The Anonymous Widower

Is The London Overground a Success?

The three most important lines of the London Overground are now well established.  I like it and I use the system several times a week. Admittedly, I have a station at the end of my road, but it is still about a kilometre away. The trains are comfortable, clean and I’ve only been late once.

But do others feel the same way as I do?

So I typed “London Overground success” into Google to see what I got.

I found this article, which is sub-titled, Tangerine Dreams. Here’s a flavour.

That the London Overground has been a success is difficult to deny. Whilst it has certainly had its share of delays and difficulties (such as with the rollout of the 378s), its current performance and satisfaction figures accurately portray the step change in service that has happened on the NLL and elsewhere since the Operator effectively made its debut in 2007. In a city where other Operators such as South Eastern are increasingly feeling the heat from passengers over the level of service they provide, London Overground’s performance also serves to highlight that there are effective ways to address the challenges that London’s railway infrastructure brings.

 The rest of the article should be read and it is generally positive about London’s newest railway.

Politician’s of all colours will claim that the success is all down to them.  In my view, given how the Overground built on successful ideas, rather than try revolutrionary new ones, I would say you’d have to be really stupid to make the project fail and be an unloved railway.

For a transport project to be successful, you have to locate it so that it takes people where they want to go. The Overground does this well, although you could argue it needs more links to the Underground, as Highbury and Islington, Whitechapel and Richmond aren’t really enough.  But West Hampstead will come and possibly there will be others if the politicians decide to invest in success.

One factor that helps, is it is the least claustrophobic and most photogenic of London’s railways, with the possible exception of the DLR. I would recommend both the DLR and the Overground to visitors who want to get a different perspective of London.

Overground Train on the Embankment South of Hoxton Station

I’ve used this picture before to show how different the Overground is.  This view even ended up in Modern Railways to illuastrate an article about links between the City and transport projects.

I think the next question is can we build on this success?

August 19, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | East London Line, London Overground, North London Line