What if every city had a London Overground?

https://www.dwell.com/article/what-if-every-city-had-a-london-overground-ac7a7ff9

by edward • 11 months ago

85 105 11 months ago

prawn2• 11 months ago

I get a 403 Forbidden error trying to read Dwell from Australia the last week or so. Are they blocking everyone outside the US perhaps?

Prior to this starting, I used to get some other temporary error for each subpage I loaded within a session. Geofenced caching issue maybe?

doublerabbit• 11 months ago

Loads fine here in the UK.

jaza2• 11 months ago

Works for me from Australia

prawn2• 11 months ago

Thanks. I might be collateral damage sharing an ISP/IP with someone questionable.

beardyw• 11 months ago

Many of the tube lines run above ground once outside the center. And I thought the Overground had gone and had been incorporated into the tube network fully when they renamed all the lines.

hdgvhicv8• 11 months ago

You thought wrong, the names are just a branding thing.

The overground came under TfL management in 2007, before then it was silverlink. The routes had unofficial names (north London line, Watford dc, goblin etc), they’ve had swanky new names now and the old names weren’t used officially very much, but were on the most part obvious (goblin being the Gospel Oak to Barking LINe, the rest being more obvious)

esnowrackley• 11 months ago

An underground train network is the pinnacle of public transport—right now, in New York and Chicago... people are being whisked through a network of tunnels, deep below the bustling city

Chicago is almost entirely above ground. Very little of the network is below the city.

Out of 224.1 miles of track, only 11.4 are underground (5%).[1] Only two out of the eight lines run that 11.4 miles and the majority of their time is spent on elevated tracks above street level.

That said, a ring around the city would be great. The hub and spoke layout dramatically limits Chicagoans ability to get around.

[1] https://www.transitchicago.com/facts/

petepete2• 11 months ago

Despite its name, only 45% of London Underground is underground. As I recall only 3 or 4 lines are entirely subterranean, most run on the surface once they are out of the centre.

incone1232• 11 months ago

Imagine what London would be like with the majority of the lines in the centre being on elevated tracks instead of underground

hdgvhicv8• 11 months ago

Only 2 lines are entirely underground - Waterloo and city (literally two stops) and Victoria (the Victoria depot is above ground but all casement services are below ground)

pessimizer• 11 months ago

Precisely because of the name, it shouldn't have been hard to notice that the Chicago "El" is elevated. The "Loop" is entirely above ground and gives downtown Chicago its primary identity.

edit: we do desperately need a circle line, or failing that, dedicated bus lanes imitating one. Instead we get less and less service every year since the year they decimated "owl" (night) service.

999900000999• 11 months ago

Chicago works like most American metros.

Designed to get you downtown or out of downtown.

Let's say you're in Lakeview and need to get to O'Hare.

It often can be easier to Uber downtown and then ride the Blue line to O'Hare vs Red line to Blue line.

Given how expensive new metro lines are, a few express busses could do wonders.

Even just a dedicated bus lane can work.

nkrisc2• 11 months ago

It’s been a bit since I’ve lived in Chicago - weren’t they adding dedicated bus lanes to Ashland? I remember them doing that in and near the loop as well on Washington and maybe Monroe?

nkrisc2• 11 months ago

people are being whisked through a network of tunnels, deep below the bustling city

Also compared to London or many metro systems, Chicago’s is not deep underground at all. As a Chicagoan I was very surprised the first time I saw some of the escalators in London or Washington.

In some parts Chicago’s is almost literally just basement level with nearby buildings.

Yeul• 11 months ago

How did they build those deep tunnels before the invention of TBMs? It must have been slow going.

ianburrell• 11 months ago

The big innovation for the Underground was the tunneling shield. It kept the tunnel from collapsing and has places for people to dig out the face.

The reason that the Underground uses small tunnels was because expensive even then to pay people to dig out tunnels by hand.

teleforce• 11 months ago

a ring around the city would be great.

It's so obvious that a ring around the city train is pinnacle of urban transport similar to London Circle line and Tokyo Yamanpte line, and every city and metropolis should has one of them.

pimlottc• 11 months ago

This is a great success story, but I was really hoping the article would address the question in the title, that is, how can this be replicated in other cities?

They mention repurposing existing underused lines, which certainly many cities have, but how did they manage to actually get the project off the ground?

badc0ffee• 11 months ago

The initial network was built by tying underused lines into an existing Underground[1] line, the East London Line. Parts had to be upgraded, but the expensive bits were already done - there were existing stations, and existing, almost completely grade-separated, electrified double track. There were upgrades to platforms here and there, and some connecting track built, but basically what the Overground did largely was improve service patterns, frequency, wayfinding, and ticketing.

I don't know if many other cities have this kind of infrastructure sitting around and not being used to its full potential. Philadelphia's SEPTA Regional Rail is probably one. Toronto's GO has the trackage and the stations, but hundreds of route km need to be electrified.

[1] The ELL was a "subsurface" Underground line, like the District Line, Metropolitan Line, and others. Those lines use basically full size commuter trains, and have air conditioning. This is in contrast to deep-level tube lines like the Central Line and Bakerloo Line that have narrow trains with a round cross-section, in narrow tunnels.

hdgvhicv8• 11 months ago

The ELL was a tiny part compared to the NLL, Watford DC and Goblin and about the same size as the WLL.

The thing which TfL broggght was sprucing up the trains, adding staff to the stations, increasing reliability if I think frequency, and branding it so people considered it “new”.

theluketaylor• 11 months ago

Overground is a great example of how to re-use existing rights of way, but I do think London is a bit in the sheer number of under or dis-used lines that were available. DLR is a similar re-use of existing rights of way, but there just are not that many places that had such a huge explosion of rail in the 19th century that is now derelict and available for re-use.

I do think Overground is a great case study in the value of both branding and service. Quite a bit of the Overground was already operational passenger rail, but it was fragmented under different operators, names, and service patterns. TfL wisely brought it under a single brand, making it simple to understand, especially as part of the larger London transportation network.

TfL also arranged consistent service, newer rolling stock, and full electrification and made the service pretty reliable. Turns out if you offer good frequency people will make use of it. Wild.

Here in Ontario we've been watching Metrolinx try and fail miserably to build out an RER/S-Bahn system out of the GO network. We're 8 years into the GO Expansion plan and Metrolinx has yet to raise a single catenary pole. It's beyond shameful. We're getting tons of shiny stations with huge capacity, but no real service has emerged (or shows any sign of emerging) to get value from all the dollars spent.

Metrolinx has been unwilling to make the leap to metro operations with line isolation and high floor platforms. They are also unwilling to move to electric multiple units to realize acceleration gains. They are trying to cling to scheduled service and commuter-oriented patterns, just because that's how it's always been done.

tazjin2• 11 months ago

Moscow has been integrating many of the commuter rail lines that run to various train stations in the city into essentially the metro network.

This means building new stations, connecting them to existing metro stations where possible, unifying the payment system, upgrading trains and so on. Since 2019 five lines like this that all run overground have been opened: https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%...

You can see how they connect to the larger metro network on the general metro map: https://www.mosmetro.ru/metro-map

There have been a few similar projects, like reporpusing an unused underground rail cargo tunnel network as another metro line (the turquoise ring around the centre in the map).

In much smaller cities like London or Paris you could probably also find some more lines like this and integrate them, but it needs the political will of course.

rjsw• 11 months ago

The metro systems in London and Paris extend outside the areas strictly defined as those cities, the populations served are only slightly smaller than that of Moscow.

masklinn2• 11 months ago

in New York and Chicago, Paris and Berlin, Tokyo and Beijing, people are being whisked through a network of tunnels, deep below the bustling city.

Paris’ RER is a mostly aboveground suburban rail network, it’s only underground when it reaches the city center. And it’s far from unique, that’s a common feature of commuter rail.

And while the metro is mostly underground, about 20km (out of 245) is aboveground.

SoftTalker• 11 months ago

Yes, building underground is vastly more expensive than surface or even elevated lines. You only do it when above-ground space is prohibitively limited like in a major urban center.

eloisant• 11 months ago

Tokyo also have a vast network of "overground" trains: the JR lines (Yamanote, Chuo), but also Keio, Odakyu, Tobu... And that's not just commuter lines, the JR lines go through the city center.

Honestly did the author visit any of the cities she's talking about? I don't see what's special about London here.

lillecarl• 11 months ago

In Stockholm we were a bit late to the party and dug our tunnels bigger, our teeny wheeny network has about 50% above ground stations and most new development is underground since it's easier to DnD (drill and dynamite) through a neighborhood than getting people to move.

Sadly we combine the worst of two worlds, in the summer the train takes on heat though radiation, but since track is tunneled they can't run AC which would heat up the tunnels (we haven't developed on/off switches in Sweden yet).

We only have 65 miles of track compared to Londons 225 but ours is uniquely cool by being bedrock excavation instead of dig & cover.

pierrelf• 11 months ago

The new trains have ac

https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/sl/news/daerfoer-blir-resan-va...

phony-account2• 11 months ago

The new trains have ac

I’d question the effectiveness: I stood opposite a young guy who just clean fainted on one of the hottest days. He fell like an axed tree-trunk in the heat.

After a few minutes he was fine again, but he’d slid on the floor straight into my bag from the alcohol store and broken my wine-bottle at around 4pm on a Saturday. Anyone who knows Sweden will understand who came out of the experience worse.

CamouflagedKiwi• 11 months ago

ours is uniquely cool by being bedrock excavation instead of dig & cover.

London has both. A number of lines (Victoria, Jubilee etc) were tunneled and hence have the smaller, rounder trains. The cut-and-covers (Circle, District etc) have larger, squarer trains.

unwind• 11 months ago

If you're not familiar with the drilling rigs [1] used for this kind of tunneling, they're pretty cool (in my opinion) even compared to TBMs. They really wield those drills, it looks awesome. :)

[1] https://www.epiroc.com/en-uk/products/drill-rigs/face-drill-...

renewiltord• 11 months ago

I think in the US we can only do things that others don't. For example, all the best transit systems cost money but in the US transit activists advocate for every system to be free. In this way, we can innovate and solve problems in novel ways that others have already solved.

hdgvhicv8• 11 months ago

Public transport is free in Luxembourg, Malta, Belgrade, Tallin

What exactly does the US do that others don’t?

trinix912• 11 months ago

Since when is public transport free in Malta? I was there in May and busses were 1.5 EUR per ride. Maybe for certain locals with the Tallinja card?

throwaway5532413• 11 months ago

I think a big part of why the Overground is lively and revered is because it’s where more of the “real” London is (i.e. the full-time residents, of all classes, whose lives are very much anchored to where they live). The center in contrast is a hollowed out cultural wasteland. I’ve long felt that you can’t have the effects that make cities special without that physical compression at the center, that forces people and ideas to meet which otherwise would not have. So I abandoned London in that regard. But I’d be very happy for the Overground to prove me wrong!

mgaunard3• 11 months ago

People tend to work in central and live in the suburbs. That's kind of the general thing for most cities.

The overground connects suburbs to other suburbs, which realistically, isn't something people use or need nearly as much.

A few overground lines are usable for a work commute though. There is a branch going to Liverpool Street, and the connection to the DLR can be convenient for Canary Wharf.

Also if you leave very far, it might be your only option to take the overground to a better-connected area. But that usually means a one-hour commute which is stretching the limit of practicability.

throwaway5532413• 11 months ago

People tend to work in central and live in the suburbs. That's kind of the general thing for most cities.

Sure, but this was also true before central London became what it is now, so it seems orthogonal to my point.

iamacyborg• 11 months ago

The center in contrast is a hollowed out cultural wasteland.

Sorry, what?

Central London is still very much the epicentre of masses of cultural activity.

throwaway5532413• 11 months ago

Just my opinion, whatever floats your boat. I lived in Zone 1 for 11 years until 5 years ago. Central London is simply too homogeneous for me because prices have driven away any space for experimentation and creativity, save a few carefully curated “cultural centers”. Other cities are much more fun now (even in the UK).

jaza2• 11 months ago

Interesting! I didn't know about the London Overground, only visited London once (nearly 20 years ago).

I like our trains here in Sydney for similar reasons. The lines are almost all aboveground, you get to see plenty of neighbourhoods and plenty of sunshine out the windows (you also get the full panoramic scenery when going over the harbour bridge). And they're double decker and have lots of seating, so there's not nearly as much shoulder jostling as on typical metro trains (although there is frequent squeezing past peoples' knees to get out of a window seat).

Ironically, there is a brand new "metro" line here in Sydney (and they're building more metro lines), and many people prefer it - even though it has less seating, is often crowded, and is more underground - because it's faster and more reliable. Opposite of the situation in London. I guess the grass is always greener!

dwd• 11 months ago

Seeing an Underground, Overground sign triggers an instant memory.

You don't even the "Wombling free" grafiti they often attract.

mgaunard3• 11 months ago

The quality of the travel experience on the tube highly depends on how old that specific line is.

The northern line, which is arguably one of the most useful lines for many people, is just not pleasant at all. The air is stale and full of soot particles, and you wait in a small cramped station perfect for claustrophobia. The trains are narrow and not air-conditioned. The central, victoria and piccadilly lines aren't much better.

The elizabeth or jubilee lines, newest of the bunch, offer comfort that is much more in line with the overground (wide and tall air-conditioned trains, large and well-ventilated stations).

Myself, I just avoid taking the tube and cycle instead. It's usually faster anyway.

pledg• 11 months ago

This is about the overground though..

mgaunard3• 11 months ago

The overground is nice because it is more comfortable than the underground. But it's newer, and as I said the newer underground lines offer a somewhat similar experience.

heavenlyblue• 11 months ago

While I think all overgorund trains have AC installed, this summer a lot of them either ran too low or not running at all, this is for Windrush line

stavros• 11 months ago

Not to mention that you need earplugs if you're traveling on the old lines. And I really hate blowing my nose afterwards and the snot coming out black.

keyshapegeo99• 11 months ago

Your point about air-conditioning is mistaken. The Jubilee line can be very unpleasant in the summer months as it is not air-conditioned.

The Metropolitan line, by contrast (the oldest Tube line and first metro line in the world, serving as the concept's namesake) is now air-conditioned - as are quite a few other older lines. The Piccadilly, Bakerloo, Waterloo and City, and Central lines are all slated to receive air-conditioning within the next 5 years. (Although the inevitable delays in delivery will probably push this back a bit.) There are no plans to add it to the Jubilee line.

nly• 11 months ago

The air conditioning on the new Piccadilly Line trains won't be great as they're still limited by the thermal constraints of narrow tunnels and hot clay.

socalgal22• 11 months ago

As a rider I prefer overground. but as a resident I hate them. I see people living next to the tracks, it’s horrible. I’ve been next to the tracks in hotels, it’s horrible.

Tokyo has been working to move several lines underground. not quite the same because they weren’t elevated. but, once the buried the trains they turned the old track areas into parks, walking paths, biking paths, indie stores, etc. it’s great!

asdff• 11 months ago

There is a huge difference between light rail and heavy rail in terms of surface noise I find. Light rail on modern track is pretty quiet.

masklinn2• 11 months ago

When light rail can go through every 2 minutes during peak hours, the difference is largely academic.

blibble• 11 months ago

overground is heavy rail

and the lines are heavily used by freight

8organicbits• 11 months ago

Sound proofing can really help. I used to live in an apartment that was directly under the takeoff path of a major airport. Standing outside you'd feel the airplane passing overhead but inside it was a whisper softer than the HVAC.

The challenge, I suspect, is who pays for the sound proofing. I believe the city paid to retrofit my old apartment. I'd support similar effort around tracks.

vdsk• 11 months ago

Apart from a small part of the Seibu Shinjuku line (Nakai-Numabukuro) aren't most track changes planned or in construction ground level tracks being elevated? AFAIK the Odakyu rises again after Shimokitazawa?

socalgal22• 11 months ago

There's a few more going down but you're right, sadly, more are going up. That's nice when riding but mostly sucks if you live near them.

bambax• 11 months ago

I don't know about "every city", but Paris has both regular metros that are above ground (sometimes way above), and "tramways" that are trains running in the streets.

rahimnathwani3• 11 months ago

  Last year, 183 million passengers traveled on the Overground, averaging at 3.5 million people every week.

This sentence makes name doubt any and all other numbers in the article.

caseyohara• 11 months ago

183M passengers / 52 weeks = 3.52M passengers per week, does it not?

NoboruWataya2• 11 months ago

183M passengers would be approximately three times the population of the UK. I assume the correct statistic is that 183M journeys were made in a year, or 3.5M per week. But the number of unique passengers will be a lot lower.

onionisafruit• 11 months ago

I choose to interpret this in Heraclitean terms, “No man ever steps on the same train twice, for it’s not the same train and he’s not the same man”

sensanaty• 11 months ago

Seems about right? It's not 183M unique people, it's 183M people going to and from places, sometimes multiple times in a day most likely.

rahimnathwani3• 11 months ago

If 1 person does 200 journeys in a year, that doesn't mean 200 'passengers traveled on the Overground' in that year.

milliams• 11 months ago

"It’s an example of how building transit creates regeneration of wealth, and boosts the economies of the areas it covers."

I was surprised that Wolmar, a Brit, would use the term "transit", rather than "transport" or "transportation". I wonder if this was an editorial change, or him adjusting to his audience of an American magazine (though being interviewed by a Brit).

HPsquared2• 11 months ago

When in Rome.

nottorp• 11 months ago

They mean ... trams?

jurebb• 11 months ago

I think Swiss cities show an even better example of how to utilize (mostly) existing rail tracks to ogranize a suburban rail network. Zurich S-Bahn is a good example, with 32 lines and alot of double-decker trains. Fun fact: this S-Bahn system also features a 2-class setup

giik• 11 months ago

I came here to say the same. The Swiss system is actually far superior, in my experience and opinion.

jleyank• 11 months ago

Ottawa is losing its shirt trying to get a tram line up and running. Maybe bad design or equipment, maybe too cold but dedicated bus lanes (as with Boston's silver line) would seem to have been way more sensible. Easier to plow and no switch sensitivity to cold and ice.

chrisandchris• 11 months ago

We value your privacy [...]. we and our 1649 partner [...].

Ans then hiding the "decline all" button. No thanks.

What if every city had a London Overground?

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