Transport for Londinium Unveils Brand-New Overground Rail Network
Transport for Londinium have announced a brand-new overground rail network is in the stages of planning. To be known as the Londinium Overground, it will have three lines connecting areas such as Croydon, Cockfosters, the City, Bank, and the Baker Street area. Aiming for maximum range rather than maximum capture of a small area, the network will serve a distinct purpose compared to the Underground network. The current route map is ‘very rough and should not be taken to be the final route map’, though they are ‘fairly certain’ that the routes themselves will not change.
An interesting detail of note is the fact that King’s Cross St. Pancras will not be served by the Overground, most likely due to logistical issues; it may already be difficult enough to connect Bank and Oxford Circus (which recently received an exit at King’s Cross) due to the density of buildings nearby as well as ambitions for main line railways serving King’s Cross.
According to a geographical map provided by TfL, the Windrush line will pass over Luton Airport, presumably in the form of a train bridge. If this is the case, the airport’s current purpose of serving emergency landings may become diminished as pilots would need to fly underneath the train bridge, which may not be feasible in certain conditions. Thankfully, Luton is yet to be used as an emergency landing spot, so this may turn out to be a moot point.
The three lines also themselves serve distinct purposes, with only two stations serving as an interchange between any of them. The Weaver line, coloured in maroon, starts at Caledonian Road then continues to Finsbury Park, Liverpool Street, Baker Street, and Regent Street, thus forming a sort of spiral line that mainly serves the suburbs. The Mildmay line, coloured in blue, starts at Cockfosters, meets with the Weaver and Windrush lines at Finsbury Park, then continues to Mile End, then to Regent’s Park (thus crossing the same mountain that as the Waterloo & City line), finally terminating at Harrow & Wealdstone, the Bakerloo line terminus and the southernmost part of the city (as of yet it is entirely empty). The Windrush line starts at Oxford Circus (which is the only Overground station to be inside the City of Londinium), crosses the east-west region at Bank, then the north-south mountain at Charing Cross, followed by Regent Street.
Overall, the network is quite complex, and TfL did not give an estimate for how long it would take for the network to complete. When we asked about the speed with which the Underground Expansion Plan has come to fruition, the TfL spokesperson said:
“While we also did not give an estimate of how long it would take to overhaul the Underground, and we have thus far almost completed the Plan in just three weeks, we are almost certain that the Overground will be a much slower burn, simply due to the fact that it would necessitate building bridges, crossing mountains, et cetera. As such, expect the network not to open for quite some time.”