Names for trains

Directly outside my home, level with the second floor, a train track runs along a cast-iron bridge that was built in the 1860s.  The track was disused for many years but re-opened just over a decade ago as part of the expanded London Overground network.  I like the shape and structure of the bridge, a reminder of London’s industrial past and the constant renewal of its material infrastructure, and I enjoy watching the regular passing of trains, especially since their noise is almost completely excluded by my secondary glazing.  On bright summer mornings, the sunlight that floods into my study through the east facing window, is supplemented by light from the glass of the moving train carriages reflected through the west facing windows.  When I catch the southbound train, from nearby Hoxton station, I sometimes glance at my home as we cross over the bridge, but the train moves too fast for me to see anything other than a blur of bookshelves.

Sometime later this year, this Overground line will acquire a new name: the Windrush Line.  The name refers to the ship, the Empire Windrush, which in 1948 brought the first sizeable group of postwar immigrants from the West Indies to London.  The Windrush generation, as they are now commonly described, comprise those who arrived in the late-1940s and 1950s, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  Many of this generation continue to live in the areas connected by this line: Dalston, Haggerston, New Cross, Peckham, and Penge, and they have contributed much to the vibrancy and variety of London life.  Transport for London, the body which is responsible for the management of this railway line on behalf of London’s Mayor, says that the new name celebrates the Windrush generation and the wider importance of migration that has created a lasting legacy that continues to shape and enrich London’s cultural and social identity today.    

The Overground system comprises six lines, spreading out across and around London, all currently marked in bright orange on London travel maps.  Each of these lines is due to be re-named and each will be represented by a different new colour.  One part of the rationale, according to Transport for London, is to make the system easier to navigate for visitors; another part is to celebrate London’s many historic locations and stories.  In a city of London’s size, and with its long history, the tricky challenge facing the Mayor is to decide which locations and which stories to celebrate. 

The line that takes passengers north and east from Liverpool Street, to Enfield, Cheshunt, and Chingford, will be called the Weaver Line, to remember the garment industry that has been concentrated around the east end of London since the arrival of the Huguenots from France in the late seventeenth century.  Jewish and Bengali immigrants to this area were also heavily involved in the production of textiles, in local factories and sweat shops, and their wholesale and retail distribution, including the famous market in Petticoat Lane.  This line also passes near William Morris’s house in Walthamstow, the home of England’s premier designer of wallpaper and domestic fabrics for wealthy nineteenth century Londoners and, in his spare time, a novelist and socialist agitator. 

The line that runs across north London, to Barking in the east, will be named the Suffragette line, to remember the women who campaigned for the right to vote a hundred years ago.  Annie Huggett, one of the leaders of the working-class women of east London, who participated in the suffrage campaign, lived in Barking until her death in 1995, aged 103.  And the line that runs from Euston station to Watford in the north-west, will be named the Lioness Line, after England’s women’s football team, who won the Euro Final in 2022 at Wembley Stadium, which this line passes close by.  These two lines both celebrate the achievements of women, in politics and in sport, and the central role played by Londoners in the progress of women in society more generally.

The line that runs from Richmond in the west, across north Lonon, to Stratford in the east, will be called the Mildmay line, to celebrate a small hospital based in Shoreditch, just across the road from my home.  Founded in the nineteenth century, to provide medical care for people in East London during a cholera outbreak, the hospital became famous in the 1980s as the first specialist care provider for those with HIV/AIDS.  The name Mildmay therefore celebrates the work of public healthcare providers in general, and especially the work of those who cared for members of London’s gay community who comprised many of the early patients infected by HIV.  Finally, a short connecting line in east London, that runs from Romford to Upminster, will be called the Liberty Line, both in recognition of the motto of the local authority – the London Borough of Havering – and to celebrate freedom as a defining characteristic of London more generally. 

This collection of names clearly reflects the politics of the current Mayor, Sadiq Khan, seeking re-election for a third term in May this year.  It recognises the contribution to London life of immigrants, low-paid textile workers, women, the gay community, health workers, and the importance to the city of the aspiration for freedom.  It’s a diverse and inclusive group of names for a diverse and inclusive city, and it would be easy to demonstrate that these groups have been neglected or marginalised in the mainstream historical memory: to date, far too few monuments have been named to celebrate their contributions.

Nonetheless, I find myself slightly uneasy about the renaming of the six branches of London’s Overground.  It is not the names that worry me, but the process, for what can be named by one Mayor might be renamed by another.  There is a section of contemporary English society that has no interest in remembering the contribution of immigrants and gays, that thinks that statues and memorials should remember the heroes of war and conquest, and that train lines should be named for monarchs not suffragettes.  This section of English society is very much in a minority in London today – which is one of the reasons why I enjoy living here – but they are influential elsewhere in English political life, and it is not impossible that one day there will be a Mayor in London who shares their views, or that the power to give names to the trainlines in London will be given to some other authority than the Mayor. 

Consider the names of the Underground lines.   When this train system was opened, in the 1860s, the first line was called the Metropolitan Line, signalling in a matter-of-fact way that this was a railway line for the metropolis.   (The Parisians used the same name for their underground system, now abbreviated to le Métro.)  As the London Underground expanded, new lines were named in neutral terms, to describe their route, or after a well-known location through which they passed: the District, the Circle, the Northern, the Central, the Bakerloo (passing through Baker Street and Waterloo), the Piccadilly, and the Victoria.  Although the Victoria line was named after the well-known railway station, the station itself had been named for a previous monarch and, regrettably, that section of English society which likes to celebrate royalty above all else, decided that future trainlines should reference the royal family.  Fifty years ago, the last addition to the current Underground system was named the Jubilee Line, since it opened around the time of the then monarch’s silver jubilee, and the recently opened Crossrail line that runs through London from east to west is now called the Elizabeth Line, after the same monarch. 

Or, consider St Petersburg, founded by Peter the Great (1672-1725), the Tsar who attempted to Westernise Russia.  He made St Petersburg the new capital city of Russia and envisioned it as the meeting point for east and west in Europe.  Later, in 1924, the Soviets renamed the city Leningrad in memory of the recently deceased leader of the Russian Revolution, but in 1991 it returned to its original name by popular vote.  Despite the hostility of the current Tsar to all things Western, the city has not yet been renamed Putingrad, but one would be wise not to bet against this in the next decade. 

Having abandoned the terminology of urban geography in favour of sycophancy when it comes to the Underground, I am concerned that what has been named in memory of those who are often hidden from our history might in the future be renamed in favour of those who are all to commonly present: instead of the Windrush, the Weaver, the Suffragette, and the Mildmay, we will be forced to travel on the Charles Line, the Camilla Line, the William Line, the Kate Line.  For traditional “bread and circus” reasons the Lioness Line might survive, and so too the Liberty Line; anyway, we can at least be grateful that neither the Andrew Line nor the Meghan Line seem imminent possibilities. 

I share the current Mayor of London’s desire to celebrate the contribution to London life of healthcare professionals, textile workers, football players, campaigners for political equality, and immigrants, notably the Windrush generation (of whom my daughter, nephew, and nieces are all members).  I would also be happy to see the contribution of London’s artists, architects, musicians, and writers celebrated and memorialised.  However, I harbour a lingering fear that future Mayors might succumb to the temptation to rename, to try to return the city to the dismal past, in which the only people deemed worthy of celebration were warriors, imperialists, and royalty. 

To name is an exercise of power, a mark of dominion.  It has been so from the very beginning, and it does not always end well, as the Nobel laureate of 2016 reminds us.