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)

In article
,
(Mr Thant) wrote:

On 2 Jan, 12:02, "Graham J" 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.

I see that Cambridge was advertising trains to and from Liverpool St when
I got back there at 16:30 tonight. When did Liverpool St actually
re-open?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

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.

On 2 Jan, 17:17, BRB Class 465 wrote:
On 2 Jan, 16:02, Mizter T wrote:

That's balls. The Mayor knows a ton about transport, he's been a keen
advocate of public transport in London for years.

Oh really? Since when does being a "keen advocate" of something give
an individual sufficient knowledge to be able to devise schemes which
work well? The East London Line may turn out to be an interesting case-
study.

Ken Livingstone has taken a keen interest in public transport for a
very long time, and I'm quite sure he has an incredible amount of
knowledge about the issues at play.

The idea that Ken personally devises transport schemes such as the
East London Line extension, is absurd - but he does champion various
schemes, and makes them happen (the transfer of the old Silverlink
Metro routes to London Overground being an example). Plus I'm in no
doubt whatsoever that the ELLX will be a great success.

And I'm a big fan of a directly elected local representative being in
charge of transport matters in the capital than the previous
arrangement where it was handled by central government. How would you
organise things?

In the end of course if you don't like Livingstone then you can vote
him out.

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in message
...
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

On 2 Jan, 23:03, Mizter T wrote:
Ken Livingstone has taken a keen interest in public transport for a
very long time, and I'm quite sure he has an incredible amount of
knowledge about the issues at play.

No. The man can't even on his own come up with arguments in favour of
Bendy Buses.


The idea that Ken personally devises transport schemes such as the
East London Line extension, is absurd - but he does champion various
schemes, and makes them happen (the transfer of the old Silverlink
Metro routes to London Overground being an example).

What Ken and various others frequently do is impose a model on the
transport industry which is at best sub-optimal, or at worst
unworkable.


Plus I'm in no
doubt whatsoever that the ELLX *will be a great success.

LOL! It may well turn out to be so, but there are a *lot* of issues to
be resolved before that stage is reached, and a lot of money to be
spent (wasted) in doing so.

(And, as an aside, I hope the commuters of Forest Hill appreciate
their nice new 4-car non-express trains to the Kingsland Road, taking
up paths which could be used for 8-car trains to London Bridge).


In the end of course if you don't like Livingstone then you can vote
him out.

No, I can't. Fortunately, I don't live within Greater London, so don't
have to tolerate his incompetence, along with most of the other
unpleasant things sadly associated with London.

Mr Thant wrote:
On 2 Jan, 12:02, "Graham J" 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)

"Colin Rosenstiel" wrote in message
...
In article
,
(Mr Thant) wrote:

On 2 Jan, 12:02, "Graham J" 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.

I see that Cambridge was advertising trains to and from Liverpool St when
I got back there at 16:30 tonight. When did Liverpool St actually
re-open?


I think it was being reported mid afternoon on National Rail eng works page
that all platforms except 13-16 would be in use for the evening peak Colin.
[Sorry if numbers wrong, I'm not too familiar with LPL St.]

Paul S

BRB Class 465 wrote:
On 2 Jan, 23:03, Mizter T wrote:
Plus I'm in no
doubt whatsoever that the ELLX will be a great success.

LOL! It may well turn out to be so, but there are a *lot* of issues to
be resolved before that stage is reached, and a lot of money to be
spent (wasted) in doing so.

(And, as an aside, I hope the commuters of Forest Hill appreciate
their nice new 4-car non-express trains to the Kingsland Road, taking
up paths which could be used for 8-car trains to London Bridge).

As a Brockley commuter I will certainly appreciate them. If we actually
got 8tph x 8-cars to London Bridge then I might be bothered, but in the
evening peak we only get 4tph!