Last year, the six routes on London’s TfL-owned suburban railways were given distinct identities.
But before the Mayor settled on Liberty, Lioness, Mildmay, Suffragette, Weaver and Windrush, dozens of names were suggested for each Overground route.
TfL has said that some were discarded because they could be easily mistaken or misheard for existing Tube lines, others because they might have had “negative connotations”, and a few were considered to be too long to be practical.
In a new document released by TfL, they set out some of the names from the longlist which were considered “viable options”.
The names are not explicitly identified with a specific line, although some of them are easy to work out because of the people or locations to which they refer.
South London is primarily served by the Windrush line, which celebrates the importance of migration to London’s history.
The line runs from Highbury & Islington to Clapham Junction, New Cross, West Croydon and Crystal Palace.
The Mildmay line is the only other route with stations in south London, at Kew Gardens, Richmond and Clapham Junction, but mainly runs north of the river.
Here are some of the names that were considered but rejected that we can safely assume relate to the Windrush line.
- Cable Street – remembering the Battle of Cable Street at Shadwell in 1936, an anti-fascist demonstration by a collective uprising of local trade unionists, communists and British Jews, supported in particular by Irish workers and socialist groups
- Lovers Rock – celebrating a subgenre of reggae music that emerged in the 1970s; the Eve Studios in Brockley helped establish the sound; created by London’s Caribbean community, it is known for its romantic sound and content, and aimed to show the humanity of Black Britons
- Saffron – The word Croydon comes from the Anglo-Saxon words for crocus and valley, indicating that it was a centre for the cultivation of saffron, which is a spice, dye and perfume ingredient that originates from the Middle East and South Asia, and is popular in cooking, fashion and fragrances from as far as Spain and India
- Moonshot – the Moonshot was opened in 1981 as the first purpose-built community centre for Black people in the UK; the centre was built on the site of an old mission hall in New Cross Gate, which was burned down in an arson attack by National Front members; the club’s founder, Sybil Phoenix became the first Black woman to be awarded an MBE
