Naming of lines

[GuyBarry]

It occurs to me that almost all Tube lines are really badly named. The names may have made sense historically, but nowadays hardly any of them describe what the line does.

Metropolitan - goes right out into the suburbs and further into Buckinghamshire.
Central - extends far beyond central London, to Essex in one direction and into suburban west London in the other direction.
Circle - no longer runs in a circle.
Northern - extends further south than any other Tube line.
Hammersmith & City - one end is indeed at Hammersmith, but the other isn't in the City of London.
Bakerloo - serves Baker Street and Waterloo, but extends to a considerable direction north-westwards and a short distance the other way.
Victoria - certainly serves Victoria, but so do two other Tube lines and a host of surface lines.
Piccadilly - serves Piccadilly Circus, but so does the Bakerloo.
Jubilee - didn't open in the Silver Jubilee year as planned. (Had it not been for the Millennium Dome, the extension might well not have opened in time for the Golden Jubilee, 25 years later.)
District - well I can't deny that it serves many districts of London, but so do all the other lines!

Which only leaves:

Waterloo & City. Does exactly what it says on the tin. And it wasn't even a Tube line until 1994!

[tubeguru]

I'm not even sure where to start with this. Most of the lines you've mentioned have names that are perfectly sensible. A history of certain lines should be read to see why their names were chosen (the Piccadilly, for example). I can pick holes with every one of your "complaints".

[GuyBarry]

I'm not even sure where to start with this. Most of the lines you've mentioned have names that are perfectly sensible. A history of certain lines should be read to see why their names were chosen (the Piccadilly, for example). I can pick holes with every one of your "complaints".

I know why the names were chosen historically. I'm saying they don't make much sense now.

[tubeguru]

Yes, but renaming them now would be a hugely expensive and pointless exercise.

[GuyBarry]

They did it with the Hammersmith and City line, didn't they? It was part of the Metropolitan line when I was a kid. And they renamed a big chunk of the Bakerloo as the Jubilee.

EDIT: Oh, and the East London line as well. That was the "Metropolitan line (East London section)".

EDIT (2): And within the last few weeks they've just renamed a whole load of lines from "Abellio Greater Anglia" to "London Overground", or in one case "Tfl Rail". Was that hugely expensive and pointless as well? (Maybe it was.)

[nozzacook]

Circle goes anti-clockwise in a circle from Edgware Rd to Edgware Rd so still correct.

[RobbieM]

And then, of course, most of the Underground is Overground, and some of the Overground will be found Underground...

[mrredrunner100]

And then, of course, most of the Underground is Overground, and some of the Overground will be found Underground...

every time i hear underground and overground in the same sentence i always think of this...

https://youtu.be/XWQMMPFtoG4?t=15s

[GuyBarry]

Right, I'm going to have a rant about this. Most of the names can be justified on the grounds that they're shortened versions of the names of the companies that originally built the lines. But not the Victoria line, which was purpose-built in the 1960s. They could have picked any name they wanted for the line (one suggestion I liked was "Viking", from VIctoria and KING's Cross). So why did they pick the most confusing name possible?

To me, the "Victoria line" should mean "the line to Victoria". Imagine standing at Clapham Junction and wanting to go into London. You might say "shall I take the Waterloo line or the Victoria line?" I know that it once terminated at Victoria but I think there were always plans to extend it further south. You might as well call it the King's Cross line or the Oxford Circus line. It must be confusing to visitors:

"How do I get from Oxford Circus to King's Cross?"
"You need the Victoria line."
"But I'm not going to Victoria."

You see what I mean?

[Iain]

"How do I get from Oxford Circus to King's Cross?"
"You need the Victoria line."
"But I'm not going to Victoria."

You see what I mean?

No, I don't. By your logic each line would have to be renamed according to where each person wants to go - which could be any one of the multiple stations on the line. Even if you limit it to end points for each line, you still have two names for the Victoria, and six for the District. How you think that is simpler is beyond me!

[GuyBarry]

"How do I get from Oxford Circus to King's Cross?"
"You need the Victoria line."
"But I'm not going to Victoria."

You see what I mean?

No, I don't. By your logic each line would have to be renamed according to where each person wants to go - which could be any one of the multiple stations on the line.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that the name "Victoria line" is potentially confusing for people who don't know London very well.

Normally, if a railway line is named after a single station on it, that station is the terminus. For instance in Bristol there's a line called the "Severn Beach line", because it terminates at Severn Beach. I suppose they could have named it after one of the intermediate stations and called it the "Clifton Down line", but that would have suggested that Clifton Down was the end of the line.

The only example I can think of where lines are named after an intermediate station is when there are alternative routes to the same destination. For instance, you can travel from Charing Cross to Dartford via the "Greenwich line", the "Bexleyheath line" or the "Sidcup line". In each case a single station was chosen that uniquely identifies the route.

But that doesn't really apply to the Victoria line either. I suppose you could argue that if I'm going from Euston to Stockwell, I can travel either on the Northern line or via Victoria, so perhaps the name can be justified that way. But on those grounds the Northern line would have to be called something like the "Charing Cross line" or the "Bank line", depending on which way you're going.

It's just an annoying anomaly in my view. No one's going to change the name now, but I wish they'd picked a better one in the first place.

[DrainBrain]

But on those grounds the Northern line would have to be called something like the "Charing Cross line" or the "Bank line", depending on which way you're going.

But this is exactly what does happen. The terms "Charing Cross branch" and "Bank branch" are in common use on the Northern line, and trains are described with phrases like "this is a Northern line train to Edgware via Bank."

https://www.flickr.com/photos/24772733@N05/5749901323

[GuyBarry]

The name of the line doesn't change though, does it? Anyway, I've made my point. Feel free to disagree.

[Iain]

If you're not saying that the line has to be named after each traveller's destination, then what was the point of this quote?

"How do I get from Oxford Circus to King's Cross?"
"You need the Victoria line."
"But I'm not going to Victoria."

Whatever you name a line, let's say X, then a big chunk of travellers can say "But I'm not going to X". Unless of course you named the Victoria line "The Brixton, Stockwell, Vauxhall, Pimlico, Victoria, Green Park ... Blackhorse Road and Walthamstow line"

[GuyBarry]

If you're not saying that the line has to be named after each traveller's destination, then what was the point of this quote?

"How do I get from Oxford Circus to King's Cross?"
"You need the Victoria line."
"But I'm not going to Victoria."

The point was that it might be conceivably be misleading to travellers who haven't spent years going round the London Underground. I appreciate that it might be difficult for some people on this forum to obtain that perspective.