I is have some thoughts… The shopping centre in Watford was called ‘The Harlequin’ from 1992 to 2013. Is this a clue to another explanation for why the line to Watford had this name? A rumour I’ve heard is that this is the *opposite* of a vanity project. In 2015, when Boris Johnson was mayor, he was shown a proposed map with the Overground broken up into different names and colours, and he turned it down, demanding that the Overground brand be retained, and he could continue taking credit for its overall success. (Might be bollocks.) That map, by the way, if you can find it, is, I think, a very strong clue to how the Overground will end up looking on the new map. East London line is still orange, the others are all different, mostly darker colours, but crucially, they all still have a white stripe down the middle. This is a great way to differentiate the Overground from the rest of the network, and effectively double the number of available colours.
@@JayForeman It was and is a bloody stupid name in both instances. It has more to do with beetles than to do with railways or shopping precincts (it wasn't and isn't a "centre" or a "shopping centre" just a precinct.
Sounds like the only consensus among commenters is that the line from Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside should be continue to be called ‘The Goblin’ and to make that its official name
The 'Tube Map' as an entity has really ceased to be just a Tube map, and more of an Travelcard/Oyster Card Fare Zone map, so my argument is that ALL lines that come under the Oyster banner need to stay on it. Besides, it's very handy for tourists!
Some lines have lower frequency though (every half hour, in some cases) and complicated stopping patterns. It's probably better to have one map with all the high-frequency lines (Tube, DLR, Crossrail, Overground and the frequently-served parts of the Thameslink), and then have another map with ALL the lines on it. I once went to London as a tourist and ended up having to wait for a long while for a train because I was trying to catch the Thameslink to get around London, on a weekend day. Thameslink on weekends is too low-frequency to be on the main tube map which tourists will use.
What are the 6 rail services? Underground, DLR, Tram, Overground, LizPurp and ??? Also, I still don't see a real difference between Elizabeth and Overground. If they get to be renamed, should the Elizabeth be "one of the Overground lines"?
@@IIVQ Liz has a very high frequency on all stretches within London. The Overground has some routes and stations that are "only" served 4 times per hour, even within Greater London. Both Liz and Overground are sorta S-Bahn-like, and giving them similar branding likely wouldn't hurt. But on the other hand, the Overground is similar to the Transilien in Paris, while the Liz is similar to the RER. So there's precedent for different brandings too. Also, the District Line is also very similar to the Liz in terms of operations. Arguably, if the District Line is an Underground line, then the Liz could be an Underground line too.
I love the way that in London a metro line that has had its name since 1937 can be called "Johnny come lately"! 🙂I also like the name "Brunel Line" - its about time the Brunel's got some recognition in London (other than their own university in Uxbridge of course).
Re the Northern Line - my hope is that the necessary work gets done at Camden Town to split the line in two; then each of the new lines can receive different names.
Re the tube map: for me the point of it is, and has always been, that it's a map of lines which have a real 'turn-up-and-go' service, so that you can travel using just the map - you don't have to carry a timetable as well. I suppose that for smart-phone users, the 'journey-planner' means that they don't use the map quite like that so much. But I still think it's a useful concept so, if the map includes any other services, they should be ones where - for most of the day - the service is a minimum of say every 10 minutes - which would mean the north London Line (mostly), the East London line (down to Sydenham), a lot of the Elizabeth line, the Thameslink core, and the various bits of National Rail that come up to that standard. May be also some of the strategic bus routes which run that often. The map should point this out - and mention the parts of the underground network which don't have 10 minute or better service (mainly Met north of Moor Park).
I was an early user of the smartphone journey planner app, but I definitely prefer route finding purely by the map! But then I’m a millennial so I can’t speak for gen Z. My position is partly due to frustrations getting a signal back then, which may not be an issue so much anymore.
@@petemoss1938 Because a decent man who enlightens and entertains many would very probably get dragged into the gutter that is local politics. Surely he deserves considerably better than that.
I’m one of 8% of men who is red/green colour blind and can struggle with certain colours on the existing tube map. 1 in 200 women are colour blind. That means on a busy day, 250,000 tube journeys are taken by colour blind people. We see blocks of colour better than thin strands, so I’d prefer dashed colour lines rather than coloured outlines. Dashes have the advantage of being easier to print on small scale maps.
Underground stations and trains may all carry the same red white and blue branding, but they all have some unique branding to the line. Seat moquettes, grab handles, a coloured stripe along the top of the platform, maps with the line colour mounted on the walls. On the point about the map. I think most people use Google Maps directions these days, but sometimes it's still nice to just look at a map of everything to see what your options are or how the whole system all fits together. There will still need to be an "everything map"
Those orange line colours (did you draw them yourself ?) look great as a Licquorice Allsorts set of colors - quick get round to the LTMuseum, patent the idea and get packets done with the orange and black outer squares and tubes with line colur for all rail systems in the innards etc, with purple line jelly ones.
An excellent video Jago, lots of great questions and ideas. The Star Trek picture reference @5:40 was bloody brilliant! I even had Kirk’s voice shouting it in my head.
I'm totally calling it 'The Harlequin' whatever name they pick🤩. @7:54 reminds me of an idea where the services all had their own maps available at their own stations. I think it's too extra but I see the sense in it🤔🤷🏾♀
On the question of "Should London Overground be on the London Underground map?" the answer is a resounding yes. London Underground suffers from major congestion, at times, and showing London Overground Lines to Underground customers, has pushed alternative routes, into the public consciousness of Underground travellers. Modal shift away from crowded Underground lines to London Overground lines, makes the experience of the remaining Underground customers better. It could be argued, that all Underground maps should be totally replace with London Connection maps, to create even more modal shift away from busy London Underground lines. However, we do not have proper integrated transport in the UK, and people who travel onto National Rail service, with the wrong sort of ticket, can get a penalty fair. The solution here, is to pass over all suburban lines going into London (and other UK cities) to TfL (or an equivalent locally controlled transport authority) so that train fares can operate under one system and passengers can be encouraged to take the most effective route around the city. Ultimately, it would good to look at all lines coming into London and split them between express long distance services and commuter services. And brand all the commuter trains into London, the exact same way. We should also give the Mayor of London control of the north and south bits of Crossrail 2 now, and run it as two railways, until Central Government hands back the funding, for the central tunnel.
Really we should just take the route the Netherlands did and integrate all our transport. I suspect that would ultimately be a similar task compared to getting some regions to accept TfL control where there currently isn’t any. But maybe you’re right and the more limited scope of all suburban rail joining the Overground (or at least the Oyster scheme) would be more quickly achievable than the Dutch model.
Your suggestion might take many decades, given the political decisions involved. The first target MUST be to have a single integrated ticketing system, so that at any starting point a passenger can buy a single ticket which covers any and every possible journey on all forms of transport within the area of coverage. I used such a system in Munich (U-bahn, S-bahn, trams and buses) more than forty five years ago. It is easily possible to build a back office system which calculates what proportion of a complex ticket goes to which operating company and distributes the finds accordingly - the airlines have had such systems for at least thirty years.
"However, we do not have proper integrated transport in the UK, and people who travel onto National Rail service, with the wrong sort of ticket, can get a penalty fair. [sic]" The *vast majority* of those travelling on journeys entirely within London use Oyster/Contactless PAYG or a Travelcard season. Within the Oyster PAYG area, PAYG is accepted on all National Rail services, and Travelcards are accepted on National Rail services within the zones except for Heathrow Express and Southeastern highspeed*. The only real issue I can see is passengers using Oyster cards to stations in the Contactless but not Oyster PAYG area, but this problem already itself exists even on the Tube map for Elizabeth line services between Reading and West Drayton, as well as Thameslink services north of Radlett and Potters Bar, and passengers already use Oyster/contactless outside the PAYG area often enough that there's a sign at Brighton station gateline that they're not accepted! *Outboundary Travelcard tickets from Kent specifically including HS1 are however accepted for journeys on Southeastern highspeed services.
Your observation / idea about interactive maps is a great one! It's one of those ideas that, when heard, makes me think... why hasn't that been invented already?
It would be extremely expensive to provide widespread facilities to display such maps, but it would be extremely cheap to make them available on the various websites (National Rail, TfL etc). Surely a national transport ombudsman with the power to compel the various companies and authorities to make life easier for their customers is a complete no-brainer.
Huge fan of the Brunel line suggestion - most important name in British infrastructure and definitely does not get enough recognition among the common joe
The thames tunnel was more marc brunel's project. And though this was quite a feat, many lives were lost in the construction and it was a financial disaster. Is this the brunel we should be celebrating? And it didn't offer any useful reliable connectivity until the overground took it on at much cost.
@@richarddaygm Although many of the other tube lines were also financially shaky (see Yerkes!), and lives are lost in most construction projects, especially difficult pioneering ones (the death toll was small compared to Woodhead Tunnel for example). And Brunel Line neatly covers both Marc and Isambard.
@@iankemp1131 Yerkes - yikes! larceny bribery and blackmail, he is certainly not a guy to be celebrated. Yeah, I've been unfair on Marc - they were different times when life was cheap and debtors were held to account. And wonders of the world can be expensive, I guess. Dedicate it to Marc then :)
I think when you do Q&A style videos like this the question should be read aloud, not just in screen. Better still if you can get someone else to read it out.
I would definitely want the Overground kept on the tube map. It's already there, so it won't take up any more space. I often use the combined tube / national rail map because I spend most of my time outside the London area. What does irritate me, though, is the way the western branch of the Elizabeth line appears to go North. And I've only just noticed that some of the "towards" arrows off the line are pointing in the wrong direction, should the line be straightened out as it should. Maybe we need a letterbox shape for the diagram.
I think the only way the "vanity project" argument would make sense would be if the lines were named: The Khan Line, the Mayoral Line, the Sadiq Line, the Sadiq Khan Line, the Mayor Khan Line, and the Mayor Sadiq Khan Line...
I remember visting Hamburg, Germany. It was the first time I'd come across letters for train routes. S Bahn (seemed to be used for overground routes) and U Bahn (which seemed to be for underground routes - which made sense to me with Underground starting with the same letter). I got used to it soon enough
Ah- Straßenbahn (S-Bahn) and Untergrundbahn (U-Bahn) are actually the German words for suburban and underground railway respectively! So they’re not exactly letters for routes, although in this case they can be used to distinguish in a similar way.
It's not worth worrying about confusion with the name Northern Line, as the Northern Line needs to be broken up into the Bank Line and the Charring Cross Line. When that happens, the current name should go.
The most obvious solution to me would be to retain Northern for the CX branch and Southern for the Bank branch, although of course this could cause confusion with the Southern franchise. Then again, the latter doesn't appear on the Underground map.
@@marcelwiszowaty1751 Both the Charing X branch and the Bank branch join and split again going north before ending up at Edgware, one branch and High Barnet the other. Much more north of the river than south. Yes I am looking at a 20 year old Tube Map. Both northern destinations served by a train each from Morden, line splitting before Kennington one via Waterloo the other via the Elephant and Bank. Lines joining and splitting at Camden Town. Jumped on the wrong train at South Wimbledon (confusing name as is in Merton) more than once going to Waterloo. Having to change at the Elephant by crossing the road to the Bakerloo Line, or go back to the Oval. (a cross platform northbound southbound change).
I showed a non train interest friend an old picture of a station he lived near, and when he saw the NSE train, his eyes lit up, and he got very excited.
Thanks! Altho here in Berkeley Cal I am far from my adopted home away from home, your vids are always a wonderful "inside baseball" reminder of the Big Smoke.
I think the best reason for not using letters or numbers for the names is that it is an incredibly dull solution to a problem that could very easily be solved more creatively. London's public transport is as iconic as it is useful and we should continue to give it that respect going forward!
I think the line colours should be the _opposite_ of the orange-outline option... various bold colours for the various lines (which colours _they_ should be is another argument altogether), but with a thin but intense - almost _fluorescent_ - orange pinstripe down the *_middle._* That way, you would likely see the orange from a distance, which would show you that the station you need is on the Overground rather than the Underground, and if you needed to know the actual name of the line you could get a bit closer to make out the distinct colour of the outline. Because, at the end of the day, the average passenger trying to get from A to B who is inexperienced enough to need a map in the first place is probably just interested in getting to where they're going and doesn't really need to know _which_ Overground line their destination is on - just whether there's a straight route or an interchange from where they currently are.
I see a new video from Mr Hazzard. I click onto it, and like it. Then I watch it. In that order. Mr Hazzard yet again does not disappoint - a fine and thought-provoking coverage of the subject throughout.
Thank you Mr Hazzard, a very worthy and helpful follow-up to your earlier video. In that video you mentioned Cartographers and in retrospect I can see that the route map to be produced has many challenges, not least of which is meeting a disability need to be usable by colour blind people. Does the current map actually make each line distinguishable for those people? Personally, I like the idea of solid lines - Overground being orange + another colour. By that logic, the deep tubes should be black + another colour (they're in deep, dark, holes). Similarly 'cut'n'cover' tubes should be brown + another colour. The various waterbourne services blue + another colour, etc. One thought on future maps which might escape most 'locals'. The TfL Route Planner does do a very good job of guiding a person through London's transport quagmire and perhaps the map has, in fact, reached the end of its useful life? Just a thought....
in short, it is recognised that a map differentiated by colour does not help those with colour recognition differences, does this matter with the tube map as essentially the diagramatic nature of the lines dont really show confusable through services ?, there is the official black and white map done by hatching variations - but I have not seen what changes were made since the coming of Jubilee/Crossrail or any inclusion of Overground services
@@highpath4776 There is still a Black & White Large Print Tube map available on TfL's website. As well as hatching variations, they use differing shades to be able to get two different lines out of the same hatching variation.
Re: the Liverpool St to Enfield Town/Cheshunt/ Chingford. I reckon the route to Chingford should be Lea Valley. The Route to Enfield and Cheshunt should be Ermine, after the Roman Road it sort of follows. Also, I like the idea of the Harlequin, as it reminds me of the old name of the shopping centre in Watford.
From the GER to Network Rail, the "Lea Valley" line has been the one through Ponders End (which doesn't appear on the Tube Map because it is still run by Greater Anglia). It would lead to a lot of confusion, prerhaps dangerously so in the event of an incident, if another line nearby was marketed by TfL using the same name.
We do need a modern day Beck for all the route planning stuff - I only really ever think of the underground, liz line - ok, buses at a push, overground/national rail along with river 'buses' and the cable car barely ever
Should the overground be on the map? Maybe? Honestly probably, it's serving a similar function to the underground lines and functions mostly the same. DLR too. But I think we can all agree that the Emirates Air Line is questionable at best.
Dotted was historically used to denote limited service. The current map has a white stripe with purple outline for the Elizabeth line presumably because the colour they wanted was too close to the Metropolitan colour. They also have similar for DLR so it seems they have already decided the solid line with outline is the way to go next.
The tube map is essentially a marketing tool for TfL (services), rather than a means for londoners to get around efficiently, effectively or cheaply. Some folk at Tooting Bec were working out how to get to Battersea Power Station - they concluded the map said go to Kennington (implied walk up the steps then down to change platforms as no step free to the platform there yet) and Back (in Zone 1) to BPSS. The easy route is Walk to Balham (a doable slog depending where one starts from), then Southern to Battersea Park then short walk, all in Zone 2/3 and about 8 min quicker- If one wants the Northern Line it is possible mearly to go Clapham North then walk, I reckon you could beat the tube from Clapham North with a brisk stroll - I could be wrong ).
A reminder that there is also a perfectly good way of getting around London by bus as well. Finchley Central may famously indeed be ten long stations from Golders Green, change at Camden Town - but it's much quicker by bus.
The map is meant to convey how to get to TfL stations using TfL services on the map. It's not primarily about showing what's quicker. Though if it were to have every last thing on there to enable the quickest route including walking, the map would be even more overcrowded.
I don't favour being left to my own devices since, truth be told, I have trouble distinguishing my external rectal sphincter from my superior radioulnar joint.
8:47 Apple Maps and Google Maps have great transit maps and information. I remember having an online Tube map I memorised when I was in London. Although ideally, I would like to collect maps like Geoff Marshall.
The Romford to Upminster branch line? Not Emerson Park line. Because if you've ever been round the Emerson Park McMansions at Christmas and the fearsome and tasteless light pollution that makes amateur astromony hard, even Romford and the shouting lager-lager-lager is less light polluting for those that don't live in the centre of Romford. South Street, Romford, Shopping Arcade. I've binoculars in my pocket.
I feel like letters/numbers would be much better to name the DLR lines as they all serve the docks and thus would be named after places close together and to a more local level
@@mysterium368 I'd swap your DLR1 and DLR 2 so that the three lines to the City have consecutive numbers (2,3,and 4) In your plan other shared lines do follow a pattern: Isle of Dogs is 1 and 2, Beckton is 4 and 5, International is 5 and 6, Woolwich is 3 and 6 (multiples of 3)
@@mysterium368BTW, DLR2 would need to include peak services from Lewisham to Stratford. Maybe what you could do under such a system is having Stratford to Canary Wharf services as 'DLR2', and extended Lewisham services as 'DLT2+'. Still, its the kind of system that obviously could work fine
Perhaps someone should remind whoever is in charge that the Bexleyheath line should serve Charing Cross, as it has been for many years. Whoever came up with the idea to chop that service needs their head examining.
See Jay Foreman's "What Went Wrong With The Tube Map" video to see some alternative designs., I think the Overground can fit within the tube map with a bit of thought.
Many years ago, I turned up at Düsseldorf Hbf and was presented with a U-Bahn map. Knowing Köln I was heartily disappointed. Clearly this nearby city wasn’t as well endowed with public transport as its neighbour. I then walked outside to find a plethora of Trams converging at the station. Then I saw the S-Bahn network map, and then the Regional Zug map… I didn’t even try to find the bus map! Way too much for one map, so they didn’t.
Some consideration will have to be given to how compressed the network is on the pocket Underground Map (not to mention the vagaries of colour printing in various publications, and 'varieties of colour vision').
As long as we don't have any more lines named after the Royal Family!!!! I have a Tokyo rail map produced by JR East - it shows JR lines in Black, Metro/Subway lines in Bold colours, and pastel colours for the major private railways (Tobu, Tokyu, Keisei, Seibu, Keikyu etc). It works quite well, but doesn't distinguish between the individual lines of each company (though these are normally named on the map). There again, there aren't enough colours in existence to have one for every single line in Tokyo!!!
Hello Dear Jago. I'll like to share my humble thoughts on naming the six different lines, as beautifully discussed in this absorbing Tale From The Tubes. I'd like to see them given floral names, such as Buttercup Line, Daffodil Line, Foxglove Line, Petunia Line, Rose Line, and Violet Line. Where required these could be shortened to the initial, for example, B, D, F, P, R, and V Lines. The name could be displayed for identification purposes at stations and on stationery with an artists illustration of the flower for that line. I think this would be accepted by large number of commuters, as we all know how railways and flowers have always been linked.
I think the power wielded by the Mayor of London is greater than a single MP (so Boris' Buses, Livingstone's Bendies (and before that Fare's Fair), plus us history nerds recall what the likes of the LCC leaders and Metropolitan Board of Works guys did in the past, I was never certain what Horace Cutler did though (cut things and wear bow-ties ?- probably invented Thamesmead sans Transport from my hazy memory)
Cutler renamed the Fleet Line to Jubilee. He also had PR stunts digging holes in the Strand to "start" Phase 2 (Charing X - Fenchurch St via Ludgate Hill) of it.
Do wonder about the DLR question; it is such a different prospect there with all the cross-running and potential to change services as needed in the future.
As the person who put forward the idea of the orange "infill" line idea, can I thank you for saying your are "marginally inclined" to it compared to other proposals (although the orange dash idea would be usable) - I wasn't aware that I'd nicked something used in Tokyo! My logic was based on your two main thoughts: the orange is already used (all infilled with the same colour), so keeping the base part of it orange seemed logical while, as you point out, dashed lines are used for National Rail and, as it's part of the TfL family, it makes sense to have a degree of difference from NR routes. Anyway, keep up with your insightful, thoughful and tongue-in-cheek videos - you are the infill to my orange outline.
How many Lines ? dont know , so here are some names - Dave, Gloria. Elsie, Gregory, ( hmm, better might be Alice, Barny, Cleo, ) - what rules do you want, no name sharing the first letter of an existing Tube line ?
Northern Line, named for the GNR lines it took over. Ironically it closed much of it, the 'main' line to Edgware, past Mill Hill East, and the branch to Ally Pally, plus the line from Finsbury Park to East Finchley. If the mooted (but probably never to see the light) proposal to reinstate the Finsbury Park to East Finchley section came about, with the Tube ending at East Finchley,and the ex-GNR ran once again on ex-GNR lines (but to Moorgate), the last vestage of GNR would be gone. So, what to call it? Well, it runs from Morden to Middlesex, so, obviously, the Morsex line. In pink and red. With hearts? The East London Line was once a Tube line. QED, leave it a Tube line. Personally I'd re-open the St.Mary's Curve and run Metropolitan Line trains to New Cross/Gate. Now that would really invigorate the area, with direct connections to the centre of town, or at most, change at Aldgate onto the District (which could use the curve too, but just how complex can 'one' line be? This isn't fanciful. The St. Mary's Curve was used for passenger traffic until not so long ago, and is useable still.
@@ttrjw Oh yes, I forgot it was recently lifted. Still, easy enough to put back, without too much cost I suspect. True the number of trains would be limited, but with loads of other trains using the Thames tunnel anyway the capacity would always be limited.
@@shero113 The flat junction with the ELL line to/from Dalston woukld severely limit tghe number of trains that could use the line. You would also have to remove some trains from the Upminster Line because of capacity constraints west of Whitechapel.
From a member of the London despora (just invented that), Goblin, Brunel and North London lines please! The rest are other peoples choices. Thank you, great video as always.
Regardless of which line was named first, it's clear that the Northern line is more known by that name now compared to the purported 'North London line'. They will obviously be confused and this double naming for the tube map should absolutely be avoided.
The North London appeared named as such on the tube map, thanks to Ken Livingstone, with no problem. We dont have problems with the Great Northern either.
There's solid lines, hollowed lines, and hashed lines. But how difficult would it be to have a hollowed line with an X hatch inside? I think it would work even at smaller scale. And using letter/numbers could be used in addition to named lines: all Underground Lines could be assigned M1-M11 in opening order (from Metropolitan 1 to Jubilee 11) and then the DLR could be assigned L and split into its routes, Croydon Trams split into various T lines, the Elizabeth Line would be E, and all the Overground lines as "S" (for Suburban) but then split into its various routings. As much as it's not how the English do it, it helps organisationally. I'd say that the Overground is too integrated with the Underground because of how it runs, despite how integral Thameslink and other National Rail services are in the London area. Just my 2p. (Which as of this comment is worth about 2.5 US cents.)
They've all already got perfectly good names! I'm going to keep calling them.... The Watford DC Line, The Goblin Line, The North London Line, The East London Line, The Lea Valley Lines and the Romford to Upminster Line. I The are all operated as London Overground. These names are historic and reflect where they go and would not be confusing to Londoners and tourists alike.
To differentiate, the simple answer is number the DLR, tram and Overground lines. It makes them clearly distinguishable from the Underground and other rail services.
Your thoughts on a possible interactive map reminded me of something which used to be in certain busy areas of the capital, back in the 60s. If you are as old as your somewhat distinguished voice suggests that you are, you might remember them too. There was a rather large map which showed where you were, and you could type in where you wanted to go or push a button on the display which had the most popular places displayed (I forget which), and little lights would appear showing you the route. And now, maybe there's already an app to guide you through London's rail system and all you have to do is spend even more time on your phone to find the best route. Once upon a time you could ask a policeman on the beat, but they are now extinct. Like the illuminated street guides.
@@hb1338 They were. I know. I had a relative who was a beat policeman many decades ago and people would ask him all kind of things, like where to find something or somewhere, or the best way to get to somewhere. Quite common, in fact.
I suppose we could all play wordle for five letter words that it rejects - some of them could be great trade names as I struggle to complete that daily task
This may be a little controversial, but I think that the Elizabeth line should be one of the London Overground lines. It fits perfectly into this scheme because: - It already has its own colour - It is represented in a way similar to how the London Overground is/will be represented on the map - It is a National Rail line, just like the London Overground lines - It operates services at a similar frequency to the Overground network, with similar commuter targets - Its route patterns (almost) resemble that of the Overground I know it seems silly considering how this line was such a huge project and deserves its own unique identity, but since all the London Overground lines are getting their own identities, why not incorporate the Elizabeth line? Without incorporating it, it just becomes this strange anomaly on the map with very few differences to the London Overground network. Just a thought.
Great video with good thoughts. One suggestion: it really helps if you also read out the questions/points as well as the thoughts/answers, rather than having key content that can only be read off the screen. At the distance I view these, I had to keep rewinding to re-read the points, as they weren't easy to see against mixed background, and sometimes if I'd looked away I'd find you were now talking about something quite different! Just a thought.
I don't really think the Chingford line is the same as the Enfield/Cheshunt lines for customers. Only the people who operate the lines connect them as they use the same trains. For the passenger, the lines have at best two stations in common (Hackney Downs - always, and Bethnal Green - one in two).
I did suggest the Enfield/Cheshunt should use the left over color and signage of TfL Rail - esp as it goes into Liverpool Street , but it might mean some kind of train painting. I think the Chingfords too, were not all part of the the Great Eastern;s Jazz Service intensive commuter network
I’m against giving lines letters because the existing lines might be A, B, C etc, then a new line opens between A and B. The next letter is F. We then either have to put up with illogical A, F, B etc or re-letter them. Names avoids that problem. Also names can cope with lines being split or merged: just rename.
Nice shot of a SWR train at Surbiton . Now there’s an idea, what about names for the SWR branches ( if i had my way the whole of Londons railways would be under TFL)
On the Underground, the mapping between routes and tracks is very straightforward - at any Underground platform, it is very rare that more than two end destinations are possible, and there is usually only one major terminus. If you stand on platform 4 at Woking, there are at least ten end destinations available. That means that the link between tracks and routes is tenuous at best.
In the hope to egg you onto a third video :) I am quite in favour of naming the Overground "lines" (as a foreigner who visits London, and is reading law through the finest university) and would see value in getting the DLR organized into differently named and coloured services. I also think its time to form a sensible approach to what makes up the "Tube Map". I don't think its entirely sensible to equate "tube" and "Underground" partly because Underground as a branding is later than the term "tube" for the metropolitan services that were high frequency and connected passengers to mainline train stations. The subsurface lines aren't really in a tube. Therefore I feel the cable car should be wholly scrapped from the Tube Map - it has no place on it - all "lines" which have a frequency enabling passengers to get a train in less than 10 minutes (so last time I checked a lot of the overground would only be on my proposed Tube Map because of the addition of other rail services of the same track, between the same stations and with the ability to use the same oyster system - the West London Line reliably connects Shepherds Bush and Clapham Junction with a wait of under 15 minutes because both Overground and Southern trains run on it) should be on the Tube Map. A passenger should be able to follow a line on the map to know which stations they can reliably get between at a high frequency. What I'd then do is have a practice of solid colour lines for Underground services which are presumably on dedicated track etc ... (you can see where this gets messy on the edges but where its called an Underground line its a solid line) and then having a colour for different services (Overground, Thameslink, DLR, Tram [hopefully some in the inner boroughs ...], Crossrail, monorail [London needs its own gadget bahn] eventually) that is an outer double lines with Orange for Overground, Black for "Rail" (Thameslink, but its based on service pattern), Purple for Crossrail, etc ... The middle of these non-Underground (but Underground service pattern) lines would then be different colours. Thereby making a lot of space for colour re-use. When the second Crossrail service is put together it would then be Purple outerlines with Black innerline (and will have to be named the "Phillip Line") I recall Geoff Marshall had a big rant about the Elizabeth Line naming and so on as well as what should be on the Tube Map. As you can probably glean I am of the view that the Tube Map should be focused on giving useful information to somebody coming into London about high frequency services that is not confusing. I feel that "line" should refer to the ability to get between the points on whatever service without a second thought by the passenger. Usually this will map a physical railway but thats not the focus, nor is the service, nor the provider of the service. I feel Piccadilly Line and Bakerloo Line all have brand recognition that warrants a spot on the map. It is quite possible to tell a Yank to get the Piccadilly at Heathrow and to get off at Covent Garden and to believe that even a Yank will be able to execute that task.
What percentage of rail users is served by your criterion "outsiders looking for high frequency services" ? Any diagram (it's not a map) should put as much information before the public as is sensibly possible, and should serve as many people as is possible
Interactive app map would be a good idea ! Assuming that wifi or 5G/4G/3G phone data signals are available on the entire journey. But that'd get me on to mobile phones being usable in the tube sections, where it's too noisy to use them. But someone would use them, and then be yelling into their phone. Having some one yelling into there phone is bad enough on much quieter National Rail trains, on the tube trains, well it could make some people experience "tube rage" !
I is have some thoughts…
The shopping centre in Watford was called ‘The Harlequin’ from 1992 to 2013. Is this a clue to another explanation for why the line to Watford had this name?
A rumour I’ve heard is that this is the *opposite* of a vanity project. In 2015, when Boris Johnson was mayor, he was shown a proposed map with the Overground broken up into different names and colours, and he turned it down, demanding that the Overground brand be retained, and he could continue taking credit for its overall success. (Might be bollocks.)
That map, by the way, if you can find it, is, I think, a very strong clue to how the Overground will end up looking on the new map. East London line is still orange, the others are all different, mostly darker colours, but crucially, they all still have a white stripe down the middle. This is a great way to differentiate the Overground from the rest of the network, and effectively double the number of available colours.
The Harlequin Line name was coined in 1988, four years before the shopping centre opened.
@@norbitonflyer5625 So, what Watford-based Thing were the shopping centre and railway both named after?
How does this comment only have one like?
@@JayForeman Railway was named for HARLEsden and QUEENs Park. Shopping centre was named for the railway.
@@JayForeman It was and is a bloody stupid name in both instances. It has more to do with beetles than to do with railways or shopping precincts (it wasn't and isn't a "centre" or a "shopping centre" just a precinct.
Sounds like the only consensus among commenters is that the line from Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside should be continue to be called ‘The Goblin’ and to make that its official name
I do like "the Harlequin" too.
Technically, now it's the Goblin Riverside! 😋😋
@@pvuccino lol
@@pvuccino River Oak ? Gosside ?
Gobside ?
As long as they don't ask the public to name them, we'll definitely get the "The Trainy McTrainface Line".
😁😂🤣❤️
Liney McLineFace
So,...naming the lines after the Teletubbies is not a good idea, then?😁
@@dougmhd2006 The Tinky Winky Line, The Dipsy Line, The Po line, The La La Line, The Noo Noo Line. Perfect.
@@vijaypalkhiwala9525 😂
The 'Tube Map' as an entity has really ceased to be just a Tube map, and more of an Travelcard/Oyster Card Fare Zone map, so my argument is that ALL lines that come under the Oyster banner need to stay on it.
Besides, it's very handy for tourists!
Some lines have lower frequency though (every half hour, in some cases) and complicated stopping patterns. It's probably better to have one map with all the high-frequency lines (Tube, DLR, Crossrail, Overground and the frequently-served parts of the Thameslink), and then have another map with ALL the lines on it.
I once went to London as a tourist and ended up having to wait for a long while for a train because I was trying to catch the Thameslink to get around London, on a weekend day. Thameslink on weekends is too low-frequency to be on the main tube map which tourists will use.
There's already a map for that. It's called the "London's rail and tube services map". The Tube map is more of a TfL map now (ignore Thameslink).
That would include all bus lines within
What are the 6 rail services? Underground, DLR, Tram, Overground, LizPurp and ???
Also, I still don't see a real difference between Elizabeth and Overground. If they get to be renamed, should the Elizabeth be "one of the Overground lines"?
@@IIVQ Liz has a very high frequency on all stretches within London. The Overground has some routes and stations that are "only" served 4 times per hour, even within Greater London.
Both Liz and Overground are sorta S-Bahn-like, and giving them similar branding likely wouldn't hurt.
But on the other hand, the Overground is similar to the Transilien in Paris, while the Liz is similar to the RER. So there's precedent for different brandings too.
Also, the District Line is also very similar to the Liz in terms of operations. Arguably, if the District Line is an Underground line, then the Liz could be an Underground line too.
I love the way that in London a metro line that has had its name since 1937 can be called "Johnny come lately"! 🙂I also like the name "Brunel Line" - its about time the Brunel's got some recognition in London (other than their own university in Uxbridge of course).
Re the Northern Line - my hope is that the necessary work gets done at Camden Town to split the line in two; then each of the new lines can receive different names.
No
The North Western and The North Eastern?
Northern Line.
Southern Line.
I like the "Brunel Line", it is very fitting on many levels.
Re the tube map: for me the point of it is, and has always been, that it's a map of lines which have a real 'turn-up-and-go' service, so that you can travel using just the map - you don't have to carry a timetable as well. I suppose that for smart-phone users, the 'journey-planner' means that they don't use the map quite like that so much. But I still think it's a useful concept so, if the map includes any other services, they should be ones where - for most of the day - the service is a minimum of say every 10 minutes - which would mean the north London Line (mostly), the East London line (down to Sydenham), a lot of the Elizabeth line, the Thameslink core, and the various bits of National Rail that come up to that standard. May be also some of the strategic bus routes which run that often. The map should point this out - and mention the parts of the underground network which don't have 10 minute or better service (mainly Met north of Moor Park).
I was an early user of the smartphone journey planner app, but I definitely prefer route finding purely by the map! But then I’m a millennial so I can’t speak for gen Z. My position is partly due to frustrations getting a signal back then, which may not be an issue so much anymore.
Any half decent website that provides such information could (and should) provide a means of selecting which lines are visible.
Love Jago Hazzard after a long day of uni work screaming at a computer. “Johnny come lately the Northern Line” was my favourite line.
and also the comments ignored at the end. Jago for Mayor.
@@forecast_hinderer Jago for Mayor? Why not!
@@petemoss1938 Because a decent man who enlightens and entertains many would very probably get dragged into the gutter that is local politics. Surely he deserves considerably better than that.
I’m one of 8% of men who is red/green colour blind and can struggle with certain colours on the existing tube map. 1 in 200 women are colour blind. That means on a busy day, 250,000 tube journeys are taken by colour blind people. We see blocks of colour better than thin strands, so I’d prefer dashed colour lines rather than coloured outlines. Dashes have the advantage of being easier to print on small scale maps.
Underground stations and trains may all carry the same red white and blue branding, but they all have some unique branding to the line. Seat moquettes, grab handles, a coloured stripe along the top of the platform, maps with the line colour mounted on the walls. On the point about the map. I think most people use Google Maps directions these days, but sometimes it's still nice to just look at a map of everything to see what your options are or how the whole system all fits together. There will still need to be an "everything map"
Was so looking forward to the Jago Line.
Those orange line colours (did you draw them yourself ?) look great as a Licquorice Allsorts set of colors - quick get round to the LTMuseum, patent the idea and get packets done with the orange and black outer squares and tubes with line colur for all rail systems in the innards etc, with purple line jelly ones.
The Express joke made me laugh! Of course it isn't really an express... although neither is the Overground, I suppose.
An excellent video Jago, lots of great questions and ideas. The Star Trek picture reference @5:40 was bloody brilliant! I even had Kirk’s voice shouting it in my head.
missed that, time stamp ?
Lol, I completely missed what that picture was :D
Khan!!!! 😁
That’s a very odd place to mark as a turning point.
That’s a very odd place to mark as a turning point.
I didnt know I wanted each DLR line to have its own name until warching this video. Thank you Jago
The dotted lines do sound a great approach to mark the overground on the map and honestly would love to see another one of these videos.
I'm totally calling it 'The Harlequin' whatever name they pick🤩. @7:54 reminds me of an idea where the services all had their own maps available at their own stations. I think it's too extra but I see the sense in it🤔🤷🏾♀
having lived outside of London for at least! 30 years I am as confused as ever! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Well done Jago!
On the question of "Should London Overground be on the London Underground map?" the answer is a resounding yes.
London Underground suffers from major congestion, at times, and showing London Overground Lines to Underground customers, has pushed alternative routes, into the public consciousness of Underground travellers. Modal shift away from crowded Underground lines to London Overground lines, makes the experience of the remaining Underground customers better.
It could be argued, that all Underground maps should be totally replace with London Connection maps, to create even more modal shift away from busy London Underground lines.
However, we do not have proper integrated transport in the UK, and people who travel onto National Rail service, with the wrong sort of ticket, can get a penalty fair.
The solution here, is to pass over all suburban lines going into London (and other UK cities) to TfL (or an equivalent locally controlled transport authority) so that train fares can operate under one system and passengers can be encouraged to take the most effective route around the city.
Ultimately, it would good to look at all lines coming into London and split them between express long distance services and commuter services. And brand all the commuter trains into London, the exact same way.
We should also give the Mayor of London control of the north and south bits of Crossrail 2 now, and run it as two railways, until Central Government hands back the funding, for the central tunnel.
Really we should just take the route the Netherlands did and integrate all our transport. I suspect that would ultimately be a similar task compared to getting some regions to accept TfL control where there currently isn’t any. But maybe you’re right and the more limited scope of all suburban rail joining the Overground (or at least the Oyster scheme) would be more quickly achievable than the Dutch model.
Your suggestion might take many decades, given the political decisions involved. The first target MUST be to have a single integrated ticketing system, so that at any starting point a passenger can buy a single ticket which covers any and every possible journey on all forms of transport within the area of coverage. I used such a system in Munich (U-bahn, S-bahn, trams and buses) more than forty five years ago. It is easily possible to build a back office system which calculates what proportion of a complex ticket goes to which operating company and distributes the finds accordingly - the airlines have had such systems for at least thirty years.
@@kaitlyn__L Far more important than integrating the operations is to integrate the ticketing systems.
@@hb1338 that’s exactly what the Netherlands did, and what I’m suggesting
"However, we do not have proper integrated transport in the UK, and people who travel onto National Rail service, with the wrong sort of ticket, can get a penalty fair. [sic]"
The *vast majority* of those travelling on journeys entirely within London use Oyster/Contactless PAYG or a Travelcard season. Within the Oyster PAYG area, PAYG is accepted on all National Rail services, and Travelcards are accepted on National Rail services within the zones except for Heathrow Express and Southeastern highspeed*.
The only real issue I can see is passengers using Oyster cards to stations in the Contactless but not Oyster PAYG area, but this problem already itself exists even on the Tube map for Elizabeth line services between Reading and West Drayton, as well as Thameslink services north of Radlett and Potters Bar, and passengers already use Oyster/contactless outside the PAYG area often enough that there's a sign at Brighton station gateline that they're not accepted!
*Outboundary Travelcard tickets from Kent specifically including HS1 are however accepted for journeys on Southeastern highspeed services.
Your observation / idea about interactive maps is a great one! It's one of those ideas that, when heard, makes me think... why hasn't that been invented already?
It would be extremely expensive to provide widespread facilities to display such maps, but it would be extremely cheap to make them available on the various websites (National Rail, TfL etc). Surely a national transport ombudsman with the power to compel the various companies and authorities to make life easier for their customers is a complete no-brainer.
Huge fan of the Brunel line suggestion - most important name in British infrastructure and definitely does not get enough recognition among the common joe
The thames tunnel was more marc brunel's project. And though this was quite a feat, many lives were lost in the construction and it was a financial disaster. Is this the brunel we should be celebrating? And it didn't offer any useful reliable connectivity until the overground took it on at much cost.
@@richarddaygm Although many of the other tube lines were also financially shaky (see Yerkes!), and lives are lost in most construction projects, especially difficult pioneering ones (the death toll was small compared to Woodhead Tunnel for example). And Brunel Line neatly covers both Marc and Isambard.
@@iankemp1131 Yerkes - yikes! larceny bribery and blackmail, he is certainly not a guy to be celebrated. Yeah, I've been unfair on Marc - they were different times when life was cheap and debtors were held to account. And wonders of the world can be expensive, I guess. Dedicate it to Marc then :)
@@richarddaygm Although even for Yerkes, without him we might not have had the Bakerloo, Piccadilly or Northern (Hampstead) lines at all ...
Thanks for including my infill comment in your follow up video. You are the reader, to my writing.
I once suggested they print the various lines in Morse code, but they never did it, dah dit dit. : )
I think when you do Q&A style videos like this the question should be read aloud, not just in screen.
Better still if you can get someone else to read it out.
I agree. Although just listening to it meant you had the added excitement of trying to guess the question.
The @irehman7 robot voice could work well alongside Jago's.
I would definitely want the Overground kept on the tube map. It's already there, so it won't take up any more space. I often use the combined tube / national rail map because I spend most of my time outside the London area. What does irritate me, though, is the way the western branch of the Elizabeth line appears to go North. And I've only just noticed that some of the "towards" arrows off the line are pointing in the wrong direction, should the line be straightened out as it should. Maybe we need a letterbox shape for the diagram.
I think the only way the "vanity project" argument would make sense would be if the lines were named: The Khan Line, the Mayoral Line, the Sadiq Line, the Sadiq Khan Line, the Mayor Khan Line, and the Mayor Sadiq Khan Line...
You would need Khanal Knowledge to understand them
😂 I would move to London and vote for him if he did that. That is too funny 😂
Don't encourage him. 😁
I remember visting Hamburg, Germany. It was the first time I'd come across letters for train routes. S Bahn (seemed to be used for overground routes) and U Bahn (which seemed to be for underground routes - which made sense to me with Underground starting with the same letter). I got used to it soon enough
Ah- Straßenbahn (S-Bahn) and Untergrundbahn (U-Bahn) are actually the German words for suburban and underground railway respectively! So they’re not exactly letters for routes, although in this case they can be used to distinguish in a similar way.
@@nyunta139 Straßenbahn is a tramway (Straße means street) The S in S-Bahn stands for Schnell (fast), or Stadt (City)
@@norbitonflyer5625 You’re right, I thought something was wrong there. Can’t believe I got those mixed up!
@@norbitonflyer5625 Straßenbahnhaltestelle was my favourite word when learning German at school. That and Jugendherberge.
@@ShedTV For me it was Geschwindigkeitsbeschränkung and Frischgeschnittnenwanderstab.
It's not worth worrying about confusion with the name Northern Line, as the Northern Line needs to be broken up into the Bank Line and the Charring Cross Line. When that happens, the current name should go.
I would suggest City and South London Line and Hampstead Line, as those were the historical names.
The most obvious solution to me would be to retain Northern for the CX branch and Southern for the Bank branch, although of course this could cause confusion with the Southern franchise. Then again, the latter doesn't appear on the Underground map.
@@marcelwiszowaty1751 Both the Charing X branch and the Bank branch join and split again going north before ending up at Edgware, one branch and High Barnet the other. Much more north of the river than south. Yes I am looking at a 20 year old Tube Map. Both northern destinations served by a train each from Morden, line splitting before Kennington one via Waterloo the other via the Elephant and Bank. Lines joining and splitting at Camden Town. Jumped on the wrong train at South Wimbledon (confusing name as is in Merton) more than once going to Waterloo. Having to change at the Elephant by crossing the road to the Bakerloo Line, or go back to the Oval. (a cross platform northbound southbound change).
However, that is not happening any time soon.
@@tonys1636 the whole of Wimbledon is in Merton. What's confusing about that?
Let’s just bring back NSE and leave it at that. Also which MP was it?!
I want this as well. GBR, if you are real, please do this.
I showed a non train interest friend an old picture of a station he lived near, and when he saw the NSE train, his eyes lit up, and he got very excited.
Yes good idea
Thanks! Altho here in Berkeley Cal I am far from my adopted home away from home, your vids are always a wonderful "inside baseball" reminder of the Big Smoke.
I think the best reason for not using letters or numbers for the names is that it is an incredibly dull solution to a problem that could very easily be solved more creatively. London's public transport is as iconic as it is useful and we should continue to give it that respect going forward!
I always shudder when I hear of schools in Russia called things things like "Kazan School number 14".
You said the most formal "don't hate me cos you ain't me g" I've ever heard, yet I can't say anything cos I ain't you
Very easy to name the overground lines it could go like this- Line 1, Line 2, Line 3, Line 4 etc JOB JONE!
I think letters are better though
Excellent as usual.
I think the line colours should be the _opposite_ of the orange-outline option... various bold colours for the various lines (which colours _they_ should be is another argument altogether), but with a thin but intense - almost _fluorescent_ - orange pinstripe down the *_middle._* That way, you would likely see the orange from a distance, which would show you that the station you need is on the Overground rather than the Underground, and if you needed to know the actual name of the line you could get a bit closer to make out the distinct colour of the outline.
Because, at the end of the day, the average passenger trying to get from A to B who is inexperienced enough to need a map in the first place is probably just interested in getting to where they're going and doesn't really need to know _which_ Overground line their destination is on - just whether there's a straight route or an interchange from where they currently are.
I see a new video from Mr Hazzard.
I click onto it, and like it. Then I watch it. In that order.
Mr Hazzard yet again does not disappoint - a fine and thought-provoking coverage of the subject throughout.
Thank you Mr Hazzard, a very worthy and helpful follow-up to your earlier video.
In that video you mentioned Cartographers and in retrospect I can see that the route map to be produced has many challenges, not least of which is meeting a disability need to be usable by colour blind people.
Does the current map actually make each line distinguishable for those people?
Personally, I like the idea of solid lines - Overground being orange + another colour.
By that logic, the deep tubes should be black + another colour (they're in deep, dark, holes). Similarly 'cut'n'cover' tubes should be brown + another colour. The various waterbourne services blue + another colour, etc.
One thought on future maps which might escape most 'locals'. The TfL Route Planner does do a very good job of guiding a person through London's transport quagmire and perhaps the map has, in fact, reached the end of its useful life? Just a thought....
in short, it is recognised that a map differentiated by colour does not help those with colour recognition differences, does this matter with the tube map as essentially the diagramatic nature of the lines dont really show confusable through services ?, there is the official black and white map done by hatching variations - but I have not seen what changes were made since the coming of Jubilee/Crossrail or any inclusion of Overground services
@@highpath4776 There is still a Black & White Large Print Tube map available on TfL's website. As well as hatching variations, they use differing shades to be able to get two different lines out of the same hatching variation.
If at least one of them doesn’t end up as Liney McLineFace I will be disappointed.
That has to be romford-upminster
Re: the Liverpool St to Enfield Town/Cheshunt/ Chingford. I reckon the route to Chingford should be Lea Valley. The Route to Enfield and Cheshunt should be Ermine, after the Roman Road it sort of follows. Also, I like the idea of the Harlequin, as it reminds me of the old name of the shopping centre in Watford.
From the GER to Network Rail, the "Lea Valley" line has been the one through Ponders End (which doesn't appear on the Tube Map because it is still run by Greater Anglia). It would lead to a lot of confusion, prerhaps dangerously so in the event of an incident, if another line nearby was marketed by TfL using the same name.
How about 'The Ian Dury Line' for Romford to Upminster? With Two Tone black'n'white checks on the map, obvs.
Blockhead branch?
Younger viewers might prefer the Underworld Line, which has the advantage of being confusing to tourists.
We do need a modern day Beck for all the route planning stuff - I only really ever think of the underground, liz line - ok, buses at a push, overground/national rail along with river 'buses' and the cable car barely ever
Should the overground be on the map? Maybe? Honestly probably, it's serving a similar function to the underground lines and functions mostly the same. DLR too. But I think we can all agree that the Emirates Air Line is questionable at best.
Don't let the haters get you down. I like the station roofing at 9:18.
Good job, as always.
Use different sequences of dots and lines in the orange color sounds like the best approach. Keeps familiarity and helps separate the different lines.
The multistripe version is good too, but probably hard to print on a tea towel.
Dotted was historically used to denote limited service. The current map has a white stripe with purple outline for the Elizabeth line presumably because the colour they wanted was too close to the Metropolitan colour. They also have similar for DLR so it seems they have already decided the solid line with outline is the way to go next.
The tube map is essentially a marketing tool for TfL (services), rather than a means for londoners to get around efficiently, effectively or cheaply. Some folk at Tooting Bec were working out how to get to Battersea Power Station - they concluded the map said go to Kennington (implied walk up the steps then down to change platforms as no step free to the platform there yet) and Back (in Zone 1) to BPSS. The easy route is Walk to Balham (a doable slog depending where one starts from), then Southern to Battersea Park then short walk, all in Zone 2/3 and about 8 min quicker- If one wants the Northern Line it is possible mearly to go Clapham North then walk, I reckon you could beat the tube from Clapham North with a brisk stroll - I could be wrong ).
A reminder that there is also a perfectly good way of getting around London by bus as well. Finchley Central may famously indeed be ten long stations from Golders Green, change at Camden Town - but it's much quicker by bus.
The map is meant to convey how to get to TfL stations using TfL services on the map. It's not primarily about showing what's quicker. Though if it were to have every last thing on there to enable the quickest route including walking, the map would be even more overcrowded.
I think most 'locals' get around using apps such as Citymapper these days - which is basically the interactive tube/dlr/overground/bus/etc etc map
A "brisk stroll" is a tautology.
@@hb1338 I think you mean oxymoron
I don't favour being left to my own devices since, truth be told, I have trouble distinguishing my external rectal sphincter from my superior radioulnar joint.
What would help ? A guide dog ? A personal travel consultant ? Your own taxi ?
A very informative video. Good answers for these questions!
I love that this community is great at nomenclature. I respect that.
What??????
@@seanbonellaCheck out the video if you didn’t get it.
indeed they are geniuses
Yes! A new video!
8:47 Apple Maps and Google Maps have great transit maps and information. I remember having an online Tube map I memorised when I was in London.
Although ideally, I would like to collect maps like Geoff Marshall.
I might be putting my collection (mostly 1980s) up for sale, when I can find it, (plus most bus maps from 1970 to 1989)
The Romford to Upminster branch line? Not Emerson Park line. Because if you've ever been round the Emerson Park McMansions at Christmas and the fearsome and tasteless light pollution that makes amateur astromony hard, even Romford and the shouting lager-lager-lager is less light polluting for those that don't live in the centre of Romford. South Street, Romford, Shopping Arcade. I've binoculars in my pocket.
We need a Yerkes Line. It would be dollar green.
The remark on the Express made my day...
I feel like letters/numbers would be much better to name the DLR lines as they all serve the docks and thus would be named after places close together and to a more local level
Suggestion time:
DLR 1 Bank- Lewisham
DLR2 Stratford- Canary Wharf
DLR3 Bank- Woolwhich Arsenal
DLR4 Tower Hill- Beckton
DLR5 Stratford International- Beckton
DLR6 Stratford International- Woolwhich Arsenal
@@mysterium368 I'd swap your DLR1 and DLR 2 so that the three lines to the City have consecutive numbers (2,3,and 4) In your plan other shared lines do follow a pattern: Isle of Dogs is 1 and 2, Beckton is 4 and 5, International is 5 and 6, Woolwich is 3 and 6 (multiples of 3)
@@mysterium368BTW, DLR2 would need to include peak services from Lewisham to Stratford. Maybe what you could do under such a system is having Stratford to Canary Wharf services as 'DLR2', and extended Lewisham services as 'DLT2+'. Still, its the kind of system that obviously could work fine
Perhaps someone should remind whoever is in charge that the Bexleyheath line should serve Charing Cross, as it has been for many years. Whoever came up with the idea to chop that service needs their head examining.
Aha! Overground, Underground. Name the lines after Wombles.
See Jay Foreman's "What Went Wrong With The Tube Map" video to see some alternative designs., I think the Overground can fit within the tube map with a bit of thought.
I know nothing about that video and have never even heard of it.
@@JagoHazzard Thank you for watching; You are the denial to my cameo appearance.
Take a really close look at Harry Beck in that video!
@@JagoHazzard Made me laugh, how could I forget that.
Great video Jago
Many years ago, I turned up at Düsseldorf Hbf and was presented with a U-Bahn map. Knowing Köln I was heartily disappointed. Clearly this nearby city wasn’t as well endowed with public transport as its neighbour. I then walked outside to find a plethora of Trams converging at the station. Then I saw the S-Bahn network map, and then the Regional Zug map… I didn’t even try to find the bus map! Way too much for one map, so they didn’t.
Some consideration will have to be given to how compressed the network is on the pocket Underground Map (not to mention the vagaries of colour printing in various publications, and 'varieties of colour vision').
As long as we don't have any more lines named after the Royal Family!!!!
I have a Tokyo rail map produced by JR East - it shows JR lines in Black, Metro/Subway lines in Bold colours, and pastel colours for the major private railways (Tobu, Tokyu, Keisei, Seibu, Keikyu etc). It works quite well, but doesn't distinguish between the individual lines of each company (though these are normally named on the map). There again, there aren't enough colours in existence to have one for every single line in Tokyo!!!
I'd be willing to bet that the name proposed for Crossrail 2 will be the Charles Line!
@@marcelwiszowaty1751 I do NOT want a Camilla Line!
Hello Dear Jago. I'll like to share my humble thoughts on naming the six different lines, as beautifully discussed in this absorbing
Tale From The Tubes. I'd like to see them given floral names, such as Buttercup Line, Daffodil Line, Foxglove Line, Petunia Line,
Rose Line, and Violet Line. Where required these could be shortened to the initial, for example, B, D, F, P, R, and V Lines. The name
could be displayed for identification purposes at stations and on stationery with an artists illustration of the flower for that line.
I think this would be accepted by large number of commuters, as we all know how railways and flowers have always been linked.
Beautiful idea!
I think the power wielded by the Mayor of London is greater than a single MP (so Boris' Buses, Livingstone's Bendies (and before that Fare's Fair), plus us history nerds recall what the likes of the LCC leaders and Metropolitan Board of Works guys did in the past, I was never certain what Horace Cutler did though (cut things and wear bow-ties ?- probably invented Thamesmead sans Transport from my hazy memory)
Cutler renamed the Fleet Line to Jubilee. He also had PR stunts digging holes in the Strand to "start" Phase 2 (Charing X - Fenchurch St via Ludgate Hill) of it.
Just caught up with this. Excellent commentary. Short and sharp with a lovely dose of ffs!
Do wonder about the DLR question; it is such a different prospect there with all the cross-running and potential to change services as needed in the future.
As the person who put forward the idea of the orange "infill" line idea, can I thank you for saying your are "marginally inclined" to it compared to other proposals (although the orange dash idea would be usable) - I wasn't aware that I'd nicked something used in Tokyo!
My logic was based on your two main thoughts: the orange is already used (all infilled with the same colour), so keeping the base part of it orange seemed logical while, as you point out, dashed lines are used for National Rail and, as it's part of the TfL family, it makes sense to have a degree of difference from NR routes.
Anyway, keep up with your insightful, thoughful and tongue-in-cheek videos - you are the infill to my orange outline.
Shall we save one route repainting the trouble- the Zamy*Lofoot*Fume sounds great
How many Lines ? dont know , so here are some names - Dave, Gloria. Elsie, Gregory, ( hmm, better might be Alice, Barny, Cleo, ) - what rules do you want, no name sharing the first letter of an existing Tube line ?
Bakerloo - Brian
Central - Charles
Northern - Nigel
etc
Northern Line, named for the GNR lines it took over. Ironically it closed much of it, the 'main' line to Edgware, past Mill Hill East, and the branch to Ally Pally, plus the line from Finsbury Park to East Finchley. If the mooted (but probably never to see the light) proposal to reinstate the Finsbury Park to East Finchley section came about, with the Tube ending at East Finchley,and the ex-GNR ran once again on ex-GNR lines (but to Moorgate), the last vestage of GNR would be gone. So, what to call it? Well, it runs from Morden to Middlesex, so, obviously, the Morsex line. In pink and red. With hearts?
The East London Line was once a Tube line. QED, leave it a Tube line. Personally I'd re-open the St.Mary's Curve and run Metropolitan Line trains to New Cross/Gate. Now that would really invigorate the area, with direct connections to the centre of town, or at most, change at Aldgate onto the District (which could use the curve too, but just how complex can 'one' line be? This isn't fanciful. The St. Mary's Curve was used for passenger traffic until not so long ago, and is useable still.
St Mary's Curve has had its track lifted. Even when it operated the tight curves meant you could only have one train down there at a time.
The mind boggles at a District Line Service Olympia-Aldgate East-New Cross-Hayes. (esp as could run via Victoria or Via Kings Cross !!)
@@ttrjw Oh yes, I forgot it was recently lifted. Still, easy enough to put back, without too much cost I suspect. True the number of trains would be limited, but with loads of other trains using the Thames tunnel anyway the capacity would always be limited.
@@highpath4776 sounds like a jolly good service, giving that part of London a direct link to the centre of town. It would really boost the area.
@@shero113 The flat junction with the ELL line to/from Dalston woukld severely limit tghe number of trains that could use the line. You would also have to remove some trains from the Upminster Line because of capacity constraints west of Whitechapel.
You're the best Jago. Your videos explain these things so much better than the politicians or the press.
You are the mayor to my vanity projects.
From a member of the London despora (just invented that), Goblin, Brunel and North London lines please! The rest are other peoples choices. Thank you, great video as always.
Really enjoyed this nominal tale from above the Tube!
Regardless of which line was named first, it's clear that the Northern line is more known by that name now compared to the purported 'North London line'. They will obviously be confused and this double naming for the tube map should absolutely be avoided.
The North London appeared named as such on the tube map, thanks to Ken Livingstone, with no problem. We dont have problems with the Great Northern either.
There's solid lines, hollowed lines, and hashed lines. But how difficult would it be to have a hollowed line with an X hatch inside? I think it would work even at smaller scale.
And using letter/numbers could be used in addition to named lines: all Underground Lines could be assigned M1-M11 in opening order (from Metropolitan 1 to Jubilee 11) and then the DLR could be assigned L and split into its routes, Croydon Trams split into various T lines, the Elizabeth Line would be E, and all the Overground lines as "S" (for Suburban) but then split into its various routings. As much as it's not how the English do it, it helps organisationally.
I'd say that the Overground is too integrated with the Underground because of how it runs, despite how integral Thameslink and other National Rail services are in the London area.
Just my 2p. (Which as of this comment is worth about 2.5 US cents.)
If they did call it the Harlequin Line, would the drivers and station staff for that line be obliged to wear a somewhat (ahem) different uniform?
On the maps, the line could be represented by a multitude of colours.
Thought provoking as usual.
They've all already got perfectly good names! I'm going to keep calling them.... The Watford DC Line, The Goblin Line, The North London Line, The East London Line, The Lea Valley Lines and the Romford to Upminster Line. I The are all operated as London Overground. These names are historic and reflect where they go and would not be confusing to Londoners and tourists alike.
5:36 We’ve entered Spicy Takes that cause Indigestion Territory.
Great vid Jago 👍
It would be nice if TfL could put out a few different designs and names to public consultation - it would only cost them a little extra to do so
I think we can rely on that. It's how things are done these days in the public sector.
To differentiate, the simple answer is number the DLR, tram and Overground lines. It makes them clearly distinguishable from the Underground and other rail services.
Let's go like the German S Bahn system and refer to the Overground routes as OG1, OG2, 0G3! etc keeping the lines orange !!
My daughter-in-law's initials are OG - you can count on her vote.
Your thoughts on a possible interactive map reminded me of something which used to be in certain busy areas of the capital, back in the 60s. If you are as old as your somewhat distinguished voice suggests that you are, you might remember them too. There was a rather large map which showed where you were, and you could type in where you wanted to go or push a button on the display which had the most popular places displayed (I forget which), and little lights would appear showing you the route. And now, maybe there's already an app to guide you through London's rail system and all you have to do is spend even more time on your phone to find the best route. Once upon a time you could ask a policeman on the beat, but they are now extinct. Like the illuminated street guides.
I don't think policemen on the beat were ever a source of information about public transport.
@@hb1338 They were. I know. I had a relative who was a beat policeman many decades ago and people would ask him all kind of things, like where to find something or somewhere, or the best way to get to somewhere. Quite common, in fact.
I suppose we could all play wordle for five letter words that it rejects - some of them could be great trade names as I struggle to complete that daily task
This may be a little controversial, but I think that the Elizabeth line should be one of the London Overground lines.
It fits perfectly into this scheme because:
- It already has its own colour
- It is represented in a way similar to how the London Overground is/will be represented on the map
- It is a National Rail line, just like the London Overground lines
- It operates services at a similar frequency to the Overground network, with similar commuter targets
- Its route patterns (almost) resemble that of the Overground
I know it seems silly considering how this line was such a huge project and deserves its own unique identity, but since all the London Overground lines are getting their own identities, why not incorporate the Elizabeth line? Without incorporating it, it just becomes this strange anomaly on the map with very few differences to the London Overground network.
Just a thought.
Ah yes an Overground line that runs underground just like the East London line
Also hi Dweller
I LOL'd in real life @9:12. Well played, sir, well played.
Great video with good thoughts. One suggestion: it really helps if you also read out the questions/points as well as the thoughts/answers, rather than having key content that can only be read off the screen. At the distance I view these, I had to keep rewinding to re-read the points, as they weren't easy to see against mixed background, and sometimes if I'd looked away I'd find you were now talking about something quite different! Just a thought.
He said the title and made a bastardized version of Thrawn. That’s how much he will honor the Zahn books in his own way.
I don't really think the Chingford line is the same as the Enfield/Cheshunt lines for customers. Only the people who operate the lines connect them as they use the same trains.
For the passenger, the lines have at best two stations in common (Hackney Downs - always, and Bethnal Green - one in two).
I did suggest the Enfield/Cheshunt should use the left over color and signage of TfL Rail - esp as it goes into Liverpool Street , but it might mean some kind of train painting. I think the Chingfords too, were not all part of the the Great Eastern;s Jazz Service intensive commuter network
I did enjoy. Thank you Jago.
I’m against giving lines letters because the existing lines might be A, B, C etc, then a new line opens between A and B. The next letter is F. We then either have to put up with illogical A, F, B etc or re-letter them. Names avoids that problem. Also names can cope with lines being split or merged: just rename.
Looking forward to Morware and Battnet services.
Nice shot of a SWR train at Surbiton . Now there’s an idea, what about names for the SWR branches ( if i had my way the whole of Londons railways would be under TFL)
On the Underground, the mapping between routes and tracks is very straightforward - at any Underground platform, it is very rare that more than two end destinations are possible, and there is usually only one major terminus. If you stand on platform 4 at Woking, there are at least ten end destinations available. That means that the link between tracks and routes is tenuous at best.
In the hope to egg you onto a third video :)
I am quite in favour of naming the Overground "lines" (as a foreigner who visits London, and is reading law through the finest university) and would see value in getting the DLR organized into differently named and coloured services. I also think its time to form a sensible approach to what makes up the "Tube Map". I don't think its entirely sensible to equate "tube" and "Underground" partly because Underground as a branding is later than the term "tube" for the metropolitan services that were high frequency and connected passengers to mainline train stations. The subsurface lines aren't really in a tube.
Therefore I feel the cable car should be wholly scrapped from the Tube Map - it has no place on it - all "lines" which have a frequency enabling passengers to get a train in less than 10 minutes (so last time I checked a lot of the overground would only be on my proposed Tube Map because of the addition of other rail services of the same track, between the same stations and with the ability to use the same oyster system - the West London Line reliably connects Shepherds Bush and Clapham Junction with a wait of under 15 minutes because both Overground and Southern trains run on it) should be on the Tube Map. A passenger should be able to follow a line on the map to know which stations they can reliably get between at a high frequency.
What I'd then do is have a practice of solid colour lines for Underground services which are presumably on dedicated track etc ... (you can see where this gets messy on the edges but where its called an Underground line its a solid line) and then having a colour for different services (Overground, Thameslink, DLR, Tram [hopefully some in the inner boroughs ...], Crossrail, monorail [London needs its own gadget bahn] eventually) that is an outer double lines with Orange for Overground, Black for "Rail" (Thameslink, but its based on service pattern), Purple for Crossrail, etc ... The middle of these non-Underground (but Underground service pattern) lines would then be different colours. Thereby making a lot of space for colour re-use. When the second Crossrail service is put together it would then be Purple outerlines with Black innerline (and will have to be named the "Phillip Line")
I recall Geoff Marshall had a big rant about the Elizabeth Line naming and so on as well as what should be on the Tube Map. As you can probably glean I am of the view that the Tube Map should be focused on giving useful information to somebody coming into London about high frequency services that is not confusing. I feel that "line" should refer to the ability to get between the points on whatever service without a second thought by the passenger. Usually this will map a physical railway but thats not the focus, nor is the service, nor the provider of the service. I feel Piccadilly Line and Bakerloo Line all have brand recognition that warrants a spot on the map. It is quite possible to tell a Yank to get the Piccadilly at Heathrow and to get off at Covent Garden and to believe that even a Yank will be able to execute that task.
What percentage of rail users is served by your criterion "outsiders looking for high frequency services" ? Any diagram (it's not a map) should put as much information before the public as is sensibly possible, and should serve as many people as is possible
Names for the Tube.
Numbers for LRT.
Letters for the Overground.
Different systems, different ID. Helps visitors to London.
I like the suggested name Brunel Line Jago mentioned...
Interactive app map would be a good idea ! Assuming that wifi or 5G/4G/3G phone data signals are available on the entire journey.
But that'd get me on to mobile phones being usable in the tube sections, where it's too noisy to use them. But someone would use them, and then be yelling into their phone. Having some one yelling into there phone is bad enough on much quieter National Rail trains, on the tube trains, well it could make some people experience "tube rage" !
Please read out the questions :-)
Should have got Jay and Geoff to read the questions
i love it when watford is mentioned :)
I don't think Londoners will confuse the northern line with the north london line but I can see tourists getting confused.
That's absolutely fine. Carry on.