Man on the tube: Going Overground

The only trouble is that when the Overground is extended along what used to be the East London line (the new route opens next month), it will go underneath several Tube stations — Whitechapel, for example.

So the Overground will run underneath the Underground.

Nonetheless I'm glad to see the back of the Silverlink brand, with its horrible purple and lime green colour scheme and winsome name, chosen to disguise the fact it had long been known as the "Cinderella line" owing to general neglect. Now Cinderella gets to go to the ball, or at least to New Cross Gate.

In late May, the Overground pushes further south, sharing tracks with Southern to reach West Croydon and Crystal Palace. Eventually, it will swing west to Clapham Junction, thus creating an orbital London route.

The main stretch arcs across north London from Richmond to either Barking or Stratford via Gospel Oak. But the Gospel Oak-Barking stretch
is closed until June, and there are currently no Sunday services from Richmond to Stratford. This is all to facilitate an upgrade of the network.

There's a feeling of going around the back way when you use these lines, which apparently connect all the scrapyards and overgrown allotments of London. In fact the Overground has a lot of the charm of the pre-Beeching era, serving obscure places with funny names (with all due respect to Hackney Wick), and featuring some remarkably cute stations.

The lines are much used by railway buffs, who were especially drawn to the Gospel Oak-Barking stretch because it used diesels of a kind as old, if not older than, those operated for historical interest on preserved railways.

The Overground also calls at Willesden Junction, one of the principal junctions in Britain. Here
I recently met Raymond, a retired BR postal clerk, who told me that as a spotting site it was up there with Nuneaton and Crewe. I wondered what he thought of the new trains being introduced on the Overground.

"The 378s?" he said, "They're all right in small doses." I asked what the problem was, and he said, "You sit with your back to the window so you can't spot from them." I suggested he could always turn his head six inches.

I like the new trains. The interiors are roomy and unfussy, and I predict the Overground will shake off its cult status and go mainstream very soon.