London Liverpool Street

This from the TfL site....

+++++++++++++
Current Overground network status
A good service is operating on all London Overground lines.

Other London rail operators
ONE RAILWAY: Due to a late finish to engineering works One services are not
serving Liverpool Street station.
++++++++++++++

To me this seems like a contradiction. The problem is that the Liverpool
Street line is a London overground line, but it isn't a London Overground
line. TfL should not have used "London Overground" to mean a small subset of
what the words have meant for the last hundred years.

On Wed, 2 Jan 2008, John Rowland wrote:

> To me this seems like a contradiction. The problem is that the Liverpool
> Street line is a London overground line, but it isn't a London
> Overground line. TfL should not have used "London Overground" to mean a
> small subset of what the words have meant for the last hundred years.

Has it? I don't recall hearing 'overground' as a word meaning 'all railway
lines in London not operated by London Underground' until very recently.
Possibly i just didn't notice it. Has it really been widely used in that
sense?

OED says:

overground, n.
2. a. Brit. An overground railway. Also more generally: public
transport operating above the ground. Cf. UNDERGROUND adj. 3.

And funnily enough, the only citation where it's actually used for non-LU
trains in London is the most recent one:

2001 Evening Standard (Nexis) 21 July 10 Transport links are a bit shoddy,
unless you can get where you need to go from Liverpool Street on the
overground.

I agree that Overground was a very poor choice of name, though.

tom

--
skills to pay the bills!

Tom Anderson wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Jan 2008, John Rowland wrote:
>
>> To me this seems like a contradiction. The problem is that the
>> Liverpool Street line is a London overground line, but it isn't a
>> London Overground line. TfL should not have used "London
>> Overground" to mean a small subset of what the words have meant
>> for the last hundred years.
>
> Has it? I don't recall hearing 'overground' as a word meaning 'all
> railway lines in London not operated by London Underground' until
> very recently. Possibly i just didn't notice it. Has it really been
> widely used in that sense?

No, I don't think it has. In my experience, people used "railway" or
"British Rail" or "main line" (even when talking about purely suburban
railways) or the name of the BR/NR operator. People certainly didn't
talk about "London overground" even if they might possibly have used the
word "overground".

Liverpool Street National Rail station is of course underground. Well,
just as much as Bayswater or Aldgate are underground.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Richard J. wrote:

> No, I don't think it has. In my experience, people used "railway" or
> "British Rail" or "main line" (even when talking about purely suburban
> railways) or the name of the BR/NR operator. People certainly didn't talk
> about "London overground" even if they might possibly have used the word
> "overground".

Maybe, but if you spoke of the "overground" most peple would think you meant
the "railway". Whilst the term wasn't used that much it was clear what it
meant until now.

"Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-Pickering@qmul.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:5u2h59F1fcbiqU1@mid....
> Richard J. wrote:
>
>> No, I don't think it has. In my experience, people used "railway" or
>> "British Rail" or "main line" (even when talking about purely suburban
>> railways) or the name of the BR/NR operator. People certainly didn't
>> talk about "London overground" even if they might possibly have used the
>> word "overground".
>
> Maybe, but if you spoke of the "overground" most peple would think you
> meant the "railway". Whilst the term wasn't used that much it was clear
> what it meant until now.

I'd agree - its only in the last few years it got into the media - possibly
since the ill fated 'overground network'; would that be about 4 or 5 years?
I must admit to skimming past the earlier suggestion that the term had been
in use a hundred years...

Paul

Mr Thant wrote:
> On 2 Jan, 12:02, "Graham J" <n...@orangebucket.co.uk> wrote:
>> That article talks about the bridge removal works allowing the
>> inference that these works are the cause of the problems. However
>> according to the 'one' website that all went smoothly and the
>> problem is the OHLE replacement works in the station.
>
> That sounds about right to me. I had another look at the bridge site
> on Monday and the wires were back up and everything looked finished,
> but further west there were lots of men in orange jackets milling
> around (though no sign of any tools or equipment), and the OHLE
> looked untouched.

And yet a few minutes ago (Wednesday evening), BBC News 24's reporter
was still blaming the delay in re-opening Liverpool Street on "late
completion of a bridge demolition". Can you believe *anything* that BBC
TV News says these days?

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 00:14 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
rosenstiel@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

>In article <E_Uej.71722$c_1.28140@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk> ,
>rjnews0811@blueukder.co.yon (Richard J.) wrote:
>
>> Can you believe *anything* that BBC
>> TV News says these days?
>
>Not just the BBC. Journos seem long ago to have forgotten what facts are.

Given that all the publicity I saw was along the lines of "Liverpool
Street station would be closed to allow removal of a bridge in order
to enable building of the East London Line extension", it's a natural
thing to report...

James Farrar wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 00:14 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
> rosenstiel@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
>
>> In article <E_Uej.71722$c_1.28140@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk> ,
>> rjnews0811@blueukder.co.yon (Richard J.) wrote:
>>
>>> Can you believe *anything* that BBC
>>> TV News says these days?
>>
>> Not just the BBC. Journos seem long ago to have forgotten what
>> facts are.
>
> Given that all the publicity I saw was along the lines of "Liverpool
> Street station would be closed to allow removal of a bridge in order
> to enable building of the East London Line extension", it's a
> natural thing to report...

No, it's a natural thing to *assume* if you don't bother finding out the
facts. Just reading what the TfL spokesman said earlier in the day, as
reported on the BBC's own website, would have sufficed. That's why my
criticism was particularly of BBC TV News. The standards of journalism
and news values there seems far worse than elsewhere in the corporation.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On 2 Jan, 23:04, "Paul Scott" <notvalidpmsc...@> wrote:
> "Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-Picker...@qmul.ac.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:5u2h59F1fcbiqU1@mid....
>
> > Richard J. wrote:
>
> >> No, I don't think it has. In my experience, people used "railway" or
> >> "British Rail" or "main line" (even when talking about purely suburban
> >> railways) or the name of the BR/NR operator.  People certainly didn't
> >> talk about "London overground" even if they might possibly have used the
> >> word "overground".
>
> > Maybe, but if you spoke of the "overground" most peple would think you
> > meant the "railway". Whilst the term wasn't used that much it was clear
> > what it meant until now.
>
> I'd agree - its only in the last few years it got into the media - possibly
> since the ill fated 'overground network'; would that be about 4 or 5 years?
> I must admit to skimming past the earlier suggestion that the term had been
> in use a hundred years...
>
> Paul

Last time I departed from Euston (couple of weeks ago) there was an
announcement on the lines of "... the London Nnngground service to
Watford Junction ...". I think they are making it indistinct in order
to avoid confusion.

> I'd agree - its only in the last few years it got into the media -
possibly
> since the ill fated 'overground network'; would that be about 4 or 5
years?
> I must admit to skimming past the earlier suggestion that the term had
been
> in use a hundred years...

Agreed - A lot of people around Richmond / Staines way use the term
Overground, almost certainly because nearly every South West Trains station
in that area has "Overground Network" in *orange* letters.

London Overground is also using... Orange. I do wonder if anyone will
confuse these signs for being London Overground, especially since Overground
Network seems to refer to nothing at all.

Best Wishes,
LEWIS