundel had been kept for activities which the Combine/LPTB/etc owned. It’s only since 2000 that it has come to mean those integrated transport modes in London owned and controlled by TfL. In Combine days it certainly didn’t mean integrated transport – not only was the concept of integrated transport not known at the time, but Ithink you would have found the Metropolitan Railway and Thomas Tilling disagreeing strongly.
A point about colours for lines. I think that TfL have probably realised that differentiating individual Overground and DLR services with yet more route colours is likely to cause more trouble than it’s worth. We must already have reached the point where any more will just confuse as many as it enlightens. Imagine the key to lines actually becoming bigger than the map. Different colours for lines help the punter to trace a route on a map, but that is about all. Presumably TfL judged Crossrail important and distinct enough to get its own colour. The naming seems to be confusing the cognoscenti, but it will raise Crossrail’ s public profile, here and abroad, so good job done!
@Fandroid – at the risk of repeating my anecdotal evidence from the W&C thread (apologies in advance), when my colleague was invited to choose the line colour for that, we were shown a chart of the available colours – there were about 6 – the eau de nil (which was the one chosen), a dark grey (as per Fleet Line), a magenta, a lightish brown, a grass green, and a claret red – as I remember. The limitation, we were told, was the ability to apply the colour to an enamel base (this had something to do with the suspension of the colour particles in the liquid to be applied to the base panel, but the discussion had moved beyond my chemistry knowledge at that point…
I note that theParis metro has a few more colours than that, including some of those elusive but typically French colours such as marron, jaune ochre, and vert clair
I don’t think anyone ever calls the Victoria Line the Vic or the Vicky. It’s always So as to whether the Elizabeth Line will be the Liz or Lizzy, I am not sure.
@Graham H
” In Combine days it certainly didn’t mean integrated transport – not only was the concept of integrated transport not known at the time, but I think you would have found the Metropolitan Railway and Thomas Tilling disagreeing strongly”
neither of them used the roundel. The Met had its own logo.
https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/centaur-wp/creativereview/prod/content/uploads/2013/03/i00001o6_0.jpg
Tilling also had its own house style, which London TransporT adopted on its buses.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7206/6967151113_6bcdb9feb7_b.jpg (replica)
http://history.buses.co.uk/history/name/ttillingbus.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Lincolnshire_Road_Car_bus_1409_(FW_5696),_2006_Lincolnshire_Road_Transport_Museum_Easter_Sunday_Open_Day.jpg
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/C6DG2K/the-old-girl-southern-vectis-vintage-bus-at-bus-museum-on-the-isle-C6DG2K.jpg
But look at the Ordnance Survey
http://www.ajkgeography.com/uploads/3/9/1/3/39132103/7220711_orig.png
@Ian J
“it’s because almost no-one refers to the person in question as Elizabeth – she’s almost always just “the Queen”. ”
Indeed, I see it as a solecism for people, usually foreigners, to refer to her as “Queen Elizabeth”. If it is necessary to distinguish from another queen, e.g Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, “The Queen of England” has the same number of syllables as Queen Elizabeth. (Yes, she is queen of other countries too, but one is enough to identify her).
There have been four other queens of England and two of Scotland called Elizabeth: as well as Elizabeth I, there were the consort of Robert I of Scotland, the consorts of Edward IV and Henry VII of England (who were mother and daughter), and the consort of George VI (who was queen of both Scotland and England). Indeed, from 1486 to 1492 and again from 1952 to 2002 we had two Queen Elizabeths at the same time.
@Dave Russell
““City Line” . No confusion with Waterloo & City, ”
Oh, I think here is – for example you already hear radio announcers referring to the “Metropolitan, Circle, Hammersmith, and City lines” as if they are four lines and not three. (almost as good as the “0903 from Southend to Victoria”)
I disagree Michael Jennings. As daily users of said line, I regularly refer to getting the Vic Line and know plenty of other people that do.
Re the new Crossrail name – might I suggest this runs the risk of shortening to the “E” Line? Not sure whether this simplifies or complicates the matter in relation to the metals used on the Shenfield leg!
Or maybe the “El”
http://www.chicago-l.org/history/
On the ‘Bakerloo’ principle someone on another site suggested calling is the BerkSex line.
@Anon
If you want a royal connection, the Wessex line (West to Essex) might do, although NSE used to use that name for its Exeter and Weymouth lines.
@Fandroid
“A point about colours for lines. ”
There is a useful document here – http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-colour-standard.pdf
Hasn’t got new line’s Pantone 526 listed yet.
@Anonymous
“On the ‘Bakerloo’ principle someone on another site suggested calling is the BerkSex line.”
Actually if you follow the pattern it’s Paddington to Liverpool Street railway (mainline Z1 terminals on the line) which I make out to be the Padpool or Livertong line. Both of which are better than Elizabeth.
I noticed with interest that you can see the name Crossrail on the signs at Tottenham Court Road today.
@Edmonton ‘eadcase
“Since the trains will be articulated”
No they won’t. There seems to be a common misapprehension that “articulation” = walk-through gangways, such as on the 378s and S stock. Possibly the confusion arises because such gangways were first seen in London on articulated buses.
The only truly articulated rail passenger vehicles currently operating in London are these
http://leewoodprojects.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/2544_george-st-w.jpg
and these
http://www.colinduff.com/uk/ukemu/373210vxh171000a.jpg
although these were common at one time
http://www.mandgn.co.uk/navigation/scrolers/8/1.jpg
@timbeau
Neither QEQM, nor QE2 were/are Queens of England or Scots. There hasn’t been such titles since 1707.
Re: H&C / W&C
What were they thinking in the 90s? Those are really bad names that make the questionable ‘Elizabeth’ look good! (I know W&C is a name that dated from the planning and building of the line a century before the transfer, but that transfer to LU was an opportunity to rename).
And I’m surprised, thinking about it, not to have seen despair about the future Northern line split meaning at least one new line name to be found!
@ timbeau, you’re forgetting the DLR: https://www.flickr.com/photos/24772733@N05/7734294836
Re Si,
Why not rename H&C to “Hammering” after its termini (ideal opportunity when Goblin gets to Barking Riverside to do a putting Barking on the map rebranding?) and W&C to just “City” with an ideal opportunity when stock replacement NTfL comes up?
@si
Neither QEQM, nor QE2 were/are Queens of England or Scots
All right, “five other queens of the United Kingdom or one of its constituents”
Other monarchs since the Act of Union who would have had different regnal numbers in England and Scotland were the two Edwards VII and VIII. Indeed, the English could argue they should have been X and XI, as there were three pre-Conquest kings of that name. However, the numbering was established by Edward III, who needed to distinguish himself from his grandfather and (particularly) his disreputable father, who were both also called Edward. The Saxon Edwards were already ancient history by 1327.
Also William IV (who would have been William III of Scotland, (or William II if you are of the Jacobite persuasion). Of course, there were no pillar boxes to deface in 1830.
@Paul III
DLR: So I did.
These were a regular sight on the Midland main Line at Cricklewood .
http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/imfile/09790.jpg
@ngh
“rename H&C to “Hammering” ”
Actually, the Circle is more sickle-shaped these days, which raises interesting possibilities. (and would provide some political balance for the recent suggestion of a Margaret Line!)
I suspect that we may be fighting a losing battle about the word “articulated”. The technical (and “correct”) definition relates to wheels and bogies, which are becoming less visible with the advent of platform doors, and anyway, who cares about the wheels? There does seem to be a need for a word which means “you can walk the length of the thing (including where it bends) without going through any doors”, and the word “articulated” seems to be the only applicant for the job (however much we here may prefer to re-advertise!).
(Incidentally, it’s not about “full width connections”, because on some bendy-buses the width at the bend is no wider than a normal railway gangway).
@timbeau, ngh
‘Hammericity’? Or in a Northern accent, ‘Hummuhicituh’?
The Brunels (father and son) have an *excellent* claim to the East London line. The son has a good claim to anything connected to Padders, particularly the ur-Crossrail which was broad gauge IIRC. I would have thought ReadKenSex would cover the railway formerly known as Crossrail if we are following the Bakerloo meme. Or ‘Hanover’ if we are following the Piccadilly precedent. I would have suggested ‘Oxford Tube’ but apparently it is a double decker frequent coach to the eponymous university city.
@Long Branch Mike
What’s the matter with “Pink Line”? That passes the Ronseal Test, and I’m sure that’s how I’ve explained it to many a tourist over the years.
Or, given that it’s goes much the same way as the Circle line, calling it the “Straight Line” might help? Be very funnier for a pink link to be called that!
Viz,
“Yes, you can take either the Circle or the Straight from here to Hammersmith” or
“Don’t take the Circle, you need the Straight to Mile End”.
“Take either the Circle or Straight and change at Moorgate”
Malcolm wrote:
“There does seem to be a need for a word which means “you can walk the length of the thing (including where it bends) without going through any doors”,
Surely we have two words for this already: “gangwayed” and “corridor”. “Gangwayed” is, perhaps, to be preferred because at one time there were coaches with an internal corridor that did not let you transfer to an adjacent coach (or even a different part of the same coach).
@Briantist – thanks for the link – I notice that only two of the colours I was shewn in 1994 have since been used – magenta and corporate dark grey.
@Si _ I have an eau de nil mug from a series of line coloured pottery, where the W&C is branded as the Drain – a long standing name – but perhaps LRT felt that it wasn’t, in the last resort,dignified enough. The H&C has been around as a name for the line,if not the service, throughout the whole of my lifetime.
@John Lewis
“Surely we have two words for this already: “gangwayed” and “corridor”.
“walk through train” seems to the thing you type into Google to get pictures, derived from “walk though wardrobe” I suspect.
How about the North Thames Line as it more or less covers the same area as the old North Thames Gas Board?
@BillMatters – only if you paint the trains in that elaborate,lovely lined out, bottle green livery. Does anyone under 60 remember the NTGB anyway?
@Briantist
Re: Straight line. It’s not straight on the map, and straight has another connotation as well.
The Ronseal Test – “It does exactly what it says on the tin” was a UK advertising slogan for woodstain and wood-dye manufacturer Ronseal from 1994 which became a common phrase.
(for those of us not from the UK)
Gangwayed isn’t quite what people mean when they (“incorrectly”) say articulated. It’s the “without doors” part that differs. In the case of tubes (at least in London, and maybe most other places) the sort of gangwayed connection so typical of longer distance trains does not arise, it’s either separate cars, or a full doorless join. The preference for the seamless join may well be about feeling safer when the train is near-empty, and the spreading the crowds evenly when it’s not.
Any dispreference for such styles is perhaps tangled up with the troublesome transverse seat issue, which we try not to raise because of strong feelings about which this website can do very little.
Graham H
Indeed…the Hammersmith and City Railway built the line,before being gobbled up by bigger fish.
In 1869 the Company achieved brief fame in the Law Courts
http://swarb.co.uk/hammersmith-and-city-railway-co-v-brand-hl-1869/
…and while we’re off the topic,as it were…do you (does anyone?) know the functional difference between “shown” and “shewn”??
Shewn is an old spelling of the word shown. Its link with railways is the tendency for it to have been used on signs saying “tickets must be shewn”. I doubt if there are any left today, though I remember them from the fifties. “Tickets must be shewn” implies that you ought to have a ticket, whereas “dogs must be carried” has no such implication.
Wallace Greenslade: “Name two queens of England called Elizabeth.”
Ned Seagoon: “Jim.”
Life was so much simpler in those days, and not just history. Today, one follows the above discussion and confusion reigns, as from time to time, various people called Elizabeth may or may not have, over all or parts of our islands. But if dear Ned was correct, it could be a so much shorter and less contentious name for a railway line.
My interpretation of events was that the central core was to be an Underground like service that terminated at the Heathrow spur save for a suburban service to Reading, and something similar on the eastern side.
Having said that though it might prove to be a poor decision if it’s still subject to special fares.
I certainly call the Victoria Line the “Vic Line” or even “Vicky Line” and have done for years. I also abbreviate several of the other lines or omit the word “Line” but that may be 25+years of working LU where you speak in abbreviations, TLAs etc all the time.
For those wanting to renamed the H&C Line then the Mayor has rejected a request from an Assembly Member citing excessive cost as one reason for not doing it. This is in the Feb 2016 Mayor’s Answers which I was looking through earlier today. Of course we aren’t going to be modifying tens of thousands of signs, maps, stickers, documentation, leaflets, websites or anything else for Crossrail / Elizabeth Line now are we? (cough).
On the subject of colours then as a person who is colour blind this is not something to be dismissed. The Independent had a little quiz about tube line colours on their website today. The only one I got wrong? – yep the colour for Crossrail. That throws up an issue I hadn’t appreciated before as I’ve only ever seen Crossrail’s colour on a map and it stands out because of where it runs. Comparing colour on colour I clearly have a bit of issue recognising it from other lines.
Braintist
derived from “walk though wardrobe” I suspect.
AFAIK there are no railways in Narnia.
WW
But, “They” are renaming CR1 to the Lilibet-line BEFORE it opens, so the cost of signage will be, effectively what it was going to be anyway.
It’s renaming after the fact that’s expensive.
As, I’m sure the ex-Soviet countries & for that matter, Berlin have found out!
Canada has a major road named after a Queen – the Queen Elizabeth Way – which runs for 80 miles around Lake Ontario from Toronto to Niagara. The road was one of the earliest divided highways (dual carriageways) in North America and the first part was opened in 1939. The road is known as the QEW and doesn’t have a number. It was named after the Queen Mother, then Queen Elizabeth, and is often colloquially referred to on radio traffic reports as the Queen E.
@AA
Indeed, the ‘Queen E’ having been more popular 20+ years ago, but as we like our abbreviations as short as possible here, the ‘Queue E’ is the current nickname.
@Twopenny Tube – Presumably as in “A railway, Jim, but not as we know it”?
@Bakerludicrous – no, there was never a CrossRail proposal quite like that. The central area service was always intended to be a projection of the suburban services, even if they didn’t start very far out of the tunnel in some cases.
@Malcolm – hence of course the joke about not having a dog to carry.
Internally, when describing the S stock arrangement we used the term “wide open gangway”. This term was NEVER abbreviated.
I remember being puzzled at school why my Greek lexicon had two verbs, one of which it translated as ‘show’ and the other as ‘shew’. One was δηλόω, but I forget what the other was.
@Briantist
The GLA Act states quite specifically what TfL is legally required to consult on, and line name changes isn’t one of them.
As far as only tube lines having official names is concerned, Network South East gave names to parts of its network. Many of these names were reasonably geographical and were similar to the current franchise names and cover similar areas to the franchises, but the Euston to Watford service was known as the Harlequin Line, and this was written on the sides of the stock as well as appearing on the London Connections map of the day.
@ Malcolm 1842
Veering off topic, but this chat on the use of ‘shewn’ brings back a lot of lovely memories. I clearly remember being on Birmingham Snow Hill station in the mid 50s, with my Mum pandering to my trainspotting, and asking her why the word was spelt with an ‘e’ not an ‘o’. Her response was that it was the correct spelling for that use, evidenced (my words now, not hers then) by the fact that its use by the Great Western Railway was proof enough that she was correct !
@Graham H
“@Malcolm – hence of course the joke about not having a dog to carry”
“It’s all right sir, you don’t have to carry a dog unless you have one with you. Now, may I see your ticket?”
“I don’t have to show you a ticket – I haven’t got one of those either”
@Bob_G – Your story reminds me of the sign pointing to the subway on the country side of Oxford station before rebuilding. There was the customary hand with a finger pointing to the steps down; the hand was attached to the cuff of what was very clearly a tweed jacket. Only the Great Western… (A very subtle form of branding?)
@timbeau – yes, that’s the one.
The interior of “wide open gangway” stock looks like a long bendy tube, but calling it tube stock might cause some confusion…
@John Elliott: probably δείκνυμι.
What do you mean, off-topic?
EE 22.10: I believe Harlequin was a geographical name – a contraction of Harlesden and Queen’s Park. The associated graphic of multicoloured interlocking triangles was a bit of a joke though, based on word association.
The Beth? The precedents so far are all the start of the word, and every guess is rightly focused there. Beth is a known shortening of Elizabeth without the complications others say like the *pause* e-lizabath or theli-zabeth. Some people will call it the lizard line.
Brunel for ELL sounds good, but it’d be a shame if the stations by the tunnel were not heavily upgraded by the renaming. SDO or worse on the only? bit that Brunel only worked on seems ill-fitting with naming it after him.
Is it possible that they’ll announce that there won’t be an extra cost in Heathrow to match the Piccadilly, probably within six months before opening?
@Long Branch Mike
“Re: Straight line. It’s not straight on the map, and straight has another connotation as well.”
I would go with Secant Line then….
It’s still better than E-liz-a-beth IMHO.
@Steve
The GLA Act states quite specifically what TfL is legally required to consult on, and line name changes isn’t one of them.
Any chance of a link please?
I have no problem with the name Elizabeth Line/line per se. It even succeeds in having a unique initial letter. However, there is the unanswered question as to “brand hierarchy”. To date, the various “lines” have all been sub-brands of an operator, namely London Underground. So by rights, Elizabeth line must be a sub-brand of an operator – is it to be sold as “just another Underground line”, or a sub-brand of Crossrail, or something else? Will signage at TCR refer to “Central, Elizabeth and Northern lines”, “Underground and Crossrail” or “Underground and Elizabeth line”? The latter really grinds with me as inconsistent branding hierarchy, and we don’t seem to be any closer to knowing how the various levels of branding will actually be implemented.
What branding is planned on the 345s from May next year when they replace the 315s on Liv St – Shenfield? I can only see references to 2018 in relation to Elizabeth line naming, will the trains have temporary TFL Rail roundels?
@Steve L
“Will signage at TCR refer to “Central, Elizabeth and Northern lines”, “Underground and Crossrail” or “Underground and Elizabeth line”? ”
The sign that’s already there at the bottom of the first set of escalators just says “Crossrail” – just has some gaffer tape over it. The rest of the station says “Northern Line” and/or “Central Line” with no mention of the “Underground” as a collective noun.
I find the inconsistent branding hierarchy brought about this most bothersome. Crossrail and Thameslink should be promoted as the same class of transport mode – ideally under the current and excellent Crossrail logo (even if never named as such – much like the double arrow for identifying NR stations). Then one can start naming the lines. I know it’s a non-starter, but perhaps it could happen if devolution gets as far as transferring TSGN to the lilac roundel in the more distant future. The CR logo would look much more appropriate in Reading or Brighton, though. It transcends the TfL/NR divide.
Graham H. My memory tells me that the Hammersmith and City Line was shown (shewn?) on the Tube map as part of the Metropolitan Line when I was but a youngish man. Mr Wiki says that this was so until 1990. Mr Wikia says the revival happened in 1988. If it was on the map as the Met during my formative decades then, for all but the in-crowd, it was the Met!
@Fandroid – yes,that’s true as far as the map was concerned (but then , it was only just before the war that the Met and District were distinguished mapwise) but operationally and in terms of public perception, the existence of the H&C as a separate thing was quite clear even to my 6 year old thinking in the early ’50s. We *used* the H&C, living in Ealing at the time, but never had occasion to travel on the Met. (I was definitely not part of the incrowd then…). Maybe there’s a lesson there for the Elizabeth Line proponents?
Yes, confused hierarchy of branding is nothing new. In the 50s, 60s, it was all the met, but it was clearly understood to consist of different services. The met “proper”, which was loco-hauled and ended at Baker Street except in rush hour, the Hammersmith to Barking bit, the east London line. All purple, but well understood to be completely different services. Just like the Wimbleware (it was Putneyware then) was a separate part of the District (as was Olympia).
@Graham H
“The H&C has been around as a name for the line, if not the service, throughout the whole of my lifetime.”
Or even longer, I would guess, as the Westbourne Park – Hammersmith section was built by a company of that name. The Metropolitan Railway used the name for services using that branch, and the trains operating it, but I don’t think the name was particularly familiar to the general public, apart from regular users, when I first got to know it in the mid-’70s – although it did appear on in-car maps
http://www.londonbusblinds.com/prodimages/CLD09%20Metropolitan%20Hammersmith%20&%20Circle%20Lines%20.jpg
Certainly the station was Hammersmith met, not Hammersmith H&C
I’m not convinced about the implication that “Elizabeth Line” implies “tube”. I don’t think Lady Bracknell thought that “the Brighton Line” at Victoria had anything to do with the tube/underground.
Not forgetting that by 1949 and throughout the ’50’s and ’60’s the Met on maps also included both the East London Line and out as far as Barking, everything being in maroon.
ML’s reference to “the Brighton Line” is all very well, but the first performance of the play he quotes was just over 121 years ago, more than 5 years before the Central London Railway was opened, and the way the word “line” is typically used in London in a transport context has had plenty of time to undergo a bit of a transformation.
@Malcolm
I know south of the river is another country, where regular users of the Underground rarely venture, but names such as the Bexleyheath Line, the Crystal Palace Line, the Forest Hill Line, the St Helier Line, the Cobham (or “New”) Line and the Windsor Lines are well understood by the natives, and appear on the operator’s publicity such as service status diagrams – many use rainbow diagrams much like the Underground’s, (and, unlike the Overground, even differentiate the different lines by colours)
https://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/your-journey/lines-of-route/?route=9
So south of the river “Line” certainly does not mean “Underground”.
Lady Bracknell, of course, decrees that “The line is immaterial” – and who are we to gainsay her?
@ Timbeau – looking at the Southeastern example you highlight just shows the network is extremely complex and the line names are pretty pointless to me because nearly every “line” has multiple London termini and others don’t reflect the service pattern. The “Woolwich Line” ignores the fact that services loop onto either the Sidcup or Bexleyheath routes. Multiple lines serve Bromley South so which one do you check the status of to be sure you get the full picture? Why would anyone think “Woolwich Line” is what you refer to for trains to Gillingham? I know the Underground map is condemned as a mess, and clearly there are service complexities on many LU lines, but it’s still “simple” when set against how South Eastern have subdivided their network. I guess if nothing else it shows TfL will have one heck of a challenge on their hands if they attempt to name South Eastern routes (if they get their hands on them).
@WW & timbeau – Of course the one we all loved and knew was the South London Line – and look what happened to that…
From a passenger point of view I can’t see a lot wrong (and can see a lot right) with giving Crossrail an Underground-type name. As contributors to this blog know, it’s not actually a tube line – but then neither are the four SSR lines, with which (and with the “real” tube lines) the Elizabeth line has much in common: eg high frequency in the centre, lower in the suburbs; the same fare structure; non-exclusive use of its infrastructure; simple, clear route structure and widely-communicated line identity (notably lacking with eg Thameslink, the Brighton line and the SE lines); fare interavailability with TOCs; through NR ticket validity across central London; on the tube map.
WW (I think) pointed out there are differences in the relevant conditions of carriage, but these are too subtle to affect the vast majority of passengers and will be largely irrelevant.
I’ve always thought that the Overground being a kind of halfway house between NR and the Underground was a missed opportunity, and TfL should have gone further with Undergroundisation, eg with the same livery and the same style of line names. Given that, I hope that the Elizabethan line-naming sets a trend – and why not bring back old favourites like the SLL, NLL and DC?
I find Mike’s arguments in favour of “Elizabeth Line” (above) quite persuasive, certainly more so than anything to do with the oft-quoted Oscar. And it’s rather refreshing to find arguments deployed here in favour of something – rather too often these pages seem to be full of disliking stuff! (Though maybe there is quite a lot of stuff about to dislike – oops, there I go…).
@WW
“looking at the Southeastern example you highlight just shows the network is extremely complex and the line names are pretty pointless to me because nearly every “line” has multiple London termini and others don’t reflect the service pattern.”
My point was that the term “Line” is used and certainly some of them (Bexleyheath Line, Greenwich Line) are well understood by regulars. That the names are less familiar outside SE London than, say, the Piccadilly Line is surely because these lines don’t penetrate deep into the central area with which all Londoners are familiar. (Despite appearing on the Tube, I doubt that many people outside East London are familiar with the Romford-Upminster line, and certainly round here in SW London few people have heard of the Goblin!)
Yes, the network is complex, which is why it has been subdivided into services (lines) for ease of understanding. If only the Overground were to follow its example, instead of showing “part suspension” for the whole network, whether the problem is at Romford or Richmond!
Most of your other criticisms are simply lack of familiarity, and similar points can be made about the Underground map.
“multiple termini”
Most Underground lines have multiple termini. The Northern Line has two quite separate routes through Zone 1
” The “Woolwich Line” ignores the fact that services loop onto either the Sidcup or Bexleyheath routes.”
Very sensible – very few people actually double back round the corner. The only reason the trains do it at all is because Dartford station can’t cope with all the trains from the three lines. Something similar happens from time to time on the SSR, e.g with Circle trains suddenly transmogrifying into District by turning left at Praed Street Junction.
“Multiple lines serve Bromley South so which one do you check the status of to be sure you get the full picture?”
You could say the same for Victoria or Piccadilly. But I am not defending the choice of names, simply pointing out that the term “Line” is used in much the same way that it is on the SSR, where two or three “lines” often share the same tracks.
” Why would anyone think “Woolwich Line” is what you refer to for trains to Gillingham? ”
Why would anyone think “Picadilly Line” is what you refer to for trains to Heathrow?
In any case, the fast trains to Gillingham use the Sole Street Line
” I guess if nothing else it shows TfL will have one heck of a challenge on their hands if they attempt to name South Eastern routes (if they get their hands on them).”
On the contrary, it looks like SET (or, indeed custom and practice since the days of the SECR) have done the job for them.
@Mike
“I’ve always thought that the Overground being a kind of halfway house between NR and the Underground was a missed opportunity, and TfL should have gone further with Undergroundisation, eg with the same livery and the same style of line names.”
I always thought, for what it’s worth, that it was a very intelligent decision to not give lots of names to the various bits of lines.
For one thing it’s a simple brand for the public to use and understand, and I note the high level of regonition and usage of the London Overground as a point in favour of that.
It’s not a railway for rail-nerds. It’s a simple system that millions of very ordinary people use.
The reason you don’t need sub-line names is that there are only a very few stations where you can access more than one sub-line. These are Clapham Junction, Edmonton Green, Hackney Downs, Surrey Quays, Gospel Oak, Highbury&Islington, Willesden Junction and (at a push) Sydenham.
There are the only Orange-Orange changes and given that it’s almost impossible to create a journey that uses more than one of them, there is simply no need whatsoever to complicate matters.
So, the public just needs to know to take the London Overground from X to Y you might have to change at Z, but that’s all.
Hoxton to West Hampstead – change to Highbury&Islington.
West Bromton to Wembley Central – change at Willesden Junction.
Adding in the (internally used) line and subline names does nothing for public understanding, it add complexity that isn’t needed.
It *IS* needed for the lines that cross-cross Zone 1. That is true. But not the London Overground network.
It is one of the most sensible decisions that a transport planner has ever made.
@Malcolm/Graham H back on 26th – or, these days, having ALL my personal possessions with me when travelling around the transport system.
Yes, I’m getting boring with that one now.
I have my head in my hands with this.
I see all the above comments about why they may have chosen this name, and not against naming each line on the service but it doesn’t roll of the tongue and make no sense in regards to why, other than Boris’s view of the royal family, as they are no links to the queen at all. (And she isn’t likely to use it very often!)
As also pointed out how will this be used in general conversation? I’m on Elizabeth just makes it all sound like a bit of carry on film full of double entendres created by schoolboys. (Didn’t realise tfl had those working for them…)
Finally I am hoping that Crossrail stays, with Elizabeth as the line name. (I’m not against the different Crossrail lines being named) However it would need to have a Crossrail rounded used on stations and trains etc and the press release seemed to muddle this all up. The central line is not emblazoned on the side of the trains or the station so why is this case? Tfl are normally so good about their brand identity so this really surprises me…
(More so as the press release said that when tfl rail transfers it will be called Crossrail and then change when the central tunnel section opens to Elizabeth line.)
Deeply disappointed with tfl on this – I’m guessing the only explanation is that Boris somehow finally got inside the marketing department…
I agree with Anonymous. I’m very disappointed with this naming and suspect it’s got more to do with Boris Johnson’s political ambitions than a desire to pay tribute to the Queen. Elizabeth line trips off the tongue like mouthful of wet cement (or tunnel concrete)…
I like it, the Lizzie Line has a good ring to it.
Meanwhile, there was a picture doing the rounds on twitter yesterday showing two almost adjacent signs somewhere in the passages of Piccadilly Circus, one pointing to the ‘Piccadilly line’ and the other to the ‘Bakerloo Line’. If LUL are confused about whether they are operating Lines or lines, what chance the rest of us?
marek,
The TfL editorial style guide is clear. It should be lower case for tube lines. Of course, the issue is whether the Elizabeth Line is a tube line or not.
Not that under style guidelines it is Night bus but Night Tube. I presume because Night bus is referring to a particular bus and Night Tube is referring the the Night Tube network.
The London Reconnections style guide says upper case line for tube lines and I, reluctantly, followed that. Then I noticed the editor had started using lower case himself so I changed.
Mike P
“use all available doors” – Really? In the first, out the second, in the third, all the way down the train … errr, um, perhaps not
I have often wondered why I prefer numbering of metro line routes to naming them. Thinking about the Elizabeth line issue helped me to rationalise that a bit. Travelling as I do in Europe quite a lot and often finding myself in new cities, it always helps that just about every one I have been in gives numbers to its various transport routes, rather than names.
A large subset of users of London’s Underground do not have English as their first language, and might even normally use a different alphabet to that used here. Add to that the many irregularities in English spelling (especially in British English). If you see a named line, in most cases you have to be able say it (even if only to yourself) in order to keep it in mind. If you see a numbered route, you can happily commit it to memory by saying it in your own language. (Arabic numerals being universal now that the Roman Empire has collapsed.)
To give an example. Polish has a spelling system that baffles most Brits. Warsaw now has two lines open on its metro, Line 1 and Line 2. Imagine how we would cope if they were called the półnóc-południe line and the wschód-zachód line (north-south and east-west). A contrived example I know, but there are many even more baffling place names in Warsaw. Possibly by intention, but I doubt it, the Underground lines, don’t go in for irregular spellings (yet!). Imagine being foreign and coping with the Loughton line or even the Leicester line (or even the Brighton line!). Most people already know their numbers up to 100 before they visit, but every name has to be learnt as of new.
@Fandroid
Names versus numbers are irrelevant for identifying lines, and line names are one of the proud/quirky traditions of London’s rail transport network.
To counter your contrived polish example, those 2 example line names look different enough when written down to distinguish them, and no doubt sound different enough as well to distinguish that they are being mentioned in announcements.
I have travelled in places with non-Latin alphabets – Russia is relatively easy, as you can still recognise ‘word-like’ groups of symbols. Japan is a different matter, as there is no good internal mapping of glyphs to letters that our European brains can easily manage. There is a bit of latin-alphabet signage in the Tokyo metro though.
Any foreign travellers in London who have managed to arrive in a tube station without any previous exposure to the latin alphabet is going to need a bit more help getting around than just numbered tube lines.
I think ‘Elizabeth’ is actually quite a good name – it is different enough from all the existing line names to be easily distinguishable when read from a distance and in announcements.
Briantist argues against the need for names for the several bits of Overground.
I find these arguments perfectly adequate when it comes to planning journeys. Not that sub-names would hinder, necessarily , but they probably would not help.
But where the sub-names are desperately needed is in disruption reporting. As reported here several times, a notice at a station entrance saying “Minor delay on Overground” is much less useful to the world than that famous chocolate teapot.
@Chrismitch. Funny how the Moscow Metro uses line numbers!
Malcolm……I agree, often I have heard about “disruption on Southern” on the radio and then it becomes clear that they are referring only to a cancelled train to Milton Keynes. Clearly this is very important to users of that service, but it is hardly the heart of Southern’s service.
Those anxious about seeing Her Maj next to an “Elizabeth Line” roundel might want to consider that such things have existed for line openings in the past, without being widely adopted subsequently.
Viz –
Her Maj in 1969
Charlie in 1979
It seems likely to me that TfL will resolve the branding hierarchy issue prior to launch, with apparatchiks no doubt
arguing aboutdiscussing it as we speak. FWIW I agree that “Crossrail” or perhaps “London Crossrail” being used in place of “London Underground” feels like the most sensible approach, and certainly promotes an open door towards CR2. But sensible doesn’t always win.Re: Overground line names. Even if you keep the usage of distinguishing route names as now, at least have better names than the current ones that are basically lists of termini!
@Greg: On seeing the policeman approach, the burglar ran off in all directions.
I couldn’t disagree more about the Overground not needing line names. Few people ride around changing from Overground to Overground without using anything else. In effect the Overground hangs off the Underground as a series of feeders in the way the T31 and T32 buses are feeders for the trams.
If line guides on TfL Rail tell you that you have interchange with the Overground at Forest Gate and Stratford, don’t you need a concise way to tell people which bits of the Overground you are interchanging with? When the automatic voice on the Chingford – Liverpool Street line tells you at Hackney Downs that you can change here for trains to Enfield Town, and then the driver comes on and tells you to change here for London Fields and Cambridge Heath, wouldn’t it be better if there was one word which said “trains to Enfield Town, Cheshunt and also London Fields and Cambridge Heath” and a separate colour on the tube map for the trains that call at Cambridge Heath and the trains that don’t? When the District Line line guide tells you to change at Monument, Tower Hill, Bow Road or West Ham for the DLR, isn’t more information necessary?
Incidentally the latest Modern Railways has an article headed “Eight month blockade for Goblin wiring” which does not anywhere in the article explain what Goblin is. Since I don’t know the unofficial nickname of any railways in the Glasgow area, I would not expect people in Glasgow to know the nickname of the Goblin.
@Fandroid,
Touche – I was actually thinking of recognising station names in Moscow rather than line names/numbers. My point still holds about ‘word’ recognition in foreign alphabets and announcements though.
If names are used rather than numbers, it does help foreign users if the names are very different. And as we already have two lines beginning with “C”, (and ending with either “l” or “le” , phonetically identical), adding a third would have been unhelpful.
Long usage can make a meaningless, ambiguous, or simply inaccurate name familiar, such as Bakerloo, or Piccadilly or Northern (or for that matter West Coast Main Line) , but if you want to coin a new name for an existing line it helps if it has some relation to it. Ideally a geographic significance. (the North Downs Line and the various XXX Valley Lines are ideal). Less helpful are those which give undue prominence to one particular location, as it makes it less obvious to passengers for other places on the line (and I fear reinforces the attitude of some operators that getting to the end of the line on time is more important than serving the potentially larger communities on the way) . But in the absence of anything better, I think most people – certainly most regular users – would recognise unambiguously what was meant by the Surrey Docks Line, the Brondesbury Line, the Castlebar Line, the Emerson Line, the Crouch Hill Line etc.
This is the principle SET seem to have used, naming each line for a prominent place on it the termini being, (with the exception of Hayes) ambiguous. See also Kingston Loop, Catford Loop, Cobham Line, Forest Hill line, St Helier Line, Oxted Line, etc.
Bromley South Line is unambiguous as part of SET’s suburban group (now that the Catford Loop seems to be exclusively Thameslink), and indeed that line is singularly deficient in unique station names, nearly all its stations either being junctions (and therefore not capable of uniquely identifying the line) or having namesakes differentiated only by a suffix or prefix word (West Dulwich, Sydenham Hill, etc)
@Fandroid
“Arabic numerals being universal ”
Indeed, but there are Arabic numerals and Arabic Numerals. Here is a bus in Cairo. The route number is on the green slip board.
http://www.bus-planet.com/bus/bus-africa/Egypt-site/Operators/Cairo-CTA/buses-15/frame.html
And another (route number in the centre of the destination blind)
http://www.bus-planet.com/bus/bus-africa/Egypt-site/Operators/Cairo-CTA/buses-19/frame.html
@Malcolm
“But where the sub-names are desperately needed is in disruption reporting. As reported here several times, a notice at a station entrance saying “Minor delay on Overground” is much less useful to the world than that famous chocolate teapot.”
I’m sorry, but not right. Only someone with unusual knowledge would learn the line names.
At the moment, TfL reports the line section names that have the various forms of customer information report, the current one being
London Overground Part closure
LONDON OVERGROUND: Sunday 28 February, no service between Gospel Oak and Stratford, due to …
LONDON OVERGROUND: Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 February, no service between Romford and Upminster due to …
This is useful to the public as they are able to know the stations disrupted without some cute insider name for lines and sublines.
Knowing that any line has “Minor delay on” it is the same chocolate teapot on any line. I care not about delays in Stanmore when I’m going from Stratford to West Ham (say).
@Edmonton ‘Eadcase
The official designation of the London Overground line being electrified is – according to TfL and LOROL – “the Gospel Oak to Barking line”. The oh-so-cute G.O. B. Lin(e) designation is an invention, it seems, of the Internet.
@Chrismitch. I have been to Warsaw often enough now to be able to roughly recognise the names when they are announced. However, it took several trips for this to be so, and they don’t pronounce or place emphasis in any way that is immediately familiar to an English speaker. (Not that I would recognise the numbers either, if they were spoken). In London, the lines were created (or promoted) by separate companies, and the names stuck as they had become familiar to Londoners. I’m not sure that continuing the tradition ad infinitum will be very helpful.
Strangely enough there is an London Overground “internal designation” that doesn’t see the light of day much and that’s “ELL Core”, which sounds like a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavour. Perhaps it will turn up in next year’s Christmas Quiz?
@timbeau/@Fandroid
“Arabic numerals being universal ”
Of course, the things we call Arabic numerals were actually from India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numerals – watching someone do a crossword in Arabic (in Morocco) was very enlightening!
And, of course the Ancient Greeks didn’t use Roman Numerals, they use capital Greek letters in order – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals
Briantist says “The oh-so-cute G.O. B. Lin(e) designation is an invention, it seems, of the Internet.“.
Err, so what? It doesn’t matter where a name comes from, it sticks if it has a suitable combination of official approval and/or popular support.
Certainly the Goblin name has, as of now, no “official” support. And the public impact of the name is a bit Marmitey – some like it and some hate it.
But the name has been around for a while, and it might survive.
Malcolm – an NSE invention, I seem to recall.
ChrisMitch @ 1629
The multiplicity of operators makes Tokyo somewhat complicated. However they have worked out an interesting solution. Each line has a Japanese name but it also has a transliterated initial letter and a line colour encircling it. In addition each station on each line is numbered.
This image shows the entrance to Ginza station where you can catch, or interchange with, a choice of three lines. The station numbers, along with the line colour, the name and number of the previous and following stations are shown on the platform so you only need the colour and/or initial letter of the line and the station number. The number in the top right hand corner is the exit number. Each station has a map showing the exits and which you need to get to a particular place.
http://media.photobucket.com/user/holo69/media/Tokyo/1589-20080808-Ginza.jpg.html
A map gives the fuller picture for journey planning.
http://www.haneda-tokyo-access.com/en/transport/pdf/routemap_en.pdf
Briantist @ 1827
Your example of detail for London Overground service disruption comes, I suspect, from something online. The “service updates” that I hear when travelling on the Tube frequently refer only to a line name, whether for LU or LO services. Because there is no simple way of subdividing LO routings I get left with “There are delays on London Overground” which are absolutely no help to me. Some form of subdivision, whether by number (my preferred choice) or name is fast becoming a necessity.
@ James Bunting 2112
I like it – the example shown for Ginza station is a really elegant, comprehensive and clear solution for the Tokyo system, although I do understand that to introduce such a system here retrospectively may not be possible.
I’ve used the Tokyo system and intuitively followed the signs – but now having read this thread I realise just how much thought went into developing something so simple and clear.
@Graham H/Malcolm
I don’t think Goblin was an NSE invention. I’m fairly sure it was coined some time in the past twenty years, post-privatisation.
Here is a NSE map – note such monikers as the Northampton Line, Chiltern Line and Thames Line
http://www.rodge.force9.co.uk/images/map.jpg
The Goblin was lumped in with the North London Lines (basically the NLL plus the “Watford DC” line.) (And how many passengers would understand THAT name?)
@Greg T, etc.
I used to work in a big building with several entrances. A sign on the doors said “Passes must be shown at every entrance”.
Timbeau – “How many passengers would understand THAT [Watford DC] name?” Does it matter? How many passengers “understand” the Bakerloo or Northern (the most southern line) names, and what is there to understand about the District name? Lines apart from the eponymous ones serve Victoria and Piccadilly, all lines serve Central London, and the whole GLA area is Metropolitan (which line, naturally, goes outside that area).
Except for the obviously terminal H&C (except that it goes beyond the C) and W&C, and the circular-and-a-bit Circle, there’s really nothing for the average passenger to understand about LU line names except the routes that they describe.
Elizabeth, DC, Goblin – or any other memorable and distinguishable names, consistently and thoroughly applied – fit the line-naming bill perfectly, and are certainly at least no worse than the current inaccurate and ambiguous (but universally accepted!) names.
So roll on the Elizabeth tube, and its heirs and successors.
@timbeau -well, it was certainly in use amongst NSE staff*; BTW, the map in your link doesn’t show the line at all.
*Mind you, the LTS was known internally as the Route of the White Socks, but we didn’t like the public to know that.
There was a bit of a thing for those portmanteau line names in the 80s – Harlequin, Goblin, Bedpan. Some were official and some not, some caught on with users and some didn’t. Bedpan is one that did get some popular currency until it was superseded by NSE’s most enduring neologism, Thameslink. Maybe the test of a really good line name is if people keep on using it even when the line is officially known as something else, as certainly happened in the First Capital Connect era and could well also apply to the East London Line. Who knows how much the word Crossrail will be heard in ten years time.
I find it a bit odd that some of the discussion implies that the new line name was chosen by TfL – we know what they would have called it if they had the choice, as the signs at Tottenham Court Road were specified by them. Credit or blame has to lie with the Mayor.
In the late 1990s the users group for the Gospel Oak Barking line was known as GOBLin, which I always thought was the origin of the name. (The relevant group is now called BGORUG, which I can’t pronounce without falling into an Irish accent.)
@ Timbeau – thanks for the lesson in the obvious. I shared my observations and you just do a “wavy hand” answer basically saying “it’s only because you’re unfamiliar with these routes that you don’t understand”. Surely the point is that your level of familiarity should not be a determinant of how effective core information is? I have a little bit more knowledge than “Mr Clueless who’s never used the railway before” as to where some of the trains go courtesy of my wider interest and I can see those SET line maps don’t reflect reality. Therefore I am instantly sceptical of their usefulness if I needed to use them in anger.
@ Anon 1107 – you’re not the only person with their head in the hands. I really do think this whole episode is an utter utter mess. This shows up in the way people are mixing modes, line names and brands and using them interchangeably. There seems to be no coherence any more. This latest renaming seems to have smashed went went before.
@ Fandroid – and yet interestingly Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo all use line names for their metro routes. I wonder if the first two inherited the concept courtesy of UK (LT) involvement in their initial planning and construction? Singapore even has a Circle Line which isn’t yet a Circle – just as London now has. On your wider point I am trying to work out if I’ve ever really struggled to navigate anywhere (other than Kingston on Thames!). I don’t think I have in terms of rail networks. Tokyo’s streets and building addresses were nightmarish first time I went but I had few issues with the rail network. I even coped with Sofia when it was still very much Communist controlled with barely any Roman script in evidence. I am left wondering whether this is down to me or whether something basic but clever somehow connects all the wayfinding principles together.
The biggest criticism over the Overground is not over navigating the network or making connections. It seems to be largely to do with disruption reporting and TfL’s website sometimes showing the entire network as disrupted when only one bit of it is. This latter issue *seems* to have declined in terms of the disruption map although I accept the wording on “rainbow boards” is ambiguous unless you hunt for the detail. Of course as soon as you name every line you have an instant problem with the website and rainbow boards. They’re all too small to cope with another 8 names. If you split out DLR then that’s another 5 or 6 names. Before you know it you have a snowstorm of information which is impossible to present or read. I suspect these are the issues that are causing a lot of head scratching as to what to do next. I would again caution those who believe that the answer is just a plethora of more colours. That’s fine if your colour vision is perfect. It’s bloomin’ awful for those who are colour blind – especially if the network itself is very complex. I can struggle with the Paris Metro and Bus and Tokyo metro maps. Tokyo can be particularly bad as different maps use different colours for the lines causing even more confusion and that’s before you get on to the colour representation of the various rail networks. However you can throw that accusation at our TOCs who each use the same colour palette to represent different lines in their networks.
@ Ian J and others – I think it’s absolutely clear where the impetus for the name change for Crossrail came from. What I find interesting is the timing (name change agreed last September) and how it happened after a certain change of senior transport people at the heads of two organisations. 😉
IMO the real problem with just names and colours for all the lines is that after a point there are too many for it to be a manageable approach. I would move that London is now reaching that point.
In my view a numbering system – in addition to the names and colours, like Tokyo – is unavoidable if we want to keep the system navigable, plus it aids accessibility for the colour blind.
Imagine if all London’s bus routes had names, rather than numbers? It would be completely unmanageable. That’s what I’m getting at.
@WW: the timing of the announcement is interesting as well, coming as it does at a time when the Mayor has been more publicly visible than usual…
@WW – Through more than 40 years of working with and visiting Japanese clients, I can assure you and agree that accurate and/or consistent mapping cartography is not one of their fortés. They like their figures and statistical tables and the like, however, and I guess hence the latest version of the Tokyo metro map with all its multiple station numbers provided by James Bunting in the link above.
Meanwhile, what use was it on a platform at St. Pancras International (Thameslink) and indeed in Herne Hill to learn simply that “There is disruption on the Overground”? That’s the point made above. In other words, that’s useless.
P.S. Beware when in Tokyo of purchasing a fold-out map that says “MAP OF TOKYO” on its cover, for once you unwrap it, you will invariably discover not a single bit of Roman script inside! And North is not often ‘upwards’ either, &c.
P.S. @WW – “and yet interestingly Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo all use line names for their metro routes. I wonder if the first two inherited the concept courtesy of UK (LT) involvement in their initial planning and construction?”
I think also Tokyo. They certainly consulted LT on various practices like ticket gates and cash-handling ticket machines, except they deliberately missed a bit of detail prevalent in the UK, in that they provide a gap in the gate line to cope with those encumbered with luggage and so on. I asked why there was the gap because surely those who had no ticket and didn’t want to pay would surely simply pass through the gap. The horror was remarkable to perceive. “Who would dream of passing through the gap without a valid ticket?!”
Meanwhile, they never in Japan use the term “penalty fare” but simply provide the comfortably termed “Fare Adjustment Window” – and that means what it says – one just pays the additional fare for the section of journey not up to then paid for (if the gate refuses the ticket), no matter on whose company’s lines you had been travelling up ’til then.
WW
@ Ian J and others – I think it’s absolutely clear where the impetus for the name change for Crossrail came from. What I find interesting is the timing (name change agreed last September) and how it happened after a certain change of senior transport people at the heads of two organisations.
Which raises the question, why is a US citizen even allowed to hold major political office in this country? Particularly as the US is a republic (!)
I’ll stop now, before I really get into rant-mode ….
GF
Yes, well this “Whole Fare + Penalty” regime is manifestly wrong/unfair & I’m none too sure that it is wholly legal, either, but, that is also a subject for another day.
The whole point of the in-station announcements about the status of the whole TfL network, rather reminds me of this (entire) chapter of “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”.
“This is an important announcement. This is flight 121 to Los Angeles. If your travel plans today do not include Los Angeles, now would be the perfect time to disembark.”
The point being, I suppose is that if you are not planning to use the London Overground – and that’s most people – hearing that it has late trains or disruption on it can dismiss the information.
If you are planning on using it then you can pull the phone out of your pocket, connect to the Wifi and get full details of every problem on the network.
No phone? You can see the details on the information panels at the top of the escalators?
If that’s too hard for you, or too unfamiliar, ask one of the staff at the gateline.
It’s about providing *usable* levels of information to people, not “information overload” that is only useful to insiders and those of nerdy disposition (ie, those 1% of people who post on internet message boards!)
Briantist says ‘It’s about providing *usable* levels of information to people, not “information overload” …’
Absolutely, we can all agree with that.
Where we seem to have differing views in these comments (and that’s fine) is on whether the step of dividing “Overground” into suitably-labelled bits for the purpose of disruption reporting would keep what is provided within the “usable levels” bracket, or take it over the top into the “information overload” bracket. I don’t think we’re going to resolve that.
@Briantist – “No phone? You can see the details on the information panels at the top of the escalators? If that’s too hard for you, or too unfamiliar, ask one of the staff at the gateline.”
And when one has no phone, there’s no staff around (and neither gates nor escalators), there’s nothing relevant on the indicators and you’re at a station nowhere near the Overground and not even on a line connecting with it, and yet you still hear that vague message, I would call even that “information overload” to the point of negativity. Try travelling south of the River.
@Graham Feakins
“And when one has no phone, there’s no staff around”
Which, of course, doesn’t happen on London Overground as there is always somewhere there on the platform between opening and closing.
@Malcolm
“purpose of disruption reporting would keep what is provided within the “usable levels” bracket, or take it over the top into the “information overload” bracket. I don’t think we’re going to resolve that.”
OK, without giving too much away, I can quite sensibly ask “how many lines are there on the London Overground” system. Is the answer six, seven or 13?
The six are: DC, ELL, GOB, NWLL, RU, West Anglia
The seven are: Gospel Oak to
Barking, Highbury & Islington to West Croydon/Clapham Junction, Liverpool Street to Chingford , Liverpool Street to Cheshunt, Liverpool Street to Enfield Town, Richmond/Clapham Junction to Stratford, Romford to Upminster
The 13 actual service patterns are: ELL Core, Watford Jct DC, Rchmnd-Strtfrd, Wllsdn-Clphm J, Gpl Oak-Brkng, Enfield T WA, Chingford WA , Cheshunt WA, Rmfrd-Upmnstr, New Cross ELL, Clphm Jct ELL , W Croydon ELL, Crystal Pal ELL
So, how do you want it to break down in a way that is actually useful for passengers?
I’m genuinely interested to hear the logic that gives these Overground lines names in a way that will help actual passengers.
I know from my foreign relatives and friends visiting London from abroad, that for much of the time, they navigate their way around the tube lines by their line colours. I have even given them instructions, by telling them to go on the grey line to Green Park and then get the blue line etc. Of course, it is always amusing hearing tourists mispronounce station names – “glaow-sess-terr road” etc
As for the overground numbering system, I think it is probably now overdue, although how will you number the former ELL which has three branches southbound? As long as there is suitable, long lasting, poster-sized, notice about it, people will gradually embrace it. Saying that, if I ever hear that there are severe delays on the Overground, I normally take it as read that it is the services from Liverpool Street!
@WW
I was not trying to state the obvious, but just to point out that familiarity with a system comes with use, and so the information is bound to be more effective – readily understood – by a regular. You only have to try using the remote control of a unfamilar telly to realise that!
I am sure Parisians navigate their Metro as easily as Londoners do the Underground, but put either person in the other network and they have to study the map carefully. Likewise I would not expect someone from Cheam to be as familiar with the West Anglia services as someone from Chingford – or vice versa.
“On your wider point I am trying to work out if I’ve ever really struggled to navigate anywhere (other than Kingston on Thames!). ”
Not sure whether you were driving (easy, just go round and round until centrifugal force throws you out and, if you want to park, cross the bridge into what I still think of as Middlesex) or walking, but even though I have lived in Kingston for nearly thirty years I still managed to get lost there yesterday when my regular cycle route was closed for a half marathon
@Greg
“why is a US citizen even allowed to hold major political office in this country”
He has dual citizenship, having been born in New York of British parents (his ancestry also includes French, Swiss, Turkish and Russian elements, as well as King George II)
As a US citizen, he could run for president – they seem to like right-wingers with unusual hairstyles.
@Greg. There is a world of difference between someone who is born a foreign national and someone who is born abroad because their British parents happen to be working there. My daughter was born in Cyprus because I was stationed there in the Forces. Are you suggesting that she is somehow less British than you are?
Boris said in February 2015 that we would renounce his US citizenship, but I don’t believe that that has been made final yet.
@Briantist: for purposes of disruption reporting, I think any of your 6, 7 or 13 splits would serve, though perhaps the 13 might be veering towards “information overload”. But my opinion on the detail is not important, just the belief (seemingly shared by some others here) that a bit more precision would be helpful, and would not have much of a down side.
Essentially, “Overground” is a brand name. Nothing wrong with that, of course, when it comes to issues where branding is important. But I’d rather hear “degraded service on the Picadilly Line” in a local radio news report than “degraded service on the Underground”, and something similar applies to the Overground.
The urge to “name” the Crossrail might come from the increasing usage of the term for Crossrail 2, a line that is conceptually similar to Crossrail but geographically disconnected. If Crossrail were the official name of CR1, then officially naming CR2 as Crossrail 2 sounds like a excitement killer when it opens (its predecessor would have opened a decade ago). Then, if Crossrail 2 should not be named as such, why should Crossrail should be named as such at all? I guess people in the end realised that Crossrail becomes a metaphor for a particular mode/concept of engineering and operation with which an urban railway system runs, rather than its original, geographical indication (“cross”). Hence when CR2 appears, the term Crossrail ceases to be a line’s name and has at certain point to be renamed. How it gets to be associated (again) with the Monarchy is an entirely different, and less logical, story.
Anonymous 29 February 2016 at 11:27
” My daughter was born in Cyprus because I was stationed there in the Forces.”
That kind if think accounts for a large proportion of people born abroad.
Numbering of the Overground is easy. Number the different services. Richmond to Stratford is 1, and on from there. Shortened services carry the same number as their full-sized parent.
Disruption announcements can suffer from too much info. The guard on an SWT train approaching Waterloo said ” there is disruption eastbound at Whitechapel on the Hammersmith & City line”. As if it would only affect Whitechapel, and also not start to cause trouble Westbound too!
Citizenship, birthplace and Britishness of the Mayor, Prime Minister or head of a transport organisation is not fodder for these pages. All further such comments will be removed. LBM
@Malcolm
When it comes to reporting, you usually hear details about the services on the type of service you are on when it’s directly relevant and a status message when it’s not.
On the DLR you get full DLR information, but only “the tube, and Overground are operating normally”. On a tube you get “Some problems on line X, and the DLR and Overground are operating normally”.
Even if you name the Overground Lines it’s often not going to help. A slight disruption on the Richmond-Stratford line could be over 90 minutes away from your current location. Line names are a poor way of communicating problems.
Also … you find out travel information from the radio in 2015? Really?
@Fandroid
“Numbering of the Overground is easy. Number the different services. Richmond to Stratford is 1, and on from there. Shortened services carry the same number as their full-sized parent.”
So, what line do the Clapham Junction to Stratford trains run on?
Is that 1 as well … or all all stations between Stratford and Willesden Junction on lines 1 and 2 to make Clapham Junction to Stratford line 2?
Follow the logic though, do you call Dalston Junction to New Cross Line 3 and Highbury&Islington to Clapham Junction line 4 and Highbury&Islington to West Croydon line number 5 and Highbury&Islington to Crystal Palace that would be 6.
So, to travel from Canada Water to Shoreditch High Street you need to know to take lines 3 or 4 or 5 or 6? Is that good customer information or a confusing mess of overload?
@ Fandroid – your point about disruption and the geographic spread is a classic example of TfL trying to make disruption appear much less serious than it really is. If something goes wrong on the Victoria Line it will impact services in both directions pretty quickly so I automatically ignore anything which says “train conked out at Green Park, minor delays n/b” and translate it to “service will be completely screwed within 10 minutes”. The only saving grace with the Victoria Line these days is that service recovery is far more deft and rapid than it used to be but then the controllers have a good set of tools at their disposal to help them. Similarly if the Picc Line has problems then you can practically write off the entire day’s service because service recovery is notoriously difficult and slow on that line and there is a natural desire to keep services to Heathrow going at almost any cost to the rest of the service.
I may be misremembering but I think Overground stations have paper posters / white boards that the staff can fill in when there is a disruption. These have the line names already written on them so the “line name below the brand” concept does exist at a local level if not at a system one. It was also reported on the Diamond Geezer blog the other day that individual line diagram stickers with line names on them are being installed inside the Overground’s trains. West Anglia has had them since TfL took over but the other routes are apparently getting them. I haven’t seen the new ones as I’ve not had cause to ride an Overground train recently.
@Briantist
“So, to travel from Canada Water to Shoreditch High Street you need to know to take lines 3 or 4 or 5 or 6? ”
Just as to ravel from Liverpool Street to Baker Street you need to take the Circle or Metropolitan or the other one. Once upon a time they were all called the Metropolitan.
There are pros and cons to both approaches in a branched system, and usually it boils down to how long the branches are in elation to the common core. I would suggest that the WLL is long enough, busy enough, and prone to enough problems from external causes, to be named separately from the Richmond line, even though that means east of Willesden the trains would share tracks. Conversely, I can see little point in giving the Crystal Palace and West Croydon twigs separate identities.
Just to add some data here (as I have it to hand) – the number of each London Overground service (according to National Rail Enquries) for last Friday was:
73 London Liverpool Street to Chingford
73 Highbury & Islington to Crystal Palace
72 Highbury & Islington to West Croydon
72 West Croydon to Highbury & Islington
72 Crystal Palace to Highbury & Islington
68 Dalston Junction to Clapham Junction via Queens Road (Peckham)
68 Richmond (London) to Stratford (London)
68 New Cross to Dalston Junction
68 Dalston Junction to New Cross
68 Clapham Junction to Dalston Junction via Queens Road (Peckham)
68 Stratford (London) to Richmond (London)
67 Barking to Gospel Oak
66 Chingford to London Liverpool Street
65 Gospel Oak to Barking
51 London Euston to Watford Junction
50 Watford Junction to London Euston
48 London Liverpool Street to Enfield Town
47 Enfield Town to London Liverpool Street
45 Stratford (London) to Clapham Junction via Shepherd’s Bush
44 Clapham Junction to Stratford (London) via Shepherd’s Bush
38 Cheshunt to London Liverpool Street
38 London Liverpool Street to Cheshunt
32 Upminster to Romford
32 Romford to Upminster
25 Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction via Shepherd’s Bush
20 Willesden Junction to Clapham Junction via Shepherd’s Bush
2 Highbury & Islington to New Cross Gate
1 Battersea Park to Dalston Junction via Queens Road (Peckham)
1 Richmond (London) to Willesden Junction
1 Stratford (London) to Camden Road
1 Stratford (London) to Willesden Junction
1 Woodgrange Park to Willesden Junction
1 South Tottenham to Gospel Oak
1 Barking to Upper Holloway
1 Dalston Junction to Battersea Park via Queens Road (Peckham)
1 Battersea Park to Clapham High Street
Can you spot the Parliamentary trains?
Seriously, I still don’t know how you would come up with a meaningful set of names or numbers that could help with “radio reports” that would be useful to the traveller, that is beyond what is being done at the moment that won’t over-worry passengers.
@Briantist
I don’t see the problem. Train route numbers can and should work just like bus route numbers. If two routes start and/or end in a different place they have different numbers, even if there’s a significant overlap. Consider the 36 and the 436. Or the 6 and 98. Or the 13 and the 82. So in your example, Richmond to Stratford is one route, Clapham Junction to Stratford is another: “Delays on Overground routes 1 and 2”.
Apart from the buses, maps for the likes of the Berlin S-Bahn system show how it’s done.
‘@timbeau
“Just as to travel from Liverpool Street to Baker Street you need to take the Circle or Metropolitan or the other one. Once upon a time they were all called the Metropolitan.”
This, to my mind, is the perfect example of the very worst of the London Underground map. Multiple lines using the same tracks but different colours on the map isn’t the best of features. Have you tried explaining this to a non-English speaking visitor trying to get from King’s Cross to Paddington?
OK, it’s the the second worst. The first being the way the Northern Line splits into two.
I know this is more and more away from the naming of the east-west mass transit line.
Briantist(IGIH) said
“A slight disruption on the Richmond-Stratford line could be over 90 minutes away from your current location. Line names are a poor way of communicating problems.”
Whilst this is a specific example, it is a real issue for transport organisations to present appropriate information to customers (both relevant and personal) without bombarding people with useless information. Not knowing where people are going doesn’t help, so one has to make educated guesses (for example passengers west of Westferry heading towards Lewisham on DLR probably aren’t interested in Richmond/Stratford, any more than passengers heading for Rayners Lane probably aren’t interested in issues on DLR!). why do I mention this? Because increasingly, the operators are trying to automate the dissemination of “Real Time Information” (ie disruption messages). Examples can be heard on the Victoria Line. The task of designing the rules for filtering which messages should be broadcast where is quite challenging for the engineers!
WW I agree about the Victoria line. My experience is that, what on other lines are comparatively trivial things, lead to “all trains stop” so that the control room can then make sure they put their attention onto the trains stuck in tunnel as, in the peaks at least, there are at least 6 more trains in service than there are platforms to put them in.
Re Briantist,
I think any successful attempt would would include a number for the line and number for the service pattern. Most metro TOCs have far more services than 9/10 which could be covered with single digit especially south of the river.
So you might have the 4 ELL services as O11, O12, O13 and O14 (or odds 1 direction and evens the other) and O15 for a future night-time ELL service not on NR infrastructure.
Use an E prefix for CR1 and each of the TOC metro routes/services could be coded whether or not they are in under some kind of joint arrangement with TfL.
Underground lines could get the own prefix. The problem is making some of the prefix letters obvious and relevant to TOCs or areas. PAris went for the use the letters in logical sequence approach which might be the easiest solution in London.
@100andthirty
“The task of designing the rules for filtering which messages should be broadcast where is quite challenging for the engineers!”
Not really, they are all defined using service level agreements.
One might go, for example,
Minor Delays = Train at a stand for X+ minutes, gap in service of twice the line frequency, trains running Y minutes late or 1 train cancelled or turned short of destination;
Severe Delays = Train at a stand for 2X+ minutes, gap in service of twice the line frequency, trains running 2Y minutes late or 2+ trains cancelled or turned short of destination;
Part-suspended=Trains are likely to be unable to run or no authorised to run over part of a line for at least 15+ minutes;
Suspended=Trains are likely to be unable to run or no authorised to run over an entire line for at least 15+ minutes;
Do not Travel = The service has been affected by an extreme event (weather, terrorism etc) and we are unable to guarantee that customers can reach their destination.
@ngh
Once again, it’s a great scheme, but one that doesn’t come with an explanation of how it is going to benefit actual passengers.
Say, I’m one of the many people who commute to Canary Wharf and back each day. How does your scheme help them do their big-crowd transfer at Canada Wharf?
Just because you CAN allocate numbers or letters, doesn’t mean you should.
@Briantist
Your list can be cut by about half because you quote the same services in different directions. Similarly no need to cover short workings which can just use destination boxes, or the “Parliamentary” one-train-per-day-at-crack-of-dawn ones.
Effectively six real services: North/West London, East/South London, GOBLIN, Euston-Watford dc, ex-West Anglia and Romford-Upminster.
For branching use the comprehensible system used in most German S-Bahns: two digit numbers with the first digit shared for all services on the same line. So if we say that the North/West London Line is Line 1, Stratford-Richmond is LO11 and Stratford-Clapham via Willesden is LO12.
@Philip
“So if we say that the North/West London Line is Line 1, Stratford-Richmond is LO11 and Stratford-Clapham via Willesden is LO12.”
Congratulations! Once again you have provided an great example of a system that provides no befits to the users above what is provided at the moment.
If you’re going between Stratford and, say, Homerton and the overhead power lines are down at Olympia with all trains being blocked between Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction, that would say “line LO11” is closed but in actual fact it wouldn’t change the service on LO11 and LO12 (or is it LO1?) between Stratford and Homerton.
Or, you could keep the current system and say “no service between Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction” as now and not need line numbers.
It’s easy to allocate the numbers, but that’s not enough – you need a reason to do it that is better than the current system.
Plenty of other ways to name the lines….
East lines = ELL Core
East 1 = New Cross ELL
East 2 = Clapham Jct ELL
East 3 = West Croydon ELL
East 4 = Crystal Pal ELL
Hertsline= Watford Jct DC
West 1 line= Richmond-Stratford
West 2 line= Willesden Junction-Clapham Junction
Midland line= Gospel Oak-Barking
North East 1=Chingford WA
North East 2C=Cheshunt WA
North East 2E=Enfield T WA
Rominster line= Romford-Upminster
And so on. It’s an easy game to play!
@Briantist
“1 Battersea Park to Dalston Junction via Queens Road (Peckham)
………
1 Stratford (London) to Willesden Junction
1 Woodgrange Park to Willesden Junction
………………
1 Dalston Junction to Battersea Park via Queens Road (Peckham)
1 Battersea Park to Clapham High Street
Can you spot the Parliamentary trains? ”
Not sure why you’ve highlighted some of these “rusty rail” moves and not others.
The three Battersea Park services are all there to provide route knowledge and keep the line open. No one (or two) of them is specifically “the” parliamentary service.
Likewise the two to Willesden Junction Low level, one of which also acts as a “peak buster” on the Goblin and thus covers a short stretch near Gospel Oak, bypassing Gospel Oak station itself, and not used by any other passenger service.
The minimum number of trains scheduled to use a route to avoid the closure procedure is one a week, in one direction only (and possibly only for part of the year). But if the service is slightly less skeletal, one cannot say that one or other of the handful of trains is specifically the one that qualifies.
I think it is time to wind up the discussion on the merits or otherwise of sub-names for parts of the Overground. There is no sign of consensus being reached, and, as been pointed out, they are largely unrelated to the issue of the name of the Elizabeth Line. It might not be appropriate for me to do it, as I have been putting my own oar in, but I think further comments (on Overground part-names) will probably be removed by the other moderators.
@timbeau
I’m going by http://www.psul4all.free-online.co.uk/2016.htm for the Parliamentary List.
There’s another LO service that goes via the South Tottenham Curve on a Saturday morning too, but I listed only Friday’s trains!
@Malcolm
Fair point.
Briantist at 1756. I wasn’t talking about the extent of the delay but its location relative to all the places and moving places (trains) where the delay might be announced. Or, more accurately the places where it should not be announced because it’s not relevant to the people at that place.
@timbeau – “The minimum number of trains scheduled to use a route to avoid the closure procedure is one a week” . Actually,it’s “none”,depending on the use made of the line in question in its “heyday” – there have been a number of lines which had irregular services which lay dormant for several years before being closed formally.
@100andthirty
“Briantist at 1756. I wasn’t talking about the extent of the delay but its location relative to all the places and moving places (trains) where the delay might be announced. Or, more accurately the places where it should not be announced because it’s not relevant to the people at that place.”
Actually, it’s not that hard to code at all. Given you know the time since the last departure at any given station, it’s quite easy to calculate where any delay is because you just compare it.
I could explain further, but that’s what people pay me for so I’m not giving the code away for free, but you can see from this example:
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2016/example.png
You know the current list of delays (from NRE’s Darwin system), the number of trains in service, the maximum late value, the number of cancellations, the “correct” service gap in minutes (for an alarm), where the biggest gap is at, the expected gap (from the correct tph) and that gives service outputs.
Reasonably simple to know how to show known cancellations because Darwin reports them, of course. But that’s just good (accurate) record keeping, rather than anything hard to compute, which is giving the current output of
“Live cancellations: 1 at Bethnal Green, 1 at Bruce Grove, 1 at Cambridge Heath, 1 at Hackney Downs, 1 at Liverpool Street, 1 at London Fields, 1 at Rectory Road, 1 at Seven Sisters, 1 at Stamford Hill, 1 at Stoke Newington.”
@Briantist
Indeed, Richard Maund’s list is very comprehensive, but I can find no reference to some of the unusual services being in any sense Parliamentary and the others not, so I am puzzled why you italicised some in your list .
I’d forgotten that the weekly electric passenger train to pass through South Tottenham is now an LO service!
@Graham H
“there have been a number of lines which had irregular services which lay dormant for several years before being closed formally”
Didn’t most of them have a taxi service available for anyone who wanted to travel direct from Queenstown to West Brompton (Sheepcote Lane curve), or Watfiord High Street to Croxley Green? And there was the infan=mous Tuesdays only Ealing to Wandsworth Road bus – as celebrated here http://www.1s76.com/1S76%202009.htm!
“for anyone who wanted to travel direct ” I missed the important proviso, “at the scheduled time, (usually before dawn)”
I think that we are all agreed that the line naming issue has got very complicated and difficult to manage
The merits or otherwise of individual names is really just a matter of opinion. After all, they have mostly lost any useful meaning and are merely labels. Perhaps TfL could go in for a bit of rationalisation and shorten some of the longer ones to save on sign size!
[Excellent point. Line names or numbers is largely a matter of personal preference, and we’ve heard pretty much all the arguments for and against. Let’s please now abstain from further comments on line naming, unless directly relevant to the QE Tube/Crossrail. LBM]
@timbeau – yes, some were reduced to on-demand taxis, but Folkestone Harbour had no passenger trains(and no taxis either) for about 5 years before being closed formally. Weymouth Tramway is still open but hasn’t seen a train (no taxis on offer) for many years. Newhaven Marine is still open without having seen any passenger service for a very long time (although I believe a taxi is available on request). Away from the coast, I seem to recall Watford West being served by a (mini)bus service which slowly degenerated into an on-demand service, then a taxi.
Quite why the Department clung on for so long with the exotica such as Ealing to Wandsworth Town is not obvious. The replaced rail services were hardly replicated by the bus and had formed part of some quite different routes and so the legal test “Was it a service on which passengers had come to rely?” should have been easily passed. A Project Fear, I fear.
@ Malcolm 1823 – Hooray. My head is hurting.
@ Fandroid – the Mayor has specifically ruled out renaming the H&C on cost grounds. Given the financial picture for future years then I can’t see any substantive renaming going on that is independent of very specific projects like Crossrail or further rail devolution that will have funding to deal with the impact of the introduction of those services / transfer of services to TfL.
Coming back to the actual topic. Several people have referred to a press release saying “Elizabeth Line” starts being used in December 2018. The TfL press release doesn’t say it. A pinned tweet on the “Elizabeth Line” twitter account says that. And now a question – what happens in terms of names (arrgh!) when class 345s run between Liv St and Shenfield from next year and when MTR Crossrail take over the Heathrow Connect services? What are those services called? Crossrail? “Not yet Elizabeth Line”? “Better than TfL Rail but not as good as Lizzie”? Anyone know?
@WW: Also, what will the permanent extra peak hour services into Liverpool Street High Level be known as? I can’t imagine TfL putting up signs to the Elizabeth Line
@Briantist: But you haven’t shown how you would decide which lines or stations to make an announcement on. This isn’t something you can do purely programmatically without building in external knowledge of travel patterns. For example, most people on the East London line northbound don’t want to know about cancellations on the Romford-Upminster branch, but large numbers who change at Canada Water do want to know if the Jubilee line eastbound is disrupted. [Briantist and others: Please leave this unanswered in detail on this site. I expect you have a possible response, but we now need to get away from the detail of disruption announcements, automated or otherwise. Malcolm]
In the future, if it is unclear as to whether the Elizabeth line is considered an Underground line, the announcement “there is a good service operating on all London Underground lines” will itself become ambiguous.
@Graham H: Weymouth Tramway is still open
But not for much longer! One of those situations where the cost of going through the closure procedure must be greater than the money that is spent keeping the line “open” (ie. nothing).
The councillor’s comment had a ring of familiarity:
So far there has been a lot of wishful thinking about what it could be, but there has been no clear costed plan about how it would actually operate.
@ Ian J – the Liverpool St issue would have arisen if TfL had retained the Crossrail name. There would be services to the same places (going east) from two entirely different parts of the station albeit only for a few hours on M-F working days (once Crossrail is fully open). There is, of course, an interesting 6-7 month period where you *have* to change between lower level and high level at Liverpool St in order to make a through Crossrail journey. There’s also a similar situation at Paddington but for differing time periods and it eventually sorts itself when all services run from “down below”. The wayfinding and journey planning issues are going to be pretty complex. I expect we will have bloggers and enthusiasts having 50 fits when the tube map changes every few months during 2018 and 2019 and then transforms itself into an A3 sized origami game in order to fit in the entire TfL empire that exists come Dec 2019. 😉
As I’m an awkward sort of person I particularly love your final point about “what is an Underground line” in the future. TfL have really been landed with an almighty mess by the Mayor with this renaming. He clearly didn’t expend a scintilla of brain power on the ramifications of his proposal.
WW: as already noted, from a passenger point of view the Elizabeth line will be very little different from another tube line. All its characteristics are shared with one or more of the existing lines, except for being part of the national network and not operated directly by TfL – something of very little relevance to the vast majority of passengers, who will, I suspect, see it as just another line (as we have already seen in the press).
So I’d quite like to understand why its being viewed as a tube line will be an “almighty mess”, and what the ramifications for the public are that the Mayor (and I!) are blind to.
…leaving to one side the transitional arrangements, which will indeed be problematic, whatever the branding.
@WW: I suppose the closest analogy to Liverpool Street would be Baker Street Met before the 1990s, when trains to Metroland went from the terminal platforms only except at peak times when they ran from the through platforms as well.
Paddington is complicated enough at the moment with its two separate Circle Line stations – add in two separate sets of Elizacross platforms as well, passengers making the trek from one to the other, two separate services to Heathrow, only one of which will be on the tube map (I’m assuming), and a split responsibility between Network Rail and London Underground, and you have an amazing challenge for navigation. Something on the scale of what was done for the Olympics will be needed.
@WW
Actually there’s not that much difference between some trains from Liverpool Street to Sheffield departing from the high level platforms instead of the Crossrail – sorry, Elizabeth Line – platforms, on the one hand, and some trains from Clapham Junction to Kensington Olympia starting from platforms 16/17 and others starting from platforms 1 or 2. In each case it’s a long walk from one to the other. Similar, I suppose, are trains from St Pancras to Bedford, some of which will start from platforms 1-4 and others from platform A.
quinlet/WW – in fact, when Thameslink and the Elizabeth line are both done, trains to the Anglia main line, BML, ECML, MML and GWML will all be split between high and low-level platforms at their respective London stations (not termini any more!).
@Mike: The difference is that in most of those cases distinct service groups will go from either the high or low level (eg. on the Midland, it’s faster long distance trains above, more frequently stopping short distance below), whereas the peak Shenfield extras will be identical to the other stopping trains on the line in everything except their final (or first) stop.
Also, for the ECML, MML, BML, and GWML, this won’t really be a new situation, although the previous low level platforms at Kings Cross haven’t been used since the 1970s, and the through platforms at Paddington aren’t at a low level.
@Mike: and what the ramifications for the public are that the Mayor (and I!) are blind to
When the new line opens, will you interpret the standard announcement that “there is a good service operating on all London Underground lines” as meaning that the Elizabeth line is running OK?
Ian J – “When the new line opens, will you interpret the standard announcement that “there is a good service operating on all London Underground lines” as meaning that the Elizabeth line is running OK?”
Indeed I would (and so would other people, by the sound of it) – and if the Elizabeth line wasn’t running OK, surely it would be no harder to single that line out than any other line that was having problems? Hardly a major ramification (nor an almighty mess), I would have thought.
Agreed about the HL/LL issues, except that Paddington hasn’t seen through trains from the main line for many, many, years; and all ECML trains called at KX platforms at (roughly) the same level, rather than some of them at platforms below the adjacent St P (as noted by quinlet in relation to Bedford trains).
@Ian J 🙂 And it’s not as if the Tramway was used that frequently or regularly even before 1999.
Re: Liverpool Street High Level Elizabeth Line trains
So, the question remains: when trains come to Liverpool Street High Level, they won’t be stopping at the intermediate stop of Whitechapel.
Will this be shown on the tube map as a dotted line missing Whitechapel and double-joining Liverpool Street, or is it going to be a “diamond” or “dagger” exception like Cambridge Heath and London Fields are for the London Overground line out to Chingford*?
Given that the Elizabeth line will link both Liverpool Street AND Moogate, I can’t see it double-dotted-linking Stratford and Liverpool Street?
*and and sometimes like the 08:43 Cheshunt to Liverpool Street
@Mike:
Indeed I would (and so would other people, by the sound of it)
All other people, or some other people? If the answer isn’t all other people, then TfL have a problem, because different groups of people will interpret the message differently. When you are trying to communicate with several million people every day (many of them at one remove via media transport updates), not all of whom think the same or see the world in the same way, you have to think through what you say very carefully.
@Briantist: or is it going to be a “diamond” or “dagger” exception
The dagger has become TfL’s go-to approach to exceptions and anomalies of all kinds on the tube map, and the mockup in-car diagram in the media suggested no attempt to show the High Level service.
On the other hand the bizarre appearance of the two trains a day to Battersea Park on the London Overground in-car maps and some insider-seeming comments on Diamond Geezer’s blog suggest that an insurgency of over-literalists within TfL is being fended off as we speak.
@Graham H:
And it’s not as if the Tramway was used that frequently or regularly even before 1999
That’s because They set it up to fail, of course… 🙂
IanJ
There was never a problem at Baker Street with knowing where off peak Metroland trains departed from. In my days of regular travel from there (mid 1970s) it was usual for Uxbridge trains to leave from platform 1 and Watford from platform 2 (a through platform used for terminators).
The infrequent northbound through trains would of course always be from platform 2.
The information displays were easy to understand even for non regulars.
It was eastbound passengers that suffered from platform anxiety, and still do.
quinlet
Liverpool St _ Sheffield (!)
Even the old GER only went to York, though I think their goods/coal trains had access via the ex-LDECR ( taken over by -GC) lines. Um.
Sorry, couldn’t resist it ….
@Ian J
Thanks. I was looking at http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-line-diagram-standard.pdf and it doesn’t really deal with the issue you have when a service has two routes to the same station as per the examples I mentioned.
@Mike
“All its characteristics are shared with one or more of the existing lines, except for being part of the national network ”
Even that will not be unique to Crozzabeth – Gunnersbury to Richmond and Queens Park to Harrow are NR tracks.
@Mike
“trains to the Anglia main line, BML, ECML, MML and GWML will all be split between high and low-level platforms”
Add Victoria to Clapham Junction/Balham, and Clapham Junction to the Epsom and Kingston lines if CR2 (CrossBill?) goes ahead as planned.
And of course Amersham/Aylesbury passengers have long been used to trains going from both low level (Baker Street) and high level (Marylebone) platforms
@ian J
“Baker Street Met before the 1990s, when trains to Metroland went from the terminal platforms only except at peak times when they ran from the through platforms as well. ”
If by the through platforms you mean 5 and 6, they didn’t and couldn’t. Through platforms 2 and 3 were used as terminal platforms, but these are simply the opposite faces of dead end platforms 1 and 4. (Baker Street 1-4 can equally well be thought of as laid out as a terminus, with two tracks extended to the junction)
@quinlet
“Liverpool Street to Sheffield departing from the high level platforms instead of the Crossrail ”
Well, the LNER did electrify them both on the same 1500V dc system, but I’m not aware of any plan to run direct services! (There was a long established service from Sheffield deep into GER territory at Harwich of course!)
Glaswegians seem to cope with many destinations (Motherwell, Cumbernauld, Dumbarton, etc) served from both High Level and Low level platforms, either at Queen Street or Central (or both!)
@Ian J
“When the new line opens, will you interpret the standard announcement that “there is a good service operating on all London Underground lines” as meaning that the Elizabeth line is running OK?”
Of course not – no more than it means any other line is running ok.
“Good” being defined quite loosely (e.g anything below the threshold for “minor delays”, which can be up to five times normal headway, or 20 minutes of slow running, or one in four trains unavailable for service) and includes when no service at all is scheduled. (So they can guarantee a “Good” service will run at least one day a year – December 25th!)
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/84798/response/248309/attach/3/Declaring%20Service%20Status%20Criteria%20v1%206%2011%2011%2011.pdf
@ Mike – to me it is simple. Crossrail is not and never will be a tube line. It’s London’s equivalent to the RER or a S Bahn. Many places are perfectly capable of making the distinction between a tram, a Metro and a main line suburban service running via a cross city tunnel. I view that as a neat and easily understood concept which should have been applied to London. Only Bozza could be so clueless as to drive a coach and horses through an elegant service hierarchy. You disagree with me. That’s fine – end of discussion as neither of us are going to change our minds.
Each LU line has a Twitter account, which reports service issues affecting that line. All of he London Overground lines share a single Twitter account, which jams up the timeline with too much stuff that an individual passenger is not concerned with. At a bare minimum, this reporting needs to be split into NE London, Watford DC, and Orbital.
Maybe TfL might rename the DLR as the “Plimsoll Line”? Yes, I *know* it’s the *mark* not the *line* that looks like a roundel, but the marketing possibilities tying in with shipping history are enormous…
@WW
” distinction between a tram, a Metro and a main line suburban service running via a cross city tunnel…..a neat and easily understood concept which should have been applied to London………an elegant service hierarchy.”
An argument the directors of the Metropolitan Railway c 1932 pressed very hard for, but it didn’t get them very far. (nb, some RER/S-Bahnen routes do terminate in the city centre – see Paris Line E, Munich Line S4, Berlin S3)
Re Timbeau,
RER line E – Only temporarily till 2020 when the western tunnel extensions are completed. RER has often been done as series of mini projects to make the cost more digestible!
@Mark Boulton
See my Avatar for an example. In this case LR stands for Lloyd’s Register.
There is one significant difference between the current situation at Clapham Junction for services on the WLL and most other examples mentioned. That is that the information systems there are unified and tell the customer all the options available. Will that happen at Liverpool Street for Crossrail services towards Shenfield? That would potentially mean giving the low-level platforms numbers or letters to fit into the overall scheme of things. My hazy memory of Glasgow Central tells me that the low-level platforms there are numbered as for the whole station and departures are shown together with high-level ones too. The same cannot be said for Paddington’s SSR platforms, and I think St Pancras is treated as four different stations ( I am open to be corrected on that point!)
@ngh
RER line E – Only temporarily till 2020 when the western tunnel extensions are completed. ”
Likewise the MDR and Met until 1888 when the eastern extension was built!
Had it not been for Charles Tyson Yerkes and his scheme to revive several moribund tube projects by using the income from the MDR, we would probably still recognise the SSL and deep tubes as the very different animals they are, although the decision to build the Deep Level District to Tube gauge muddies the water a little.
Nevertheless, the SSL have many of the characteristics of S-Bahnen
– tracks shared with each other in the city centre, sometimes including circular route (e.g Berlin’s S41)
– tracks shared with longer distance services in the suburbs
– full (main line) size rolling stock (it’s even called “S” stock!)
– longer distances between stops than the metro services.
Crossrail is simply central London’s fifth S-Bahn tunnel (but the first new one since 1988 – unless you count 1916-1988 as a mere suspension of the oldest cross-London route of all, in which case 1903 was the previous one – another very long gestation as it only hooked up to the outside world in 1975!) Like Paris, the operation of those lines is shared, some are definitely TfL, some are NR, and some are a bit of each.
As for naming, following existing conventions on the SSL, S-bahnen and elsewhere, it actually needs two, one for the Heathrow-Abbey Wood service and one for the Reading–Shenfield service (if that’s what the service pattern will be – and I assume Heathrow-Wharf is a sine qua non).
I cannot get my head around the fact some people think the general public will see Crossrail as just any other Tube Line. As far as I can see it’s going to look and feel quite different in terms of scale and frequency, and the distances covered are far greater. People generally don’t seem to consider the Overground or the DLR the “Tube”, so what with the different branding, I don’t know why they’d throw Cross Lizzy into the Underground mix either, despite the silly name.
@fandroid
“I think St Pancras is treated as four different stations ”
If you include Kings Cross and the Underground station they are treated as four, but as far as I recall trains to e.g Luton are shown on one board whether they start upstairs or down. It will get more complicated when e.g Cambridge trains begin calling at platform A (or is it B?) as well as at Kings Cross.
Glasgow Central LL departures are indeed shown on the main board. Can’t recall last time I was at Queen St, but given that all* trains there will be diverted to the LL station for several months, starting next week, it would be a very good idea if they did!
*not quite all – a few will be diverted to Central, which will be really confusing!
timbeau
All the lines run over by (“Mainline” gauge” Tfl/LOROL/Overground services are National Rail lines, aren’t they?
Steve L
Seconded
But we’ve been on about this for some time now, as have other people, but as for any sign of TfL taking this entirely sensible advice on board ……
LBM
Advice, please (privately if more convenient) & how do I get an “avatar” up?
It took me 5 or six tries on “google” & the same number here, but, so far, de nada
Not sure what the four station at St Pancras are supposed to be. There is only one name for all the network rail and HS1 parts “St Pancras International”. Departures for all the domestic platforms are all shown on the same boards. You can walk into the tube station (Kings Cross St Pancras) or into Kings Cross station, but these are very clearly two further, different stations. The fact that Cambridge will be reachable from either St Pancras or Kings Cross will not make any difference really – though of course it may be an issue for someone who just misses one train, who might be informed by their smartphone (or a canny member of staff) (but not by the destination boards) that the next one goes from a nearby but different station. But there are quite a lot of places in the UK reachable from more than one London terminus. (Indeed, Cambridge already is).
I think what Fandroid is alluding to is the fact that the only complete set of departure/arrival boards at St Pancras (the ones above the Sourced Market) are definitely split into separate sections for, from left to right, Southeastern High Speed, Eurostar, Thameslink, and East Midlands Trains high level platforms. Contra timbeau, people looking for Luton trains do have to check both Thameslink and East Midlands boards, although since they are next to each other it isn’t too hard.
There are also boards at the entrance to each set of platforms that only show the trains leaving from that set.
Greg (or anyone else who wants an avatar): Where you make a comment on londonreconnections, the box for your Email address is labeled with the comment “Email * (This won’t be shown, but you can link it to an avatar if you like)”. The middle words in that are a clickable link, which takes you to a site (en.gravatar.com) where all is explained.
@greg
“All the lines run over by (“Mainline” gauge” Tfl/LOROL/Overground services are National Rail lines, aren’t they?”
We have to be very precise with terminology here. They are all National Rail services, but not all them are Network Rail tracks. (The use of “NR” as an abbreviation for both entities does not mean they are actually the same thing)
National Rail passenger services run on TfL-owned tracks on the East London Line (not sure of the boundaries there) , between Harrow-on-the-Hill and Mantles Wood, and (very rarely) between Wimbledon and East Putney. There are many other examples where part of the infrastructure, such as the trackbed or the station buildings, are owned by TfL but (also) served by NR trains – Farringdon station for example.
@Lee 1629
Whilst to me the Crossrail concept is definitely a mainline railway one there are quite a number of people who rely on a tube map for getting around London and they will see the Elizabeth Line as a tube because it will appear on their map.
Many moons ago I related here a conversation I overheard in a coffee shop. A young lady was telling her friend how she was moving to Norwood Junction as it was cheaper and “they have just opened a tube there” (Reference the launch of Overground to Crystal Palace and West Croydon and so appearing on the tube map.)
When describing routes to someone I’ve never included ‘line’, just the name, so “Take the bakerloo to X change to the Victoria”. So far as the Brenda is concerned I’m wondering if there might be one good thing about it *if* it is only used for the subterranean (within the portals) section where, in effect, it will be tube service more than a national rail one. If you are seeking a way to reduce the costs created by all the disabled and elderly with their Freedom passes then some step which creates some sort of ‘edge marker’ might help with this (notwithstanding the present law on the matter).
Given we’ve now heard that this name was proposed to The Palace I’d have thought some of the TCRd signage need not have been manufactured / fitted.
I don’t recall the DC line being called the Harlequin, but when I first noted the mention above I did wonder whether there was a link with the covered shopping centre in Watford which shared that name for many years. At least we aren’t like those Frenchies who name lines by the destination not the route.
Now then, can *someone* at TfL please get around to separate identities for the LO lines. Numbers or letter, I don’t mind which!
@timbeau – /me points at Croxley Green, which was still ‘open’ after the rails had been removed 🙂
ps. Briantist – It was GOBLIN long before the internet came alive. And LOROL is a company which is soon to disappear as it will cease to exist at the end of its contract.
Harlequin logo
http://www.srpublicity.co.uk/nse/logos/northlondon.jpg
….and on a train
https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidmoth3106/6774757902
Answer here
http://districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/9725
Named in 1988 as part of Network South East’s policy of giving lines names – it was the winner in a competition. The shopping centre in Watford which opened in 1992 was named after it.
Some names stick, others don’t.
(As Red Dwarf fans will recall, Arnold Rimmer’s usual nickname at school was not the one he wanted everyone to use)
timbeau says “Some names stick, others don’t.”
Quite. And some names come from “official sources”, others may be tolerated, others opposed.
Of the names which don’t stick (or haven’t yet stuck) it interests me that some of them are actively disliked, opposed and fought against. I think “goblin” is one such; a users’ group for the line seems to be actively opposed to the apellation. Whereas “Bedpan” (which I don’t think was ever official) could have been considered rather tasteless, but I never heard of active objections to it.
Malcolm wrote:
“Of the names which don’t stick (or haven’t yet stuck) it interests me that some of them are actively disliked, opposed and fought against. I think “goblin” is one such; a users’ group for the line seems to be actively opposed to the apellation. ”
Do they want to call it something like “The Persons of Restricted Growth Line” instead?
WW – I wholeheartedly agree that Tectonic or Parisian simplicity and consistency would make for a much better integrated transport network, but regrettably that’s not what we’ve got (and are unlikely to get). Agreed that the Elizabeth line could be considered as an S-Bahn or RER line, but so could Thameslink, a very different animal – and how would the south London network fit in to such an ordered network? (Rhetorical question!)
We’re never going to get the best, so the least worst has to be it, in this case defining the new line by what it’s nearest to in terms of passenger perception, and that’s a tube line.
I think I understand what you mean by the awful mess and the ramifications, but they’re a result of the physical nature of the system, not of the new name, which to my mind actually helps simplify the mess by amalgamating two concepts that will appear well-nigh the same to the travelling public. It’s just a shame that TfL have gone only the partial hog, making it a hybrid is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-tube sort of line rather than giving the clarity that both you and I seek.
Given that Boris will have left office by the time any signs need to be put up and the line opens to passengers, could the next incoming Mayor decide to reverse the decision about the line name and revert to crossrail? If so, would this be expensive?
“Tectonic” = Teutonic – ******** spellcheck!
“Electioneering” asks whether the incoming mayor could reverse the naming decision.
I would leave the issue of whether it could be done, under the constitution of the London mayorality, to experts in that field. But it seems obvious to me that it will not happen, because reversing it would be perceived as an insult to the Queen. Not necessarily by the Queen herself, but by at least a significant minority, or possibly even a majority, of the population. No politician would take such a step.
@Malcolm: Indeed, and the offence that might be caused if policy changes is an argument against naming anything after a living person.
@Ian J: I note what you said, but in this case the offence (it seems to me) would be perceived as a similar level whether the person-named-after was living or recently deceased. So it’s more like an argument against naming anything after any real person.
It’s also not a very strong argument, because explicitly reversing any decision by a politician is quite a rare event. Obviously policies change, not least when a different party gets in, but usually the reversal is dressed up as a response to changed circumstances.
You could let the name “whither on the vine” by not ever putting up any signs.
I don’t think that would go down too well with HM Queen, who obviously gave her personal approval to the name.
WW – “Of course as soon as you name every line you have an instant problem with the website and rainbow boards.”
… which suggests that rainbow boards as currently used are a bad idea, because they should only trouble your eyeball with the lines having problems. I suspect, unless a strike or terrorist incident is happening, the rainbow boards have enough space to name every tube line having problems in a block of its own colour, plus every NR line having problems worse than the cancellation of a single train, plus every bus number that’s having serious problems (FSVO serious).
@timbeau
…(very rarely) between Wimbledon and East Putney…
How rare is rarely? Behold, the nightly 2254 from Basingstoke to London Waterloo.
@Mike and others
I have to disagree that the branding hierarchy of the line “doesn’t matter”.
It may not matter for cases of day to day usage in Central London, but it certainly matters that it will consist of large portions of National Rail service which will be unavoidably subject to the 1993 Railways Act in terms of things like ticketing, delay compensation, and yes the boring old conditions of carriage, which will require a different management structure and regime from London Underground, and all this does mean that for legal purposes the line will have to be branded distinctively, even if this doesn’t matter to a lot of people on a day to day basis.
No-one has even raised the issues of railcards, point to point seasons or through ticketing for example. TfL will still have to sell an appropriately discounted first class return from Hanwell to Thurso with a Senior Railcard, and it’ll probably need to say “route Not London” or “route Farringdon” or indicate with a + that it includes through travel on The Underground (ahem) to an appropriate terminus.
Aside from the legal issues, how is the average Joe to have any hope of untangling the situation of whether his railcard is valid or the wheres and hows of compensation, if the branding isn’t appropriate?
FWIW my money is still on “Crossrail” or perhaps “London Crossrail” being the family branding, like “London Overground”, “London Tramlink”, “London Underground”, “London Buses” and “DLR” (who’d bet on “London DLR” appearing in a few years?). The other possibilities are retaining the uninspiring “TfL Rail” or even using the “London Overground” branding, which is much more feasible, and if you can see a reason why that wouldn’t be a good idea I think you’re answering the same question.
As a commenter from well outside London I am always amused on my regular visits by the worthy attempts by TfL to provide as much information as possible to those who might possibly need to know, for example, at West Ruislip that there are delays at Upminster, despite the very small number of travellers likely to be affected.
This well-intentioned, but possibly mostly unnecessary, information reminds me of the M6 motorway overhead signs that tell me when I am near Stoke that there are delays ahead – but not until I reach the A14 near Cambridge… But I am never going within 100 miles of there on my intended trip. Yes, I know people, HGV drivers mainly, will be going that way and that “information” is “good” but sometimes it is distracting too.
And regarding the general point about non-experts navigating the tube, the SSLs, the overground and any other means of transport in London, I think a fair number of drivers occasionally miss motorway exits despite very clear signage and you just have to metaphorically shrug shoulders and learn to do it right next time.
Tourists and irregular visitors to London take it as it is not how we all know it was until Boris b*******d up the ‘logic’ of naming of types of lines.
A much bigger problem is that all the rail possibilities that there are in the London area are not even on an easily accessible single map available at all tube stations!
@0775john…..Er, yes they are. They’re all on what was formerly known as the London Connections map (https://tfl.gov.uk/maps/track), which is displayed at pretty much every station (both LU and NR) I’ve ever used within the London area, not to mention further afield. Cramming more of those lines south of the river onto the Tube Map if and when they get taken over by TfL/LO is going to be one hell of a job!
@timbeau….Just to be pedantic, those images show it labelled as the North London Lines ?. Was there ever any official map, timetable, leaflet or other document from NSE that referred to it as the Harlequin line?
FWIW, I stand by my earlier comments in agreement with WW that the Lizzy line *isn’t* a Tube line, and anything that makes it appear as such will just lead to confusion.
I suspect though when it opens, it will still be signposted and referred to as Crossrail (in a similar fashion to DLR / Overground / Underground with their roundels and branding etc), but with an additional sub-heading to highlight the Lizzy line name. So maybe those covered-up signs at TCR won’t go to waste after all!
Then, by the time I am collecting my pension and CR2/3/4(?) are open, all of them can be given individual names as part of a Royal Crossrail network. Step forward, Charles/William/George lines……we can only dream, can’t we?
@Bob_G
I don’t think that would go down too well with HM Queen
How would she ever know? She’s not exactly a regular on the Tube. Though she does ride National Rail services to get to Sandringham, so maybe if you could convince her it wasn’t an Underground line, she might take it to Slough for Windsor?
@Edmonton: they should only trouble your eyeball with the lines having problems
I’m not sure I agree – isn’t one of the functions of the boards to provide positive reassurance? – you walk past and your line is green and that means you can stop worrying about whether it is running OK.
@Anonymously:
From a local newspaper’s nostalgia corner:
Away days to London should be more fun for Watford people with the launch of the new Harlequin line.
TV soccer pundits Saint and Greavsie and veteran DJ Ed “Stewpot” Stewart were among the star [?!] names at Wembley Central station on Saturday [June 18, 1988] for the Watford to Euston line’s renaming at a gala day launch.
Along with the new name, British Rail hopes to have a whole new image, with stations along the line being revamped to meet passengers’ needs.
Included in the upgrading scheme, known as Operation Sparkle, was Watford Junction’s brand new booking office.
British Rail spokesman Keith Lumley said: ‘It’s aimed at raising the quality of service. Most stations are now already looking brighter. We are going to refurbish every station on the line to make it a better travelling and waiting environment.’
I can imagine a TfL spokesman saying exactly the same thing when they took over, except for the bit about the new booking office.
But the name seems to have been abandoned when Network SouthEast later introduced the “North London Lines” sub-brand as part of the eternal devolution-recentralisation cycle that railways go through.
An ex-BR manager quoted in the article recalled:
But I suppose the new management decided calling it the North London Line was a good opportunity to bury the rather embarrassing and meaningless ‘Harlequin’ for good.
So if you want to drop an embarrassing name, do it by subsuming it into a larger entity.
@Anonymously
There are actually five a night (Mon-Fri), according to Robert Maund’s “PSUL” website
http://www.psul4all.free-online.co.uk/2016.htm
2254 Basingstoke – Waterloo
2312 Waterloo -Southampton Central
0042 Waterloo – Strawberry Hill
0105,Waterloo – Basingstoke
0454 Basingstoke – Waterloo
But that’s quite rare compared with the number through Mantles Wood or the Thames Tunnel
@AlisonW
“ps. Briantist – It was GOBLIN long before the internet came alive. ”
Link please? The Internet came “alive” in 1973-4 when TCP/IP (the “IP” bit is Internet Protocol) was invented. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc675 I met the designer, V. Cerf a few years ago.
“And LOROL is a company which is soon to disappear as it will cease to exist at the end of its contract.”
Strangely enough I do know this!
Briantist,
Can we please have a sense of proportion? Clearly AlisonW is commenting on when the internet made a difference to our lives. Or, more precisely, the World Wide Web. “Come Alive” is not the same as being born.
cue: song by Suzi Quatro
This is not the site for arguing about the specifics of something not transport related – especially when the phrase used could mean one thing in common usage and something quite different to you.
Alison W
Now then, can *someone* at TfL please get around to separate identities for the LO lines. Numbers or letter, I don’t mind which!
YES
Actually a letter-number combination would be best
A letter (or number) for each main “group” & then a number (or a letter) for the sub-groups.
So, par example
Ex-Liverpool St Tfl are prefixed by “L” & “1” is Enfield Town, “2” is Cheshunt, “3” is blank for Lea Valley & Hertford for later…, “4” is for Chingford
And so on
JL
That’s Dwarves or Garden Ornaments or even Gnomes – I suggest you get on the the Ouijja board & question PTerry on the subject ….
Ian J
How would she ever know?
She reads the news papers & the offical dispatch boxes – it’s part of her job.
OF COURSE she will know …..
@Pedantic of Purley
[Technicalities of “internet” “world wide web” etc snipped. This is not the place for them. Malcolm]
So … when exactly did “Goblin” get used in any official way?
[As is well-known, “Goblin” has never been used in any official way. This digression will cease, and any messages touching on it will be deleted in their entirety. Malcolm]
Re Timbeau, Anonymous and Anonymously,
East Putney – Wimbledon: and 15 planned ECS moves a week day and usually a few extras.
Whether the Queen would know if “her” line was renamed is irrelevant. Whether she herself would be offended is probably irrelevant. The decision will not be reversed (not even after her death) because some section of the Great British Public would be offended on her behalf.
“would be offended on her behalf.”
Stand up comic Shazia Mirza had some sharp things to say about that kind of thing in her show during summer 2015.
Anonymously 2 March 04.37
Apologies, you are obviously quite right!
This is a digression but regarding these Basingstoke – Waterloo trains using what I always assumed were derelict, crumbling viaducts near Putney station: what is the point of using it? Why are those trains not using the regular line between Wimbledon and CJ? It can’t only be for maintenance works if it is occurring nightly?
“what is the point of using it?”
Route knowledge.
If the line through Earlsfield has to be closed for any reason, by accident or intentionally (e.g for maintenence), trains are diverted via East Putney. Like any diversion, this is only allowed if the driver has “signed for” the route, which requires that he has driven it recently. These odd moves, like the other ones discussed (Battersea Park, South Tottenham curves, etc) are rostered so that drivers can keep up to date.
@timbeau 11:53
Are both lines operational? Looking on Google maps, after the spur splits, the one on the north seems to disappear into vegetation.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/313+Woodlands+Way,+London+SW15/@51.4599736,-0.2076183,295m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x48760f6d03a81d27:0x7be2716421564f1a!6m1!1e1
Re Gio,
Indeed to allow maintenance between Waterloo and Wimbledon overnight some will also help keep drivers trained on the routes.
The Up Viaduct (East Putney to Wandsworth Town) was only removed in the late 1990s (96?).
As noted above the majority of the NR trains using East Putney – Wimbledon are 15 weekday empty carriage stock (ECS) moves to or from Waterloo to Wimbledon Park Depot (or Beyond) as there isn’t enough capacity to do it via the SWML.
In a similar way lots of empty ex SWML fast services return to Clapham Yard via the Windsor lines some keeping going instead.
This allows some counter-peak direction stopping on the SWML fast services at Clapham Jn.
Re Gio,
No only the original down line which is now bidirectional.
The removal of the Up viaduct was previously covered in detail in LR comments (on a least 1 thread). The brief history was that the section over the Windsor lines needed a lot of work and it was cheaper to install a points ladder between Point Pleasant and Wandsworth Town and remove it instead of repairing it. The track (bullhead) was left insitu north of the Windsor lines so no one could claim there hadn’t been a railway line there in the future if they want to reopen it!
@Gio
Not just vegetation, but thin air at one point !
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/313+Woodlands+Way,+London+SW15/@51.460125,-0.2087889,3a,75y,26.67h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-8wC1Bywp6l4%2FU912G_2LOeI%2FAAAAAAABTw0%2FwNEcEL9L8Is!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2F-8wC1Bywp6l4%2FU912G_2LOeI%2FAAAAAAABTw0%2FwNEcEL9L8Is%2Fw203-h101-n-k-no%2F!7i2508!8i1254!4m2!3m1!1s0x48760f6d03a81d27:0x7be2716421564f1a!6m1!1e1
as ngh says, the original “down” line (which actually goes uphill!) is now bidirectional.
It’s a new line between Paddington and Liverpool Street so I’m calling it the Paddlin’pool 🙂
There was the option, even within the thinking of the Mayor, to brand the line the Elizabeth Crossrail instead of the Elizabeth Line. For me, that choice is far more interesting than the decision to use Elizabeth at all (which strikes me, in terms of timimg as the Mayor stressing nationalism for political reasojs ahead of the Brexit vote). It suggests very strongly to me that TfL don’t want Crossrail as an operational brand alongside Overground.
Back to Harlequin. I know the Harlequin Centre was built on the site of a former Sainsurys but did it also encompass the site of LT’s Watford High Street garage (WA)?
ngh
The Up Viaduct (East Putney to Wandsworth Town) was only removed in the late 1990s (96?).
The last gasp (almost) of “lets close all the railways” penny-pinching (The viaduct seriously needed repairs.)
Keeping it open would have meant a proper double-track available for diversions.
Incidentally, isn’t the British tradition to use “line” to refer to rail lines like this one, with “rail” or “railway” reserved for operators or networks like the Docklands Light Railway? While tradition should not bind us, if we set aside the emotive question of the choice of Elizabeth, there are grounds for feeling that Crossrail might not have been the ideal name for the LINE.
So then if Crossrail does become a network of more than one line, then giving them individual line names under an overarching ‘Crossrail’ brand actually starts to make some sense.
But since it is going to be a very long time (10 years minimum) if at all before we get another Crossrail line, it will feel rather strange having a ‘network’ of one line!
@ngh….Do you have a link to the thread where the viaduct was discussed, or to any pictures of it pre-removal (my curiosity has been aroused)? I can’t see any reason why the former up viaduct track and alignment should be retained, as it is highly unlikely it will ever need to be reinstated, even as a more heavily used diversionary route (which is impractical anyway due to the need to share the line with LUL District trains).
@Kate
Plenty of precedents for networks to have one name and the first line of that network to have another. Many metros have, at some stage in their history, had only one line. Seville is in that situation at present.
http://www.metro-sevilla.es/en
So there is the Seville Metro, and there is Line 1 of the Seville Metro.
The Metropolitan Railway was for a short period all there was to “The Underground”, and was known by both terms.
It is not clear whether Line 1 of the Paris Metro was already so-called in the five months before Line 2 opened.
Other examples include the eleven months in 1958/59 when the entire UK motorway network had the number M6.
And not forgetting “Locomotion no 1”
Re Greg and Anonymously,
The line from East Putney to Wimbledon was BR owned till 1st April 1994 (paging Graham H!) till it transferred to LU.
District is only 10/11tph in the peak so you could theoretically squeeze a NR service into all but 1 gap between District services an hour (not recommended in practice as you then have to extricate them at Wimbledon)
These articles for a start:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2011/ellx-phase-two-clapham-junctions-platforms-1-and-2/
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2011/the-shape-of-londons-rail-network-a-peek-into-the-future/
[you can do site specific google searches to find the hidden gems on LR for example:
“londonreconnections.com: point pleasant”]
There are at least 6 where it is discussed
You could easily run a Waterloo – East Putney PIXC buster service if you reinstated the Bridge – far cheaper than sorting the Barnes level crossings!
In mid 1990’s thinking was East Putney (Fulham Broadway to Wimbledon) would no longer be on the district but on CR2 (Chelney) so the option of diverting some CR2 services to Waterloo as back up option made a lot of sense.
Just the deck was removed – the Brickwork that remained was well repaired.
A picture in it current state:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Putney,_Railway_line_and_dismantled_viaduct_-_geograph.org.uk_-_825368.jpg
@ngh
“You could easily run a Waterloo – East Putney PIXC buster service if you reinstated the Bridge – far cheaper than sorting the Barnes level crossings!”
I rather doubt there is the capacity east of Point Pleasant – especially through the three-track section at Queenstown. If there was, a more useful PIXC buster could be run to Barnes.
Re Timbeau,
East Putney is very easy for turnback unlike Barnes
@ Malcolm – I recall the term “Bedpan” in the context of the bitter strike action that took place over the introduction of the class 317 trains with one person operation. The term featured in the media reporting of the strike with liberal “hand bagging” of British Rail as being useless etc etc. Much in vogue with the general sentiment towards railways at the time.
@ Edmonton ‘eadcase – Ian J has slightly beaten me to it but the LU “rainbow boards” work in two ways. They provide an instant reassurance of “good service” for your regular route or they tell you something is wrong. While we can argue about the psychology that sits behind “good service” it is nonetheless useful. I suspect TfL would not be overly keen to move to a revised layout that solely presented bad news rather than a mix. There is also the other issue about text size and readability – shoving more lines on the screen would likely mean compressing text sizes and there are already some issues over how quickly you can digest a more complex disruption message given the text is slightly smaller than say, the line name.
I dare say at some point TfL will have to replace the technology and it may be feasible to install larger displays but there are always space constraints. In some places there are limits as to what loading you can place on a floor and where you can drill holes of sufficient size to secure a large visual display unit and its casing so that it won’t fall over and crush anyone. There are also the tedious issues like power and comms links too. Most people don’t think about all this but as someone who’s tried to get kit installed in LU stations it can get horribly involved.
@ngh
Undoubtedly that was the case once, but we are where we are. Which would give a better BCR: reinstating the flyover, or building a bay platform at Barnes – remembering that, conveniently, stopping services usually use the middle tracks between CJ and Barnes.
Stopping services nowadays use the northernmost of the 4 tracks inwards from Barnes except on Sundays; the normal weekday usage of the middle pair is fast up and stopping down. This was changed several years ago; from memory this coincided with the timetable change that gave the Hounslow loop 4tph instead of 2.
WW:
When you got the space constraint, one could always bundle up the Underground as one “Good service” most of the time, and split out any misbehaving lines as appropriate and have LU then “Good service all other lines”.
Visual equivalent of the radio announcements.
It’s amazing how ingrained “good service” has become. I recall it’s only about 10 years old. It was Tim O’Toole who used to get mighty upset that the main use of PA all over the network was to deliver disruption messages. Pubic peception was that disruption was normal, which even then was not the case, but that’s all they ever heard about. He introduced the “good service” announcements (and “ladies and gentlement”), and rainbow boards followed. Since then, the relentless pursuit of good operational performance and work to fix the root causes of repeated failures has transformed the performance of the Tube network. Tim O’Toole introduced this relentless pursuit of good operational performance, and the previously developed (prior to PPP in case you wondered) lost customer hours process provided a currency to value improvements. With this leadership and tools, the staff were able to deliver.
WW: my recollection (and it could be wrong) is that the 1982/3 Bedpan dispute over the introduction of driver-only operation with the 317s wasn’t actually a strike – class 127 DMU operation continued in the traditional way while the new EMUs just sat at Cricklewood for over a year awaiting a resolution.
@100andthirty: That sounds like good news. It sounds so enthusiastic that it is reminiscent of public relations utterances.
But assuming that it is your personal observation, it is still a bit of a hostage to fortune – it may provoke a host of responses by people who are less impressed than you evidently are.
There seems to be conflation of two rather different messages here. One is the presentation issue; it may indeed be a good idea to ensure that the public hear about good service when it is the case. (Although another argument would be that “good service” should be so normal that it is not news).
The other is the issue of whether the operational performance has really improved, independently of how it is presented. As you have mentioned “lost customer hours”, do you have actual figures of how these have changed?
Malcolm wrote: Whether the Queen would know if “her” line was renamed is irrelevant. Whether she herself would be offended is probably irrelevant. The decision will not be reversed (not even after her death) because some section of the Great British Public would be offended on her behalf.
These offended people are much more likely to vote for one of the candidates than the other. And if the other wins he might not care about these people who will not vote for him anyway.
Malcolm
Based on the publically available performance almanac here:
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/underground-services-performance#on-this-page-1 ,
lost customer hours for 2014/15 across the whole of LU were 43% of the number in 2003/4. The only line that is not doing so well is the Central line which is having a noticeable effect on the all line total . There is a great deal of material in the linked document which would well woth being analysed by someone more capable than me.
@ngh, timbeau et al:
Is it still proposed that East Putney-Wimbledon will be resignalled as part of the SSL scheme? If so, will that be the end of National Rail diversions via the line?
@Kate: It suggests very strongly to me that TfL don’t want Crossrail as an operational brand alongside Overground
Then why did they install direction signs saying Crossrail at Tottenham Court Road? And what makes you think this is about what TfL want, rather than what the Mayor wants?
@WW: I am wondering whether the term BedPan actually first referred to the electrification scheme, not the line, perhaps starting as a shorthand name for the scheme internally? These files would probably answer the question – note the term appearing in the series description – or if there were someone reading who had worked for BR at the time…
If so it would show that it is common for project names to evolve into names for the service that results from them – Thameslink would be another example. And that this can happen regardless of the official name (I can’t even remember what the official name of MML suburban services was before Thameslink – the line to Moorgate was the Midland City line, but was it something like Midland Electrics for the network as a whole?)
@Anonymously 2 March 04:37 – “They’re all on what was formerly known as the London Connections map (https://tfl.gov.uk/maps/track), which is displayed at pretty much every station (both LU and NR)” – and indeed the map is available in traditional fold-out paper form upon request at most railways stations, with “London’s Rail & Tube services” on one side and “London and the South East rail services” on the other, complete with “Find your station” indices.
Ian J speculates about what the history of the name BedPan might tell us about naming in general.
I don’t think it would, really. Whatever its history. The way names for lines, services and indeed whole railways develop and are adopted, or not, seems to me to be entirely unsystematic, and it would take an enormous amount of study to discern general rules, if there are any. Names can originate from anywhere, inside or outside the organisation that runs the thing being named, and they can subsequently suffer any fate, from hasty dispatch into history’s dustbin (Harlequin), right through to adoption and permanent use (Bakerloo).
The only general rule (as the saying goes) is “there is no general rule”.
Ian J asks about the implications of the SSL resignalling on NR use of the East Putney to Wimbledon line.
If the resignalling scheme turns out to make shared use between SSL trains and NR trains impossible, this would have implications well beyond just that section. Think Richmond and Amersham.
With the speed that information can spread across the internet sometimes a comment by a single person can quickly pass into more widespread usage. An example of this is when the blogger Diamond Geezer described the Emirates Air Line as the “Arabfly dangleway”. Almost immediately the word dangleway became widely used by others to describe the service.
Ian J & Malcom
SSR resignalling – getting needed sooner & sooner.
Recently, I’ve been making occasional journeys “round the corner” Liverpool St – Stepney Green &/or then further east.
The last three times, every time there has been either interruption or complete failure of the service, because of points/signal failures around Baker St.
And, as stated it will have to be compatible with NR signalling practices, won’t it?
P.S. Didn’t we discuss this in some earlier thread, with the understanding that the systems at Baker St & Edgware Rd (Met) in particular were being held together with gaffer-tape & string?
Greg: with the understanding that your “gaffer tape and string” is an exaggeration. I am quite confident that the signalling systems throughout the underground are maintained to professional standards, and are safe. But yes, they are outdated, and should be replaced as soon as possible.
Greg Tingey,
A bit of an exaggeration but the equipment is very old and safe although unreliable – as you have discovered. The trouble is that trying to rush things usually leads to the delays actually getting longer so really we are stuck with what we have got for a number of years.
I suspect that, major overhaul notwithstanding, a lot of the tube is going to be on a bit of a knife edge for a few years to come as “make do and mend” is the order of the day until full-scale replacement arrives.
@ Malcolm 2116 – while I understand your healthy scepticism I do pretty much agree with what 100 & thirty said. Mr O’Toole was an inspirational MD – certainly the best one I ever worked for. He gave the organisation a focus and while people bitched about the PPP he ensured LU got the best out of the revised regime. The fact that a number of performance related practices have endured from that time says a great deal (to me). Forcing people to find out what was *really* going wrong and why and then making people find solutions is basic stuff but it wasn’t happening in such a consistent way before. That massive improvements have flowed in terms of a more reliable service is evident. As ever there is no panacea here – even the Vic Line breaks down.
I would say that PoP is absolutely right when he says several lines face a “knife edge” existence for a few years until investment flows in and ancient assets are retired. One might have hoped that the lessons of the 80s and 90s had been learnt once and for all but seemingly not because we’re back to having lines creaking because of delayed investment.
If other comments are to be believed, Edgware Road signal box is 90 years old, and still has provision for the Met R’s plan for a new tunnel from there to Finchley Road (superseded, after LT took over, the Bakerloo – now Jubilee – extension).
But as has been observed in other areas, where semaphore signals continue to operate, the old systems are simple enough to be kept working whilst several generations of modern electronics come and go. (Gaffer tape didn’t even exist in 1926!)
It does rather hint of somebody angling to get a knighthood . Surely, there is no room for such toadying in this modern age? I am sure most ordinary travellers will be using a variant of the Crossrail brand
I would have gone for the Liverpool & Bond St railway myself
@Malcolm: point taken about the many and varied ways names come about, but it does seem to me that there is one simple pattern: if a name gets taken up by the popular news media, it will stick, regardless of the intentions of the operators of the service or of enthusiasts (the Bakerloo being a case in point).
On SSL signalling: East Putney to Wimbledon is not quite the same as Amersham and Richmond because those services are operated by a self-contained fleet that it would be worth retro-fitting with the SSL signalling system (just as I believe Chiltern’s DMUs are fitted with tripcocks for running on the Met). But would SWT really fit its whole much larger fleet with the SSL signalling system just to maintain it as a diversionary and ECS route?
On the other hand, if one were looking to descope the SSL project to save money, given the ever-rising cost, then not resignalling East Putney-Wimbledon and the Richmond branch would be tempting.
@WW: Note though that unlike in the 1980s, the delays to the SSL resignalling have not been caused by under-finding, but by the mishandling of the procurement process by TfL (and Metronet before them).
I’m not sure I buy the knighthood angle, given that a) knighthoods are generally in the gift of the Prime Minister, not the Queen, and b) politicians generally get gongs when their careers are over, and I don’t think the Mayor thinks his political career is over yet. On the other hand, if you wanted to increase your appeal to Conservative Party members ahead of a leadership ballot…
Picking up on James Bunting’s point on 1 March, I remember even after TfL had announced the Overground brand there was still talk of the Underground/tube in the form of the extended East London line ‘coming to Hackney.’ I’m pretty sure local politicians and the local press kept referencing the tube even though a new identify had emerged. I guess in Hackney’s case you could argue the East London line has tube-like frequencies here before it branches out south of the river.
@Anon5 -it’s arguable that the confusion in relation to the ELL stems from the fact that for many years, it *was* part of the tube,with tube stock and tube fares.
@Anon 5/Graham H
and the remarks earlier about people saying that Forest Hill/ Norwood Junction* etc were “now on a Tube line” and wondering how they had managed without one for so long!
* surely the clue is in the word “Junction”?
Sitting on the ELL on Monday evening (Highbury and Islington to New Cross Gate,as it happens) I heard a THR (Typical Hoxton Resident) shout in to his mobile “If I get cut off,it’s because I’m on the Tube”…
@ Ian J – sorry to be pedantic but I don’t think Metronet had cocked up the SSR resignalling. IIRC they were planning on using something similar to what is on the Vic Line which is generally considered to work reasonably well. LU cancelled the proposed signalling contract when it had to clean up the mess post Metronet collapse because it believed it could secure a better deal. The rest as we say is history. And, of course, there may not have been underfunding back then but LU has managed to create its own underfunding for future line upgrades off the back of the Bombardier signalling debacle. And to try to be objective the “evil” private Tube Lines managed to select a working signalling technology that is in place on two lines and will extend to a further four albeit after the agony and anguish that was the Jubilee Line resignalling and all the associated learning for all involved.
Just to pick up on the “on the tube” point here is a snap of a local newspaper advert on the day when the Overground reached West Croydon.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24759744@N02/4631279157/in/photostream/
@PoP….Well TfL (and LRT before them) had plenty of experience in running the Tube on a shoestring during the 80s and early 90s, so hopefully they should be OK?!
@WW/others….I’m not surprised the general public thinks of the extended ELL as a Tube line, since that was how the extension was initially promoted in the 10-15 years prior to construction! And as you say, it had been a Tube line for some 80 years prior to this. I remember feeling a tinge of sadness when I learnt that the ELL would no longer be an ‘official’ Tube line, but with the huge success of its rebirth as part of the LO, who’s to argue that this wasn’t the right choice?
I suppose Hackney will have to wait for the Chelney line then to be on the Tube network……no, hold on a sec……
It seems that to a large section of the public anything on the Tube Map is part of the Tube, whether it was actually built using a shield (Wapping – Rotherhithe, the tunnel on the Watford branch) or is on a high viaduct (e.g the Mill Hill East branch).
Likewise there are tunnels built the same way that are not on the Tube map (Northern City, Heathrow Express)
And if TfL themselves call it the Tube map, who are we to argue?
WW/PoP
Re: “knife edge” “gaffer tape” etc ….
A derailment – very unusual these days, isn’t it?
WW
“On the tube” (etc)
Pathetic, isn’t it?
How these people find their own front doors, beats me …..
… & timbeau
Contrariwise, if it’s not on the “tube map” it doesn’t exist, like W Hampstead – E&C ….
We were mentioning the “London Connections” map, elsewhere, were we not?
” For it no longer matters that operationally Elizabeth will be a mainline railway, with mainline tunnels and rolling stock, mainline branches reaching as far as Reading and a mainline management structure…”
Substitute “Verney Junction” for “Reading” and the above could just as easily describe the Metropolitan Railway.
It was mostly Yerkes’ electrification of the network that brought about the splendid isolation of the sub-surface lines on the Underground. Prior to that, through-running onto other mainline railways was not unusual.
The TfL Roundel is an example of a highly stylised version of a wheel with a name across the middle. The London General Omnibus Company had a (very short-lived) logo of its own that appeared before the famous Roundel.
London’s Underground was not the first to use this motif: the London General Omnibus Company had a similar logo a few years earlier. What’s more, the motif has remained popular. For example, there’s the Mini, the very Roundel-ish Nissan logo, and Scion (a US-based car brand, if memory serves).
Even British Railways used the same motif extensively. All those logos post-date the London Transport roundel.
Originally, the roundel was a solid red disc, but when Frank Pick hired Edward Johnston to create a new typeface, the solid disc was replaced by a ring – the basis of the design we know today, and likely the reason Pick and / or Johnston tend to get the credit for it. However, the Pick/Johnston roundel has a lot of ornamentation — outlined edges, dotted lines, large and small caps, etc.
The current, much simplified, version also owes much to Hans Schleger, who produced most of the roundel designs we’re familiar with today. More here.
@Greg: I don’t find someone’s use of “tube” for a part of the Overground to be in the least pathetic. Just as I might describe as “nice gravy” something which a foodie would feel obliged to call “jus”. Not everyone has the near-obsessive interest in railways shared by you, me, and some of our contributors here. Some people just use them to get places; and that’s fine by me!
@Anomnibus
“London’s Underground was not the first to use this motif: the London General Omnibus Company had a similar logo a few years earlier……… (very short-lived) ”
According to the LTM’s site that you linked to, the LGOC used theirs from 1907 (with spokes), the Underground from 1908 (with a solid disc) , and they both used the bar and circle after they merged in 1912.
AEC also used a variant https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1295/5187569939_690f3b5238_b.jpg
Trolleybuses used another variant
http://usuaris.tinet.org/klunn/pics/bus-trolleybus-logo.png
as does London United’s modern namesake!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/12/LondonUnitedRATP.svg/150px-LondonUnitedRATP.svg.png
Once upon a time, the Tube map was known as the Journey Planner….if more and more non-Tube lines are added to it, perhaps it’s time to revert back to that name?
Indian Railways have also ‘borrowed’ the LT roundel for their station signs….even the colours match!
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trisulam_railway_station_nameboard.JPG
Actually, given his likely regnal number, maybe the Prince of Wales should let CR2 go and wait for C iii R .
@Timbeau – you mean G vii R?
In an interview in today’s ES, Boris refers to the Crossrail* tunnels having to be made 50% bigger in order to accommodate ‘German trains’ (by which he presumably means Continental gauge). The article then qualifies this with the statement that this EU directive was later overturned by the UK.
Is there any truth in this, or is Boris just being, er, Boris? ?
*Keeping this on topic, he doesn’t refer to the line by its newly christened name at any point in the interview. ?
Anonymously… the short answer is “utter rubbish”.
If you compare Crossrail train to a tube train, then it might well be 50% bigger. But………the profile of the Crossrail train is more or less the same as any other contemporary TOC suburban train, and they are more or less 200m long – roughly the same as a 10 car Thameslink train (I know that Thameslink trains are either 8-car or 12-car, but I hope you get the drift).
What Boris might have been on about is that use of metro style signalling which is held to allow more trains per hour that ETCS………but even that is challenged by Thameslink.
All thay said, Crossrail is being built to conform to the EU Technical Standards for Interoperability, using the agreed British gauge, and with the concession to allow metro signalling.
If the 345s are being built to continental loading gauge, there will be an awfully loud bang the first time one of them tried to go down the tunnel to Heathrow.
Or indeed this bridge here
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=maryland+station&biw=1600&bih=745&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwj_lc6kjqjLAhUnJpoKHfwBA8AQ_AUICCgD&dpr=1#imgrc=dSLyz7F662fc8M%3A
According to this FoI the tunnels could take GB gauge i.e. ‘German double deckers’ with some modification to the overhead supply & platforms.
It does however make it clear that the tunnel design was finalised prior to the enactment of the technical specification requiring European gauge interoperability so Boris is mistaken, the gauge is more of a coincidence rather than planned.
Far more likely that the trains will be extended first….the problems with double decker trains have been discussed to death on numerous occasions on this site, and I very much doubt the person who made the FOI request is aware of these.
Something in the official response did catch my eye though: ‘We expect that Crossrail will not reach capacity for some 30 years….’. More like 30 weeks, I think!
Anonymously – I’d imagine that the capacity they are thinking of is 32×11-car trains per hour, not the 24×9 that will be the initial maximum. 352 cars/hour vs 216 is a 60% increase in capacity and will certainly give room for growth.
Snowy. “Some modifications to the power supply and platforms” sounds straightforward. If you want to keep the railway going whilst the modifications are done, it is not straightforward; the platform edge doors would get in the way. Moreover double deck trains increase dwell time wgich used up paths on capacity constrained lines. Hence, as Si has pointed out, increasing frequency is a better bet.
On a recent trip to the Netherland, I heard from NS that they are converting many inner suburban all stations services (ie metro style) from double deck to single deck because of the former’s impact on line capacity.
Si/Anonymously
However, we’ve discussed this before.
I suspect that, once “fully open” [ i.e. through at both Paddington & Pudding Mill ] they are going to need to order the extra stock for those 11-car trains very quickly ….
@Greg
I don’t disagree, but there’s a serious amount of growth that can be absorbed by upgrades. I’d imagine that (as Anonymously suggests) within 30 months, we’d be looking at the 216 cars/hour core service hitting 4 ppl/m^2 for significant lengths, meaning that something ought to be kicking in (ie 11-car trains, bringing it up to 264 cars/hour) in about 2022. I think that will get bad before too long, but Crossrail will have to wait for OOC to open in 2026 before adding 33% more trains through the core that will tick it over for a decade or so.
Before that though, there might be ways of extending more trains beyond Paddington, as well as optimising the service pattern on the GWML – eg the expiration of the HEx contract.
However, by the 2040s, we’re clearly looking at a railway with reasonable crowding (4+ppl/m^2) and no chance of ekeing more capacity out of it. Ideally before then – rather than waiting to 2048 when it reaches significant 6+ppl/m^2 full on crush-loading (ie ‘at capacity’) – a line relieving it should come into play. If we consider an optimistic 20 year time-frame from concept to opening (eg ~2012 for Chelney to be transformed into the CR2 behemoth, with a ~2032 opening) we need that conceptual Crossrail relief route (CR3?) to be published in the next couple of years.
Si
Budget in just over a week & a half.
What’s the odds on Geo O putting down a big marker for CR2, & guaranteeing starting digging before the next election, if not sooner?
@various comments above re: Elizabeth Line capacity: there’s a nice chart in this week’s Economist magazine showing how peaky the use of the current TfL network is and how it has evolved since 2003.
A great feature of the ’15 billion pound railway’, to my mind, is the relentless focus on delivering the agreed product to time and to budget.
Secondly, the way the team are thinking about maintenance for the next 30 years, because of the structure of the contract, is commendable and was not seen in comparable UK projects (eg Eurotunnel). As I understand it, at least.
I know this thread is primarily about the name, but it does seem to me that it behoves us to pause to celebrate what has been achieved (& is in prospect) before carping. The contrast between the Crossrail project and, for example, the Thameslink work is striking.
I hope that Crossrail will rehabilitate railway engineering in the eyes of its paymasters, despite the Western electrification fiasco, so that GB gets a series of projects (high speed, more London regional railways, a Liverpool-Hull connection, BakerLew, etc) to support our quality of life in the 21st century and beyond.
On the subject of “tube” as a sticky name for deep underground railways, I believe it derives from the “Tuppenny Tube” nickname for the Shep’s Bush to Bank line.
In comparing the perceived (and probably also actual) success of the Crossrail project by comparison with Thameslink improvements, I suspect a lot of the difference can be attributed to it being a new piece of line (in spite of numerous interfaces, obviously, with existing ones), contrasted with an upgrade, where there seem to be a lot more unknown unknowns.
Greg Tingey 5 March 2016 at 13:47
” a big marker for CR2, & guaranteeing starting digging before the next election”
I think that time scale is very optimistic. Getting detailed enough designs to get a Bill into Parliament before the next election would be optimistic.
The Chancellor represents Tatton in Cheshire. He’d be wise to bear in mind the “Manchester Evening News” and its capacity to revive its “Northern Powercut” slogan and campaign for electrification from Stalybridge to Leeds and beyond to start before London’s Crossrail 2.
OB
As usual HMT only “notice” the failures.
Many other electrification projects have succeeded.
Same as Trams, they remember Edinburgh & ignore Manchester ….
@Malcolm – I suspect the perceived success of Crossrail is due to the fact that currently there are no trains scheduled to run, so no-one can notice there are no trains running. The construction does seem to be progressing very well indeed, so everyone also has high hopes for the actual operation.
Compare to Thameslink, where there are plenty of trains scheduled to run, and plenty of customers to notice when they don’t. Me being one of them.
Agreed that comparing the construction of a brand new line (CR1) with the major upgrade of an existing line (TLK) is like comparing apples and oranges. Of course it is going to be far more disruptive, expensive, complicated and risky to upgrade a line whilst attempting to keep it (largely) in operation at the same time. Compared to the JLE fiasco though (which is the nearest comparable project in London from the last 25 years), it has been far better managed.
FWIW, with the suggestion of further spending cuts to come, I consider unlikely that the Chancellor will commit to funding CR2 in the next budget, especially before he knows who he is going to be dealing with in City Hall post May 5th…..
Off topic somewhat but is the British economy that bad that major and from the sound of it contiuing cuts to every thing. transport in particular, really necessary to the extent apparently being contemplated.
@Alan blue mountains: in a word, yes. Primary problems are the government deficit and the trade deficit. Plenty elsewhere on the Internet.
@alanbluemountains – it depends on which set of politicians you believe.* (If the answer to that is “none of the above” then you may be nearing a truth…)
*I was particularly struck by Boris actually using the phrase “sunny uplands” – not sure where these are; perhaps something that the 1940-1950 New Works Programme might have reached?
@alanbluemountains/oldbuccaneer
Depends on whether you see spending as profligacy or investment. It is facile to compare running a country’s budget with running a household.
The government expects students to operate on a deficit budget.
Re Anonymously,
Except George wants recommendations from the National Infrastructure Commission before the budget next week! So NIC report this week?
CR2 would require very little money before 2020 (more design work and the hybrid bill process) when there happen to be both Mayoral and General elections. CR2 is a very cheap promise in the short term which is ideal for everyone! George has to look to the young generations for votes in the 2020 and 2025 elections.
Re Alan Blue Mountains,
A former chancellor managed to add circa £35bn in annual expenditure in such a way that is proves very difficult to dismantle and we have been borrowing more than double that annually for decade to cover the deficit.
Re Timbeau,
Exactly and that is why the government differentiates between capital and annually managed expenditure. The current government seems to like the former and tries to cut the latter.
E.g CR/HS2/CR2/BakerLewisham good, but TOC subsidies / TfL annual grant ( or TfL fare freezes) bad
@Timbeau – with my ears open for the vorpal blades of the moderators – governments spend other people’s money raised through tax or by borrowing. Current account spending includes eg wages and salaries of government employees, revenue subsidies for transport, (most) social security and pensions payments; capital spending includes holes in the ground (eg the Elizabeth Line, wrenching this post back on topic), (most) GWML electrification and ships aircraft and tanks for the armed services. Capital spending creates an asset with multi-year life; current spending does not. ‘Profligacy’ and ‘investment’ are merely hoorah-boo words, in this context.
Financing the deficit is key. Students bring forward future income to finance expenditure today. I believe the Elizabeth line has pledged future ticket revenue to obtain cash to finance construction. As I said above: plenty more elsewhere on the Internet.
@Old Buccaneer
The somewhat crude distinction between capital and revenue expenditure really will not do. Every piece of capital investment creates a need for revenue expenditure for maintenance and operation. If taken to its illogical conclusion, a public policy that was prepared to fund capital only (that is, the current treasury policy towards TfL) would over time result in the run down of existing assets and their replacement with new capital spend. This may sound like a good idea but it is certainly an expensive idea as good preventative maintenance can frequently extend the life of capital hungry assets very considerably as well as resulting in a net lower public spend.
Proper assessment of investment proposals will take into account whole-life costs but this is not going to help unless budgetting matches this throughout the life of the asset.
Yes, it’s getting political. However, as long as certain principles are followed (as they have been, just about, hitherto) the blades might remain undeployed (though poised ready for use).
An incomplete list of rules follows:
1) Remain courteous and respect other views
2) Keep at least the tip of one foot on the ground of transport-relevance
3) Deploy ample quantities of “it is widely believed”, “it is often claimed” and similar, rather than making bold assertions of contentious propositions.
4) Each post should make a new point, rather than (or in addition to) agreeing/disagreeing with another. (Yes-it-is/No-it-isn’t sequences will be mercilessly chopped, and may bring other stuff down with them).
@Old Buccaneer
“governments spend other people’s money raised through tax or by borrowing.”
The phrase “other people’s money” is spin, just as “government money” is spin of the opposite kind. Those “other people” are actually the people who put them there, to do just that – to spend money on things that are better done collectively – like defence, or building roads and railways. We may disagree with how much money should be spent on those things, or whether they are best done collectively, but anyone with responsibility for money, whether raised by tax, shares, subscriptions, donations, or whatever, is entrusted to use it wisely and in accordance of the wishes of the people who provided the funds.
@Quinlet
“The somewhat crude distinction between capital and revenue expenditure really will not do. Every piece of capital investment creates a need for revenue expenditure for maintenance and operation.”
Moreover, politicians and transport operators alike blur the distinction by referring to all spending on new kit as “investment”, when an accountant would view it as business-as-usual replacement of life-expired assets. This includes, for example, all the new Underground trains of 2009 and S stock (except the one additional train for the Croxley link!).
quinlet 7 March 2016 at 12:36
I think your point
“policy that was prepared to fund capital only (that is, the current treasury policy towards TfL) would over time result in the run down of existing assets and their replacement with new capital spend”
does not have the power that it used to have.
The reason, seen over the past 15 – 20 years or so, it that some technologies have become so robust that the products need far less maintenance than any previous generations of technology. Obviously, this depends on a very high quality build in the first place.
The public policy problem is that policy is usually led by people who don’t have enough science to get this point. Therefore they think they’ve been ever so clever in designing a financial and contract regime, when the first question should be
How robust is this kit and how long should we expect it to last?
Hence daft things, such as PFI contracts for School kitchens, when the kit won’t last as long as the contract.
Well, you are all probably wrong [we are, but a bald assertion like this should be dressed up in more respectful language, please. (Malcolm)] … The overlooked thing is that the public sector is not capitalised (UK plc doesn’t exist). The Treasury runs on cash topped up by borrowing – nominally allocated to capital projects but not contrarywise. The whole issue is then completely obscured by the PFI/PPP effect, which substitutes cash expenditure on the revenue account for borrowing to finance capex. (In effect, PPP moves asset purchase and the associated cash flow out of the public sector, which would otherwise take the hit in the year of purchase, and replaces it with a much longer hit on the public sector cash flow.
Graham H 7 March 2016 at 14:36
” The whole issue is then completely obscured by the PFI/PPP effect, ”
Yeah, that’s what I meant by
“Therefore they think they’ve been ever so clever in designing a financial and contract regime, when the first question should be
How robust is this kit and how long should we expect it to last?”
@Alan Griffiths 🙂 Not only that, but if the body paying the utilisation charge for asset defaults, the banks are left with the ownership of a prison or whatever. Needless to say, this is not poular in the financial community and they price the risk of default into charges. This doesn’t happen very often in the UK (but certainly in other jurisdictions), but UK public bodies – for obvious reasons make the PPP charges the first call on their revenues and this squeezes, of course, the headroom for doing anything else in the future (including replacing worn out kit which may still be subject to a PPP deal!).
@Graham H:
*I was particularly struck by Boris actually using the phrase “sunny uplands” – not sure where these are; perhaps something that the 1940-1950 New Works Programme might have reached?
Boris seems to have been alluding to Churchill’s speech, changing an adjective to reduce accusations of plagiarism, while retaining reverberations of the original.
Last paragraph:
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/233-1940-the-finest-hour/122-their-finest-hour
@Malcolm – “There is a sense in which, taking into account the many mitigating circumstances, and after making due allowance for the relative positions taken by the diverse individuals concerned, it could be said that there is a high degree of improbability that a positive answer could be given to the question as to whether the correspondence so far represented the actual situation as it would appear to an informed observer.”* Will that do?
Or to quote the opening line of the White Devil “All damned” ? Better?
*With apologies to the Master.
Graham asks “Will that do?”.
No. But thanks for trying. 🙂
I’ll stick with the Webster, then!
@Graham H ‘UK plc doesn’t exist’. Annoyingly, it does as a concept or ‘meme’; with an unexamined (& in my view misleading) implication that all governance & choice issues are soluble by the application of Victorian era company law, with a light sprinkling of mid-late 20th century amendments some of which originate in the EU.
I believe the bigger problem is that UK public bodies live by a very different form of accountancy (& ergo accountability) which takes insufficient account of the balance sheet (particularly but not only fixed assets and the relationship between depreciation and replacement). “Cash limits” on public expenditure compound the problem.
Side effects observed include the economically illiterate conflation of CapEx and OpEx; insufficient renewals; ‘penny wise pound foolish’ upgrades (ECML electrification seems be the favourite ‘dog with a bad name’). As your earlier interventions elsewhere demonstrate, 19th century railway company directors also fell short in many of these areas.
We know more now and should seek to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’ in this area as we do in the engineering fields.
@Old Buccaneer – Quite right. To illustrate the point in practical terms,BR ‘s accounts had the form of Companies Act accounts complete with a depreciation provision – except that it wasn’t. In a normal commercial company depreciation reserves are accrued and drawn down against cash, as necessary to avoid “asset impairment” (as the jargon has it – to avoid running down the business to you and me). In the case of nationalised industries, that, in effect, with a Treasury IOU (dressed up as some sort of reserve). But try and cash such an IOU on the automatic grounds that the assets needed replacement and you wouldn’t succeed; the case had to be made separately and specifically on every occasion. Needless to say, in practical terms, this meant that the taxpayer was taking cash out of the industry every year. Indeed, shortly before the year’s end, my team would carry out a “sweeper” operation to strip out any cash lurking down the back of BR’s sofa. And talking of SOFA’s, it was TomWinsor’s regulatory fix that meant that that cash-, not accrual-based system was blown out of the water. NR now had to have the cash that paid for the asset replacement, whether the Treasury liked it or not…
The root of the problem is that – whatever the meme (is that a kind of goose?) may be – the national accounts do not capitalise the UK asset base, not even that portion in public ownership. The Treasury really do believe that cash is best left to be economically productive in the hands of the private sector and therefore they do not wish to build up cash reserves against the need to replace assets. There is also the constitutional doctrine that a parliament cannot bind its successor, so any normal private sector machinery for carrying over accrued liabilities in respect of decaying assets would be simply truncated at the time of the next election, any way. Hence that Treasury argument of last resort ; “It cannot be afforded”.
Without wishing to defend the Treasury, it is not clear what purpose would be served by attempting to capitalise the public sector (even if it could be done – capitalising LRT eventually baffled the finest accounting minds even tho’ that was a trading enterprise). The point of depreciation and the associated accounting provisions is to prevent a company from becoming insolvent through running down the business. The UK couldn’t become insolvent in the sense that it would cease to function financially or economically, although it might, of course, have to default on its debts and depreciate the currency; it would, even so, continue trading even if that trade had to be based on the sale of toasted rats to passing sovereign wealth fund managers (or, as LBM would remind us, the all-conquering Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund).
The situation is further complicated of course by the use of companies. I’m sure others here know much more than me but I think a company like HS2 Ltd does / will capitalise its assets into a balance sheet.
@ Quinlet 1236 – the irony, of course, with the current obsession with capex funding is that, as you say, it flies in the face of all of the lovely overarching terms written into the PPP (and elsewhere) about “good industry practice”, “best available technology not entailing excessive cost (BATNEEC)” and “whole life costing”. By potentially starving TfL of its ability to spend wisely we may end up in an unholy mess. LU has spent decades getting its head around the condition of its assets and developing cohesive strategies to try to spend limited funds in the best fashion to deliver the optimal output.
The further irony is that Old Bucaneer quoted the Economist and I flitted over to look at their website. In there there is an article saying the Chancellor is currently planning to see a further reduction in capex spend by 2020 (in percentage terms). It also highlights again the strange political obsession with mega projects (big digs as they term them) and the unwillingness / inability to fund smaller, less exciting but nonetheless effective projects or revenue spending (e.g. bus service spending) that would genuinely support economic activity / growth / education and training opportunities.
@ Ngh – apparently the NIC report on Transport is due out on Thursday of this week (based on tweet I saw last week).
@ Old Bucaneer – you know I’m not so pessimistic about Thameslink’s progress. Yes we can all laugh it was originally called Thameslink 2000 but wasn’t it politics, planning issues and rail privatisation that caused the massive delays? I am happy to be corrected but I think the actual project works to develop / change the infrastructure have pretty much run to time albeit the impacts on the service have been severe at times (planned and unplanned). Given the scale of what is being done on a working railway it’s pretty impressive. As I have said before Crossrail faces its biggest challenges in getting the new line fully fitted out, commissioned and tested and then joined up with the running railway. Thameslink has kept running all the way through and has different challenges although they have some parallels with Crossrail (new signalling in a core section and meshing into routes either side, new fleet, new depots).
@WW – “…you know I’m not so pessimistic about Thameslink’s progress. Yes we can all laugh it was originally called Thameslink 2000 but wasn’t it politics, planning issues and rail privatisation that caused the massive delays?…&c.”
Yes, the project is going as well as can be expected on the face of it but the trouble is that certain aspects of design both in track layout and rolling stock are inadequate, as discussed before on LR.
The restricted track access forever dictating the train turnaround frequency on the terminating (Southern) side at London Bridge is one and the related design of the platform provision at Blackfriars is another. Those aspects will be hard to resolve and have little chance of being so.
However, more flexible (perhaps at the remote end of “short term”) are the new rolling stock (Class 700) shortcomings so far as the passenger is concerned, because they are only now really coming to greater awareness as the time approaches for the stock to be accepted following testing and handing over to the franchisee. This is, of course, because the DfT dictated the specification for passenger accommodation and especially the Standard Class seating – and I predict a blast of passenger indignation which will unfortunately be directed against Southern/GTR, of no fault of their own, once the passengers get a chance to use the stock.
ngh suggested last year to a selected few his splendid 1st April gizmo which I suggest would sell well amongst Brighton line commuters using the Class 700’s to help solve one problem. He may be willing to share it with you all here. I understand during a discussion I had yesterday, that topic is now more than a joke with those who will have to run the trains.
@ Graham H thank you. I am not proposing capitalising the *whole* public sector; just applying UK GAAP to the transport bits. An alternative would be to make a list of malign effects of the current regime and tackle them one by one. But that would probably require more political and bureaucratic effort than will ever be available. I am having a Webster moment.
@Kate: I think Graham answered your question. Yes Companies Act accounts; no cash on balance sheet.
@ Walthamstow Writer, second half of para 2: another side effect of the ‘Treasury view’.
@Old Buccaneer – “Servus”as we old Austro-Hungarian officials were wont to say. Seriously, though, applying GAAP to lossmaking public transport businesses turns out to be less than straightforward. When we renationalised LT back in 1983, the Underground business was represented in the balance sheet by the sum of the total capex investments since a base date (forget which, now). This sum was then depreciated. This approach neatly sidestepped the tricky issue of capitalising the tunnels and other very long life assets, whilst providing a measure of how far the rest of the kit was being maintained. This wasn’t good enough for the then SoS (Ridley) who wanted the whole thing “properly” capitalised. The City accounting firm (Robson Rhodes) brought in to advise concluded that that was impossible – as their senior partner put it to me “The trouble is is that their liabilities (ie the requirement to run a service) are assets because they earn money (grant) whereas their assets (kit) are simply liabilities because they require constant spend.” Other bases for valuation such as alternative use value tripped up on the theological discussion as to whether tube tunnels have any serious alternative use (mushrooms excluded) or, indeed, what the Modern Equivalent Asset of the London Underground might be. In the end, Ridley simply named £500m as the (woefully inadequate) capital of the Underground and £100m for the buses. This decision had tax consequences which are probably not for this thread.
GF
and I predict a blast of passenger indignation which will unfortunately be directed against Southern/GTR, of no fault of their own, once the passengers get a chance to use the stock.
Unless, of course, GTR simply turn around & tell everyone: “Don’t blame us, DfT insisted on this [insert suitable pejorative descriptor $_HERE ] – why don’t you run & complain to your MP?”
@Greg Tingey – Unless of course, GTR have a gagging clause somewhere in their contract in the manner of FGW.
Although the Departmental accounts (and the Blue Book and so on) continue as they did, I thought the recent innovation of the Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) were now (mandated by EU I think?) prepared in accordance with IPSAS standards – a public sector version of IFRS including capitalisation of assets and liabilities (although presumably patchy due to non-availability of data).
https://www.nao.org.uk/report/report-of-the-comptroller-and-auditor-general-whole-of-government-accounts-2013-14/
@ML – very patchy! (The issue has been discussed now for many decades – a lot of Whitehall attention was paid to the NZ government accounts back in the ’70s. which claimed to show the capitalisation of assets and liabilities. The endless difficulty is finding a reasonable basis for valuing assets which have no market value, let alone those for which no data are available for all the obvious reasons. ) To pick up Old Buccanneer’s implied point: what would you do anyway if you had this knowledge ? You would not buy a new Navy or Stonehenge on the basis that the assets were not being properly replaced. As the BR example shewed, there are ways round the presentation of the accounts anyway. The UK is a going concern whether its publicly owned assets are impaired or not. There is no legal obligation for it to continue to trade in particular sectors and it can’t go bankrupt in a Companies Act way. It’s not obvious what one is supposed to do.
What’s wrong with the Class 700s?
Anon 17.16: the comparison with some aspects of what they replace. It would be fun to make a comparison with the views of the former users of the Metropolitan Railway’s Pullman cars, but it wouldn’t be a very fair comparison so I won’t!
@Caspar – very cryptic…
I say again, what’s wrong with the Class 700s?? And what have Pullman cars got to do with anything #confused
@Anon
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiD1JKt0LHLAhWL2xoKHVkRBDUQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.railfuture.org.uk%2Fdl1103&usg=AFQjCNFWyMTZvWxjtW5soUftHvHpJhSaUw
reports that optimising for short-haul passengers in the core has resulted in a number of compromises – hard seats (it’s a long way from Peterborough to Gatwick!), very little face to face seating (and most of what there is in 1st class), inadequate luggage space (especially for a line serving two airports) and no more seats in a 12-car 700 than there are in an 8-car 319.
However, there is plenty of space for those people who need to sit down to bring their own chairs. Is there a rule that says they have to be on wheels?
@timbeau – thanks, very interesting. Highlights the difficulty of trying to design stock to suit both inner-city metro services and long-distance airport transfers. Can that circle ever be squared?
I think Caspar’s point was that, whether on the Brighton Line or the Metropolitan, or indeed the L&Y’s “Club Trains”, pressure on passenger accommodation means that we are all reduced to the lowest common denominator, and there is no longer any room for this sort of thing, however much their erstwhile users might have wished it could remain.
https://www.ravensburger.com/produktseiten/1024/19589_1.jpg
It is fair to say that it’s just as well that the Brighton Belle had soft seats as the ride was truly terrible. If the class 700 seats are no worse than on class 350/450, I won’t be too upset……much better than the latest Electrostars (and nothing to do with renaming Crossrail!) Of course, we may get the opportunity to try Brighton Belle with reasonable bogies.
@timbeau – the comparison isn’t quite right – both the Met Pullmans and the L&Y Club Cars* were separate vehicles attached to an ordinary train – in which the punters sat in the usual “dog box” comfort… More, there were usually only one or two trains to which these vehicles were attached
* I really like the idea of a steamer trip to Lakeside followed by a Furness/L&Y Club Car trip to Manchester as a daily commute. As with the GC 2 car expresses of the ’90s, the privileged really had a quite different service to the ordinary punters.
@Graham H
Indeed, but the contrast between the best and worst seats on the train was much greater on a Met train conveying a Pullman car (or indeed a 6PUL*) than between 1st and 2nd on any train today.
Yesterday I was in a 458, which had a 1st class section downgraded as it was a 2nd class only service. I don’t consider myself outrageously portly, but the seats even in 1st class were cramped – so much that with the armrest folded out I was held in a vice-like grip.
* for our younger readers: the 6PULs were the express units which launched the electric service to Brighton: each unit included one Pullman car. The Brighton Belle was operated by special all-Pullman 5-car units.
@timbeau – absolutely: the difference between 1st and 2nd on most GTR units is hardly worth noticing (maybe an antimacassar at best),let alone paying good money for.
Lord Dawlish writes – can’t understand what the fuss is about; I have my saloon added at my private station and slipped just before on the return.
Anon 17.47: apologies – failed to find the appropriate bons mots due to rapidly approaching my station (as it happens, on an LM 172 – most definitely an improvement on the previous 150s, but nonetheless with fewer seats in the 2-car variant).
Timbeau 17.48: I think it is the case that wheelchair users legally have a privileged position in the event of a contested wheelchair space, although the scope of the titular Persons of Reduced Mobility in the PRM-TSI includes those with heavy luggage, young children, pregnancy etc. (as well as impaired eyesight and so on). Incidentally wheelchair space provision is dependent on train length, hence the 700/0s having two and the 700/1s three. And to head off a familiar debate: no, it is not required that they are provided in each class of accommodation (although back when RVAR applied to mainline rail that did seem to be the idea and it is aimed for in intercity trains).
Timbeau 18.13: spot on, except I would probably have referred to changing priorities rather than “lowest common denominator”!
GH 19.41: well, I did specify the *users* of the Pullmans, as well as acknowledging that it wasn’t a fair comparison…
Seating capacity of a Pullman car was as little as 20 in a first class kitchen car. Such profligate use of space is simply pout of the question with the current numbers of people travelling.
The sort of people who used to travel regularly by Pullman would probably now make the journey by chauffeur-driven limousine, if not by helicopter.
http://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/w/images/Brighton_Belle_Bournemouth_Belle,_carriage_layout_(BB-BBl).jpg
But look at the fares! Today a standard class single fare to Brighton costs £27 (give or take 20p, depending whether it is off peak or anytime). In 1963, a First Class Pullman London to Brighton ticket cost 19s2d, equivalent to about £18 in today’s prices.
Indeed, a 2nd class Pullman round trip in 1963 cost less in real terms (12s9d each way) than a one-way trip in 2nd class today.
Back on topic, sort of – the Brighton Belle units were often pressed into service for Royal Train duty when the Queen was travelling on the Southern. Look what the poor old dear has been reduced to now. Truly she is at one with her subjects.
http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/bg/Queen+Elizabeth+II+Queen+Elizabeth+King+Cross+yHJ9BqAc6Xcl.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e2/2c/49/e22c49c997f6fd9f4eaa12d0a98bb5f9.jpg
Re 100andthirty
” If the class 700 seats are no worse than on class 350/450, I won’t be too upset……much better than the latest Electrostars”
You will be upset then as the 700s have Fainsa’s finest ironing boards in standard!
A 700 motor car will be about half the weight of a BEL motor car (heaviest UK EMU car by along way) which might explain some of the ride quality difference!
@Graham H: the difference between 1st and 2nd on most GTR units is hardly worth noticing (maybe an antimacassar at best),let alone paying good money for.
Surely in commuterland 1st you are paying for the absence of 2nd class passengers, rather than any particular upholstery…
@Ian J – well, there is that, but then the lower classes have a habit of coming and standing in first class anyway. The commercial theory behind first class wasn’t so much that the polloi weren’t about as that you could be guaranteed a seat. In GTR-land, the small scale, poorly differentiated,and wholly unpoliced distinction between first and standard seems to make the whole exercise pretty pointless.
Having first class may seem pointless to passengers. But its benefit to the operators is the extra fares received. Of course, if no-one bought a first class ticket, this benefit would reduce to zero, but people are not entirely rational, and it seems that some people are still buying them, even if we cannot figure out exactly why.
@Malcolm – just so – the yield per sq metre is higher (in theory, although intense overcrowding in second class tends to undermine that).
The commercial justification for first class seems to be lost on some operators. Given that a ‘proper’ first class section has fewer seats per square metre than standard class, (e.g. 3 across in total compared with Standard’s ‘normal’ 4), the premium paid has to make up for the fewer passengers per coach. Looking at some intercity trains, and how empty first class can be off-peak, I wonder if the distinction actually washes its face.
@Fandroid – yes; FGW seems particularly curious in that respect -I travel quite often to S Wales, and after about 0900 I am usually one of only about two or three punters in First. Having the coach to myself is not unusual. Second class is by contrast, invariably heaving.
@Caspar Lucas
“I think it is the case that wheelchair users legally have a privileged position in the event of a contested wheelchair space, .”
There is no licencing system for wheelchair users, and you don’t need to be registered disabled to have one, so anyone can legally take one with them on a train – and presumably sit on it, as you might any other substantial piece of luggage!
Graham H
Like the Rothschild Saloons on the “Met” you mean?
Re Malcolm
And DfT get their cut from the TOC too via reduced subsidy /higher returns.
Re Graham H and Ian J,
Given the number of passengers on TSGN routes south of the river claiming they were pushed into standing in first by those boarding later (quite often legitimately), the TOC has gone rather quiet on the subject when a number of individuals were going to challenge potential penalties in court and were asking for CCTV from the trains to prove the standing density was above 2pax/m2 so first should have been declassified and the conductor had been remiss. (MPs on routes with service cuts due to the London Bridge rebuild had also got involved.) Hence Southern have been very quiet lately on standing in 1st when it is busy.
Sorry, my linkie at 2353 doesn’t work here it is again
http://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/w/images/Brighton_Belle_Bournemouth_Belle,_carriage_layout_(BB-BBl).jpg
(the .jpg is part of the url)
And here is a third class Pullman http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/cw_news/cwn-pic/car64_int_davec_26nov06h.jpg.
In real terms, the RETURN fare on one of these was the same as the standard class off peak SINGLE fare today. Such is progress.
I always believed that First Class only makes any financial sense on a very few major routes.
I would suggest that the reason it is maintained as well as STANDARD class (I am sure you all refer to it as Second Class to wind me up) is because:
– the fear that some First Class travellers would not travel by train at all if forced to sit/stand with the hoi polloi
– the danger that opinion formers and a vital echelon of society with influence (whether this is right or not is not the issue and not for debate) would go either only go first class or be driven by their chauffeur or catch a scheduled plane or private jet and so crucial decision making would not be supportive of the railways as it would be made by people who never used them.
@poP
A first class ticket brings in more revenue than what my grandmother, even in the 1980s, insisted on referring to as Third Class (the station between Charing Cross and London Bridge was always Waterloo Junction to her as well).
As long as some people are prepare to pay the extra for it, and an equivalent number of oi polloi are not being driven away (unlikely on a commuter line, where most passengers have little choice), and the penalties for exceeding PIXC standards in steerage are non-existent, the economics suggest offering First Class earns more revenue and costs very little.
However, I would agree that on longer distance services, or those where practical alternatives are available, revenue may be lost from optional travellers who are deterred from travelling (or at least repeating the experience) because of crowding if insufficient space can be provided in the cheap seats because so much space is allocated for the posh ones.
Bear in mind that because of the greater seat pitch as well as 2+1 seating, removing each first class seat makes space for nearly two in standard format, (e.g 41v76 in an IC225 according to Virgin East Coast’s seating plans) as well as the extra space for standing passengers who are excluded from the wide acres of a First Class carriage.
(And I didn’t mention “second class” once!)
Timbeau 10.20: Yes, I believe you are correct. What I was trying to describe was the legal protections of the Disability Discrimation Act which (logically) do not protect non-disabled people. The DDA is, I think, the ultimate cause for the PRM-TSI being applied (including the proportionate approach to application that the DfT is following that does not, for example, insist on expensively widening door apertures even where they are narrower than the TSI requires). As a result, even though the term PRM covers – and the measures put in place benefit – both non-disabled and disabled people, only the latter have a protection enshrined in law (as I understand it).
Hence – I’ll qualify this with “I think” again – a person with a disability requiring a wheelchair has a legal claim to a wheelchair space occupied by a non-disabled person, whether the latter is standing, seated in a flip-down seat, with a baby in a pram, sitting on a large suitcase or indeed seated in a wheelchair.
Hopefully that all makes some sense and might even answer the point being debated…
timbeau
“third-class Pullman” was a wonderful wheeze, if you were awake to it.
Many years ago, I’ve been on the both the “Yorkshire Pullman” & the “Master Cutler” ….
@Caspar Lucas – yes,there have been some unsavoury incidents in which bus drivers have ejected mothers with pushchairs to make room for people in wheel chairs. As I understood the subsequent litigation, the drivers were in the wrong to eject the pushchair users entirely but the question was left hanging as to what would happen if there was no alternative room for the push chair. I imagine the correct procedure would be then for the driver to deny access to the bus to the subsequent wheelchair user (as he wouldhave to, presumably, if there were a number of subsequent wheelchair users trying to board later.) TfL (and other operators) have made it clear that drivers are not expect to remove one class of passenger to make room for another.
I think the case law has established that no-one has the right to bounce someone who is already on board off the bus altogether but that, between the people on the bus, the wheelchair user has first rights on the wheelchair space as that is the only safe place to put it. The assumption being that a buggy can be folded and its occupant sit on the lap of the person who brought it on board: which itself assumes someone else will give up their seat to said parent-and-child.
Of course, the downside to all this is that, if the baby was initially asleep, it is now screaming its head off.
@timbeau – indeed, as I said. What is perhaps less clear is what that means for rail transport. Unlike buses, the wheelchair space is unsupervised – and you could argue that there is (almost) always room to squeeze up to allow the passengers to shift round; but then again, there’s no one around (especially in such circumstances) to enforce any regulations. You rightly also draw attention to the presumption that the pushchair can be folded; the law seems silent on the matter of prams and their drivers. (I was on a bus recently where there was a wheelchair and two prams – somehow, we all managed but at the cost of several minutes delay whilst all those sitting near the circulating space rearranged themselves.)
Note for LBM – English English has a useful distinction between pushchairs, where the passenger sits upright, and prams where they lie down. The latter can’t usually be folded.
Re Graham H and Timbeau,
TfL Policy:
https://tfl.gov.uk/transport-accessibility/pregnant-women-and-pushchairs
So still not quite clear if share / move / fold permutations don’t happen.
But it is also the case that TfL specifically haven’t made wheelchair priority mandatory arguing that legislation (using the TfL Byelaws) won’t help and they would rather rely on co-operation.
It is not the same with all bus companies and I believe the situation is different in Reading for example.
So, the Class 700s are a bit cramped in Standard Class? Evidently Siemens have just transplanted the (IMHO) claustrophobic layout from the Desiro sets…..
@Caspar Lucas: no, it is not required that they are provided in each class of accommodation (although back when RVAR applied to mainline rail that did seem to be the idea
You mean the European regulations are less onerous than the UK ones they replaced? Better not tell Boris that!
@PoP:
I would suggest that the reason it is maintained as well as STANDARD class (I am sure you all refer to it as Second Class to wind me up) is because
Another possible reason – railway employees on privilege tickets like having the option of travelling First.
First Capital Connect also used to have a cunning ruse on multi-operator routes like Luton-London: offer a TOC-specific First season ticket for the same cost as an all-TOCs
Third SecondStandard class season. Because it was restricted to the one TOC they got to keep 100% of the revenue instead of having to share it under ORCATS.Ian J 02.14: well, given the unlikelihood of ever achieving wheelchair space + toilet provision for all classes in all trains I’m slightly unclear where that would ultimately have got to. A more obvious example is doorway width for wheelchair accessible routes into and inside the train, which is less restrictive in PRM-TSI than RVAR (and made Class 158/159 compliant as a result). However, the targeted compliance approach by DfT is actually the key, with many compliance points simply deemed not required on a fleet-by-fleet basis.
On a related point, note that the 2020 (targeted) compliance deadline is a UK decision and does not apply across the EU.
“well, given the unlikelihood of ever achieving wheelchair space + toilet provision for all classes in all trains ”
It may be that you can only achieve one at the expense of the other. Back in the 1980s even inner-suburban units were being built with toilets – see classes 456, 465, but the increasingly space-hungry requirements for them to be wheelchair-accessible, as well as increasing passenger numbers, meant that subsequent orders (class 376) complied with the letter of making all toilets accessible by not having any at all, and the 456s had them removed – although I note that around the same time Glasgow’s similar and contemporary Class 320s were having them retro-fitted!
Re Caspar, Timbeau, Ian J,
Virgin Crosscountry /WestCoast when introducing the Voyagers had planned for 3 class (airline style) hence the all toilets being disabled ones to cater for disabled seating in all 3 classes thus wasting lots of space when everyone complains about not enough seating.
re numbering/naming the Oveground (mentioned higher up in this thread), Jug Cerovic’s elegant alternative map of London’s rail network – you can see it here:
http://www.inat.fr/metro/london/#prettyPhoto
simply gives the overground numbers from 1 to 6 on the basis that
1 Richmond/Clapham Junction to Stratford
2 Gospel Oak to Barking
3 Euston to Watford Junction
4 Highbury to New Cross/Crystal Palace/West Croydon/Clapham Junction
5 Liverpool Street to Enfield Town/Cheshunt/Chingford
6 Romford to Upminster
It seems to work
Timbeau 10.25: Of course none of the types you refer to have more than one class of accommodation.
Ngh 12.58: That is how I understand it too, associated with the (apparent) then-RVAR requirement for wheelchair accommodation in each class and fairness in provision of facilities including toilets. But while you can achieve this in – particularly – lengthy intercity trains (Pendolinos and Mark IV rakes come to mind), the Voyagers demonstrate the point that it is intrinsically very difficult to demand the same in most multiple unit stock where units are typically four vehicles but can be as low as two* without eating too much into seating or standing space. This would appear to be principally because it is rather difficult to devise an interior layout where a single universal accessible toilet serves two classes of accommodation, and even where wide inter-car connections are specifically designed as wheelchair passegeways** there is still a penalty in seating capacity***.
*Class 153 is a particularly fascinating but special case which anyway is neither two-class nor relevant to London.
**Only Class 700 to date, since there are no facilities other than the adjacent door to reach from the wheelchair spaces on Class 378, S Stock or indeed Class 345 or 710.
***Not sure whether first class 2+1 seating could allow a PRM-TSI compliant wheelchair passageway in a theoretical rearrangement of the middle vehicles of a Class 700 rake (but in any case this would still be a capacity penalty compared to the actual 2+2 first class layout).
@Caspar Lucas: note that the 2020 (targeted) compliance deadline is a UK decision and does not apply across the EU
I recall one of Captain Deltic’s law’s being “Ministers only claim to be forced by Europe to do things that they want to do anyway”.
it is rather difficult to devise an interior layout where a single universal accessible toilet serves two classes of accommodation
Indeed, First Class in most commuter units doesn’t actually have a toilet of any kind, since it is just a few bays at the end of the train, and the passengers have to mingle with the lower orders when necessary*. I assume the (hypothetical, now superseded) rule would have been that if you don’t provide a non-accessible class-specific toilet, you don’t have to provide an accessible one.
*Didn’t 19th century railway stations used to have separate, ahem, facilities for the different classes of traveller? I’m not sure if the Windsor stations’ Royal Waiting Rooms had appropriately exclusive provision, although I can’t imagine Queen Victoria ever having to actually wait for a train anyway. But I suppose merely having a Royal Waiting Room was good PR for the railway companies, and it seems from this thread that trying to bask in the reflected glamour of monarchy is still something that appeals to transport operators.
@PoP – “I would suggest that the reason it is maintained as well as STANDARD class (I am sure you all refer to it as Second Class to wind me up)” – Yes, I am one and so are many occasional travellers who want a day out to the seaside who still ask for a 2nd Class day return at the ticket office window.
The trouble with “Standard Class” is that the accommodation on offer is simply inconsistent across the various trains and therefore is non-standard and thus the term is meaningless, inaccurate and in no way relates to 1st Class. Now, should one introduce a bog-standard class, then that might be more accurate. With 1st Class, one buys what is on offer for the extra service and comfort provided, however poor that may also turn out to be.
You may recall I said I wrote to TfL customer services asking on 25 Feb 2016
The nature of my enquiry was about the location and timing of the public consultation for this decision to change the name of the line as there doesn’t seem to have been one. Is that because there wasn’t a need for one on this occasion?
If that’s the case would it be possible for you to direct me the relevant policy or policy documents that I should have read before asking such an obvious question about the consultation? I’d didn’t realise there was an exclusion for this. I seems my understanding that TfL was supposed to consult on all decisions about the spending it does on behalf of the London public is flawed!
Well I just got THIS back as a reply 16 Mar 2016, 13:44
Thank you for your email of 25 February about The Elizabeth line.
I’ve looked into this for you and can confirm the Mayor of London suggested the new name to The Royal Household as a fitting tribute to her reign. And Her Majesty the Queen formally approved the proposal in September 2015.
The Elizabeth line marks Her Majesty the Queen, and her 64 years as the longest-reigning British monarch, the name is to celebrate her record service to the nation.
Now we have formally announced the name of the line, we will be reviewing everywhere that we are already using the Crossrail brand and decide if there is a change needed.
The line will be stretching from Reading and Heathrow in the west across to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east, Crossrail – which will be known as the Elizabeth line from 2018 – will change the way people travel around London and the south east.
Crossrail Limited will still continue to build the railway. The line will be known as the Elizabeth line only once it is an operational railway, running through the central tunnels under central London in late 2018. Until that time, the line will still be known as TfL Rail.
It’s almost as if they didn’t actually READ MY EMAIL. I’ve been on the phone to them to ask them if they would please have another go.
I’m starting to wonder (worry, perhaps) that TfL (or someone who embodies it when answering emails) genuinely thinks that suggested the new name to The Royal Household … Her Majesty the Queen formally approved the proposal is a “public consultation”.
Actually Briantist, I think you have a reply of which Sir Humphrey Appleby would be most proud. Technically the change of name was zero cost so there was no need to consult but, having changed the name, consultation might be needed on the various decisions about spending to update signage but, since each location will be a separate location, the decision and spending will fall below a de minimis threshold.
It is totally against the spirit of things of course, but the letter of policy has been followed.
@ Briantist – did you really expect an answer that covered the point you raised? You will never get public consultation about a grand gesture like this that involves the Royal Family. There’s far too much political sychophancy for that.
But also: why do marketing matters need a consultation?
I’m no monarchist, and not really a fan of the name (tad unwieldy) – but everything doesn’t need a consultation.
Consult on the route, and local impact, but not the media strategy.
The name is unwieldy: QE2 Line or Monarch Line would both have been preferable in that sense.
I am a monarchist and dislike the name for that reason as well because I think using a bare Elizabeth without the word Queen is disrespectful. Her Majesty could have objected herself, of course, but she has too much decorum to do so.
I think monarchists and republicans alike share a certain disappointment with the name, albeit for different reasons.
@Kate…..But what about the Victoria line? Was it disrespectful to the Queen’s Great-Great-Grandmother not to call it the ‘Queen Victoria’ line? Better that than a name combining two destinations like the Bakerloo (ISTR two other suggestions for the name were the Viking line and Walvic line!).
Also, she could have declined to have it named after her if she really wanted……she is the Queen after all! We just never would have learnt about it, as it would probably be covered by Privy Council rules. There are probably other similar examples of politically inconsequential decisions where she has refused permission…..we just don’t know for sure, do we?
The Victoria Line was named after the station – or was it the street? – both of which were named in Her Majesty’s lifetime. As indeed were many other Victorian stations e.g Southend, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Northwich (no, that’s a football team)
Or maybe they were named after Her Majesty’s mother: Victoria, the dowager Duchess of Kent. Or her daughter, Crown Princess of Prussia and, later, Kaiserin of Germany?
Timbeau – the ex-LNER station at Southend wasn’t named Victoria until 1949, after its location on Victoria Avenue.
@timbeau…..Yes, it was named after the station (which in turn was named after the eponymous street, built in 1851 and presumably named after the reigning monarch of the day). I guess my point was that it was named after a monarch (albeit indirectly!), but no one seems to have considered it disrespectful not to include her title of ‘Queen’.
Another CR1 destination-combining line name springs to mind….Abfielding line! Better since it reflects the syllable order in each name (ABbey wood, shenFIELd, reaDING). I can’t think of a way of including Heathrow in the name though….any suggestions?
@Briantist quoting TfL: Now we have formally announced the name of the line, we will be reviewing everywhere that we are already using the Crossrail brand and decide if there is a change needed. [My emphasis]
So five months after the decision was made, they haven’t decided in what context they will use the new name and what the status of the name Crossrail is.
Briantist – if TfL was required to consult on “all decisions about the spending it does”, nothing would ever actually get spent except on consultation (which expenditure decision would itself, of course, have to be consulted on), and response would be minimal because of consultation overload.
But you did ask for their policy about consultation, and they should be providing you with that.
Looking at https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/planning-for-the-future/consultations-and-surveys would be a good start (and I note that they consult on changes to bus services, but not on any other service changes).
@ Walthamstow Writer
“ did you really expect an answer that covered the point you raised? “
I was rather hoping that I was going to get “it’s covered by section X.X in document Y published on Z” kind of answer. It is what they are supposed to do in this instance.
@ Londoner
“But also: why do marketing matters need a consultation?”
If changing the name of a line is a “marketing matter” (there are signs up at Tottenham Court Road already saying Crossrail) then they should have said so in the reply, no?
@ Ian J
Good point.
@ Mike
Thanks. I already have all the relevant document and they seem to suggest that they should have consulted on this name change. That’s why I keep asking them to point me to the exclusions where the policy says the monarch or the Mayor can override the publish “we will always consult” because I’m quite sure it’s not there.
If it is then I can be affronted to the “insult to democracy” that it would be.
Briantist – I’m baffled by your tenacity on this. Renaming an unopened line doesn’t fit any of the consultation categories on the TfL page that I referred to, which most certainly does *not* say “we will always consult”, so why the fuss?
TfL’s response wasn’t good, but surely they’ve got much more important things on their minds!
And what consultation was thought necessary when the Jubilee, H&C, ELL, Northern City acquired or lost their names ?
@ Briantist – take it from me, based on long observation of bus route consultation and personal experience, that TfL do NOT always consult. They do what they feel like doing and do you really think that they would take any notice of a consultation about naming the line after the Monarch when the Chair of TfL has said he wants it to happen? There are limits, whether you or I like it, as to what is put in the public domain for consideration and even then it is pretty rare for TfL not to do what they wanted to do anyway. We have three recent decisions on bus consultations where the proposals are not proceeding but that level of negative decisions is extremely unusual. If for some reason you think you are going to get a consultation over renaming the Crossrail service and the decision will be reversed then dream on.
@WW
” TfL do NOT always consult. They do what they feel like doing ”
even when they do consult, they rarely do anything other than exactly what they proposed anyway. And there is the automatic rejection of anything “not invented here” using whatever stock excuse comes to mind rather than any research – I have had the same suggestion rejected on different occasions on the grounds that
1. there’s no demand for it
2. the service would be overloaded
(also 3. that a service already exists – no it doesn’t;
and 4. that there is a parallel Tube line – there is a gap of a mile and a half between stations)
Nos 1 & 3 are simultaneously used for the Hall Farm curve of course (!)
[Not specifically directed at Greg but we seem to be in danger of people’s pet moans being resurrected at every opportunity whether relevant or not. This will be “discouraged”. PoP]
A small observation that’s a lot closer to the topic than most of the recent posts!
I use the new(ish) Terminal 2 at Heathrow fairly frequently. Just about every practical reference to this terminal that I come across does as I have just done, ie refer to it by its number. That’s true on the Piccadilly Line, on the itineraries I get from my ticket agent, and in any check in process. However, when I arrive there, I see in front of me a whopping great sign telling me that it’s got a name! ‘The Queen’ s Terminal’. I very much doubt that she ever uses that terminal (it being devoted to a very non-British alliance of airlines), so I wonder what purpose that bit of deferential naming is supposed to have.
‘The Queen’ s Terminal’ – Prince Charles has waited his whole life to hear those words.
The “Queens Terminal” occupies the sites of both the Queen’s Building and the old Terminal 2, so presumably they decided to keep the “Queen’s” name from the former and “Terminal” from the latter.
If CR1 is the Lizard, I hope CR2 is indeed named in honour of Prince Charles – if there’s a more apt title for a line linking Clapham, Chelsea, Soho and Dalston than the Charlie Line, I’m having a hard time thinking of it…
I was surprised to learn that there were broad gauge trains from Windsor to Farringdon in the 1860s and standard gauge trains from Windsor to Mansion House in the 1880s. The latter were taken off because they didn’t pay I guess.
@Old Buccaneer – Perhaps (as an aside) even more fascinating is the fact that there were direct train services between places like Paddington and Brighton, albeit not broad gauge in that case but in the early 20th century and taking little more than 1½ hours each way! (It took me nearly 1½ hours to go by bus last week from Oxford Circus to Herne Hill but that applies to another LR topic.) So, this link explains my Paddington comment (includes a nice sketch map of that region of the London area railways):
http://www.semgonline.com/RlyMag/FromPaddingtonToBrighton.pdf
There are plenty more examples like that on the Great Western side. In addition, there were e.g. the District Line-related trains which ran out to Southend on the other side, whilst there were trains from Croydon/Addiscombe to Liverpool Street.
BTW, none of those routes were garnished with any particular name at all bar the name of the company over whose metals the services ran.
@Graham F
“none of those routes were garnished with any particular name at all bar the name of the company over whose metals the services ran”
…or more likely the company whose name was on the train – most of these services ran over the tracks of more than one company e.g Mansion House to Windsor would use MDR to Ealing Broadway (using a stretch of :LSWR between Hammersmith and Turnham Green!) and GWR thereafter.
The GWR even had an interest in Victoria station, accessing the LCDR side via the West London Line and the Ludgate curves
@ Graham F, timbeau: no wonder this is London reconnections!
Would Crossrail 1’s Victorian name be the London, Chatham, Great Eastern & Great Western Junction Railway, do you suppose?
I suspect Paddington to Brighton via the District & Circle and the LBSCR route today would only be marginally quicker. Thanks for the paper.
Just for the record, I have another non-reply to my question about the legal basis for the non-consultation on the name change from Crossrail to Elizabeth.
They have sent back the press release again. Isn’t that good of them?
CONTACTUS to me 11:54 Ref: 6428455
12 April 2016
Dear Mr Butterworth
Thank you for your telephone call of 16 March about The Elizabeth Line.
Sorry for my delay in getting back to you, I appreciate your patience, while I investiaged your case further.
As I previous explained, the Mayor of London suggested the new name to The Royal Household as a fitting tribute to her reign. And Her Majesty the Queen formally approved the proposal in September 2015.
The Elizabeth line marks Her Majesty the Queen, and her 64 years as the longest-reigning British monarch, the name is to celebrate her record service to the nation.
We have formally announced the name of the line, which means that we will be reviewing everywhere that we are already using the Crossrail brand and decide if there is a change needed.
Our priority at all times is to keep our customer up to date on any changes made to the network. We are only required to consult, where there is a change to a service or an impact on services. As the service remains the same, we are not obliged to consult on naming (as in this case).
Thanks for taking the time to contact us. Please contact me again if you need any further assistance, or if you would prefer to talk to us about this matter, please call us on 0343 222 1234.
Kind regards
Tracey Stone
Customer Service Adviser
Transport for London Customer Services
Old B
Until this last weekend, though, Padders – B’loo – Oxford Circ – Vic – Victoria – Brighton would be significantly faster.
Thanks Greg. I checked the end to end journey on the Notwork Rail app, for what that’s worth, and it gave me 2hr on Sunday morning and 1hr 40 on Friday.
Another app I have estimates 23 min by your route (assuming Paddington Bakerloo is open) and 14 on the T-cup for Victoria to Paddington. Actual experience would vary, I imagine, given the very different frequencies of T-cup and the Victoria line.
The article Graham F linked to above was quite pointed on the subject of slack timetabling on the through train.
Mods: apologies for thread drift. Sub topic now closed?
Briantist……perhaps it’s me (after all, I am a viewer of the TV channel Dave), but I really don’t see why TfL would or should consult about the name of a line? It’s not really something that will impact on the lives or journeys. Does it really matter what it’s called?
CXXX: I think Briantist is carrying on a proxy war. I guess he’d rather live in a republic and is using ‘due process’ points to articulate that.
[This “consultation on the re-naming of Crossrail” discussion should finish now, it won’t be changed back, and further inquiries to the authorities will not change the situation. Further speculation about Briantist’s motives is also considered inappropriate. LBM and Malcolm]
Full disclosure: [Apologies but I am snipping this as someone will pick the bait, and this is not the forum to debate non-transport issues. LBM]
Names matter; I would, for example, object to CR1 being called the ‘Brown Line’ to commemorate either senior TfL executives or a former Prime Minister & Chancellor of the Exchequer. But mostly on the grounds that the fabled PolyChromos would be needed to te-colour the Bakerloo.
LBM: That’s why it was a separate paragraph.
@100andthirty
“perhaps it’s me (after all, I am a viewer of the TV channel Dave), but I really don’t see why TfL would or should consult about the name of a line? ”
The point… [explanation snipped, as promised. Malcolm]
Anyway, I have FOI-requested an answer this time, so now I’m told that…
A response will be provided to you by 11 May 2016.
Briantist: Please inform us (if you wish, but I guess you will) about the response to your FOI request. Briefly if possible. Meanwhile, though, the topic of whether-they-should-have-consulted remains barred, to you and to others.
@Malcolm
That’s my intention.
Just to note: 15/05/1939: Princess Elizabeth & Princess Margaret travelled from Green Park to Tottenham Court Road; their first journey on the Underground. They would have been 13 and 8 years old, respectively.
I realised this lunchtime that the utter replacement of “Crossrail” with “Elizabeth Line” isn’t going to happen.
The shopping mall/eateries/green roof above Canary Wharf station has already been well-branded as Crossrail Place. Seems like the Canary Wharf owners were a bit previous, there.
@ MikeP I am often at Crossrail Place and wondered if it will be re-named Elizabeth Place when Crossrail opens or whether it will become an oddity of London whose name is lost in the midst of time and quizzes !
Nothing wrong with Canary Wharf Group it was more to do with BOJO springing this unnecessary announcement like his order for BORISBUSES two days before knowing his party would loose mayoral election and even if they had won it’s doubtful if any more would be ordered as they are already out dated !
Line is already being nicknamed Lizzie Line so one failure and it becomes The Lousy Line ….
At the time I was really displeased about the announcement as I thought it was Boris using populism to favour the leave campaign. But that didn’t happen and Sadiq is now Mayor. Thinking about it, it’s not a bad idea to name the line, but I feel Crossrail as a brand should stay. Is there any reason why the signs outside can’t say Crossrail in the way they say Underground, while the line remains named after the Queen?
@Ian Sergeant – but “CrossRail” as a brand doesn’t mean anything unique in terms of service offer (and it’s arguable albeit less forcibly that “Underground” doesn’t either these days)
@ Melvyn – if you are going to rant about the former Mayor please get your facts correct. The request to place the order for extra NB4Ls was approved by the TfL Board in Feb 2016 well before purdah started as is right and proper. The fact the Mayor decided to make a public statement about it later is neither here nor there. All the relevant information is readily available on the TfL website and takes about 30 seconds to find if you make the effort to do so.
Ian Sergeant, Graham H: Crossrail is a distinct concession under ‘London Rail’, the other one being London Overground.
Crossrail Limited, the statutory undertaker, remains in business to maintain that part of the infrastructure not adopted by Network Rail. And potentially to design build and maintain Crossrail 2.
OB: the Lizzie line’s status as a separate concession (or whatever) means nothing to the travelling public, and by its differentiation of TfL Rail, TfL hs indicated (rightly) that it sees type of service rather than administrative detail as being important to passengers.
And GH’s point about Underground branding is a good one too, comparing service offerings to eg Amersham and Walthamstow Central. If I ruled the world all Underground, Overground and Crossrail lines would be branded as individual lines within the same network, but there again nobody voted for me as Mayor of London…
Mike: “nobody voted for me as Mayor of London…” Did you stand?
@OB – Maybe Mike didn’t but I had this comprehensive plan (something more than a dream to me then) shortly after I left school in the late 1960’s to take charge of all London’s public transport, coupled with the easy addition of the Southern Region third rail services and sort everything out using a self-assured abundance of commonsense and acquired practical knowledge, whilst retaining the ability daily to be in personal contact to inform passengers of problems…. Oddly (!), fate decided otherwise in my case but I do wonder sometimes how many competent folk are or were out there who thought of doing something similar and could have made a real difference but who never actually entered the transport industry sufficiently early, or ever, in order to gain the required experience and knowledge and then be recognised from ‘high up’.
Graham Feakins,
Sadly, the people who would have actually known how to provide a sensible integrated comprehensive public transport system chose to either became taxi drivers or hairdressers. Oh, what might have been.
@OB – I strongly agree with Mike (and so it seems to the travelling public, many of whom still, for example, believe that the national railways are run by BR), passengers are interested in the service offer, not the minutiae of concessionary structures – hence all the fuss about whether LO can be extended – it’s the promise of an “Underground” service. [It may be time for all these entities – the buses, too – to be run by, let us say,an entity with a single brand; let’s call it London Transport].
@Graham F – I have always been grateful for the opportunity to make a mid-life shift -but then I’d probably have made a lousy hairdresser on the B Ark.
But, Graham H, could you have become a telephone sanitizer?
Graham F, Pedantic, Graham H
This chap http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/david-mckenna-36383.html
always wanted to be an engine driver, according to my (intermittently reliable) source, now alas deceased.
Still, now we have a bus driver’s son in charge of TfL, doubtless a new golden age is imminent.
I’m under no illusions about (a) my B Ark status (b) my inability to run a whelk stall.
@OB – a really interesting career (I tend to collect these to mount in my collection). Particularly interesting points include the aristocratic marriage – there used to be a saying from the C19 that the first son inherited the estate, the second went into the army, the third into the Church and the fourth into the railways. (eg the Bonham Carters, Fiennes). You will also notice that McKenna was brought up “carefully by hand” as we used to say in Whitehall, by Frank Pick, and cynics will notice the excessive emphasis on the need for the the Southern to work closely with the French – any excuse…
PS My neighbour’s son, having passed all the usual Cameronian thresholds – Eton, Christchurch, now employed by Warburgs – is quite open at envying Hewett fils (Strategic Development Manager for West Coast), salary despite.
Graham H re the PS: I assume when you say Warburgs you mean the Broadgate based bank, Used to Be Super.
I think Gerry Fiennes would have been “Founder’s Kin” at Winchester & therefore the fees would have been heavily discounted. Not sure he or John Bonham-Carter, would have thrived under the regime now being proposed by Matt Hancock.
“Warburgs, founders kin, B Ark”: I think all this Public School lingo is jolly unfair on us Oiks who are sitting here with half-smiles on our faces pretending we understand what you lot are talking about…
Re Malcolm,
S.G. Warburg the old UK merchant bank that became part of Union Bank of Switzerland in the ’90s as UBS Warburg and then just UBS several years later.
I’m sourcing several wykehamists for translation of the rest.
@Malcolm – surely even oiks have listened to/read the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Not public school lingo at all…
@Malcolm
“B Ark” is a Hitchhiker’s Guide reference to the Plan B Ark spaceship. The rest methinks is banking argot (slang, ou comme on dit au Québec, ‘le joual’ – the linguistic transformation of ‘le cheval’).
Apologies Malcolm. SG Warburg & Co Limited was a British merchant bank, eventually acquired by the Union Bank of Switzerland which changed its name to UBS and is now a shadow of its former self, hence the unkind acronym. The B Ark is from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy; see here: http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrincham
Gerry Fiennes’ middle last name was Wykeham, demonstrating his relationship to the founder of Winchester College. It seems the stereotypes of Lord Snooty and his Pals and the Bash Street Kids live on.
You may like the last two paras of this:
https://oupeltglobalblog.com/2013/05/16/toffs-and-oiks-the-language-of-social-class/
Re Graham H,
But Gerry Fiennes was the eldest…
That rather reinforces the point about the railways as a refuge of the upper middleclasses.
One of South West Trains’ drivers (now retired, I believe) used to live at 10 Downing Street.
Another inhabitant had been a director of the Great Western
GH
That was “Supermac” of course ….
OB
Mention of G Feinnes … was one of the people who did do very well & could have done better, except he did too many right things & was punished for it by offended politicos ….
Well not South West Trains but one of its predecessors.
Greg,
Read G Fiennes book (not first edition). It is clear he had at least considered the consequences of his actions and was the first to admit he was completely in breach of contract. He was sacked by the board not the politicos. For all we know the politocos might have quite liked the book (shades of Yes, Minister). I would have thought any company that could not trust a senior member of staff to show “collective cabinet responsibility” would act in a similar way.
@PoP
“not South West Trains but one of its predecessors”
I don’t understand that comment. If it relates to mine of 22:49, SWT had already had the franchise for a decade when the former resident of Downing Street I had in mind joined their staff.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/3634455/On-the-right-track.html
Sorry timbeau. I took the statement to read a former inhabitant of 10 Downing Street drove trains prior to living there and assumed Greg´s reference to Supermac, though somewhat implausible, was correct. I was also misled by multiple comments at the time of Tony Blair becoming prime minister that this was the first time that 10 Downing Street had children in residence since the invention of the wheel*
*not quite what they said
I think that the baby born to Cherie Blair was the first time (for a while) that a Prime Minister had a new child while in office.
Greg’s reference to Supermac was a response to Graham H’s – Harold Macmillan was indeed a director of the Great Western Railway. I was referring to the other Harold, whose sons were in their teens when he became prime minister.
Leo Blair was reportedly the first baby born to a serving prime minister since the Victorian era.
Director! I thought we were talking about driving trains. In which case this Supermac picture would make the point.
timbeau: “One of South West Trains’ drivers (now retired, I believe) used to live at 10 Downing Street.”
And see here for a recent reference to this, in the last paragraph. Neither a route nor an operator is mentioned. Perhaps for this columist, and the point he was making, ‘the line is immaterial’.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/27/scilly-harold-wilson-prime-minister
PoP
Re: G Feinnes
I have not read subsequent editions … but I was given to understand that the politicos ordered the Board to sack him – but not for the book [ He had, apparently, taken his supposed remit & actually believed it .. & made enquiries of EE about turbocharged ( 4000hp-plus) “Deltics” … at which point ordure encountered air-conditioning. ]
How much truth there was & is in any of that is conjecture at this late date.
My reference to “Supermac” was because he was a Director of the GWR, pre-1948.
@Greg T – the Department was more cautious about intervening in managerial appointments in my day. We did discuss internally the appointment of Dr Prideaux whose spell at the Board’s policy unit was marked by some very public attempts to subvert Ministers’ policies, but even there, caution prevailed.
@Fandroid
“the first time (for a while) that a Prime Minister had a new child while in office”
…………that we know of. (Lloyd George knew my father, and all that)
I had to look it up – as far as I can tell, the last Prime Minister to become a father (legitimately) whilst in office before Blair was Lord John Russell, two of whose children were born to his second wife during his first term of office in the late 1840s. However, they did not live at 10 Downing Street, which was not the official residence of the prime Minister for most of the 19th Century
@Mods
Catching up, we’ve gone a long way off topic.
@PoP
a former inhabitant of 10 Downing Street
Technically, the Blairs lived at 11 Downing Street, as the flat there is larger and could accommodate the family.
FYI: Well, that told me. Oh, I love passive voice, don’t you?
Our Ref: FOI-0111-1617
Thank you for your e-mail received on 12 April 2016 asking for information about the naming of the Elizabeth Line. I apologise for the delay in my response.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and TfL’s information access policy.
There was no public consultation on the renaming of Crossrail to the Elizabeth Line as TfL primarily consults on decisions which have an impact on the service provision. In this case the change in name does not impact on the planned service. There is no set TfL policy on holding a public consultation on the renaming of a TfL service.
On 23 July 2013 the Mayor proposed that the line should be called the Queen Elizabeth II line and, after discussion with the Palace, on 26 September 2015 it was agreed to name it the Elizabeth line.
Please accept our apologies that we are unable to assist you further on this occasion.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.
Yours sincerely
Gemma Jacob
FOI Case Officer