What if every city had a London Overground? | Hacker News Reader

What if every city had a London Overground?

dwell.com

85 pointsedward105 comments

> 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/

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.

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

A previously beautiful city, now ruined by train tracks everywhere?

You’re 140 years too late.

Tokyo has tons of above ground tracks and it’s fine. One big problem in american cities is that train tracks are built too high off the ground and aren’t human scale.

Paris has line 6 crossing it entirely and running right next to some very touristy places and it’s overall beautiful. Aerial lines don’t have to be eyesore.

I can see and hear the Overground from my kitchen window, I honestly think it makes the city more beautiful.

The first thing that sprang to mind was the movie Metropolis.

Also, Wuppertal.

South of the Thames has a fair bit of elevated rail.

Even zone one does for the normal rail system, but I was imagining what it would be like with the deep lines elevated.

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)

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.

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.

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?

> 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.

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

Get some people down there with shovels and carts, same as any public works project earlier than ~1720.

There was already a big coal mining industry so I assume they'd have used those techniques.

>How did they build those deep tunnels before the invention of TBMs?

Same approach as TBMs just manual AF. Dig a bit, put in supporting structure. Rinse and repeat.

They've been at it since 1890 though so that helps

The scenario suitable for TBM is surprisingly limited so even nowadays many tunnels are still dig using the good’o way, mostly with explosives

??? explosives? in mud? (well, clay)?!

tunnels are bored depending on the soil, length, diameter. Most projects I have seen use TBMs and the New Austrian Tunneling Method. Explosives are quite the minority (not many tunnels are in solid rock), even the Gotthard tunnels were dug with TBMs

If you have access there is a fascinating program on BBC iPlayer about digging the Victoria Line in the sixties. It's not all manual work but a surprising amount still is.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00sc29t/how-they-dug-...

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.

>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.

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!

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.

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

Light rail 70-80 dB Regular trains 85-100dB

It’s a logarithmic scale, which would you rather live by?

In this scenario am I a railfan or neurotypical?

I can’t be your therapist

overground is heavy rail

and the lines are heavily used by freight

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.

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?

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.

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.

The new trains have ac

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

> 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.

Given it was hot enough to faint someone at 4pm, wine would be waste already being in such temperature for more than an hour (systembolaget closes at 3pm)?

Probably not... but just a consolation...

systembolaget closes at 3pm????

On Saturdays, Yes.

> Given it was hot enough to faint someone at 4pm, wine would be waste already being in such temperature for more than an hour (systembolaget closes at 3pm)?

People living in Spain and France just throw away their wine if they haven’t consumed it one hour after purchase?

I hope not. It was a semi-humorous take on someone worrying about a bottle of wine while another human fainted due to excessive heat.

I have no idea how long wine would be good in 30C+, I guess it would survive 1 hour.

I felt compelled to reply here, so this answer doesn't start a myth about Spaniards or French.

> 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.

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-...

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.

This is about the overground though..

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

> 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.

> 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.

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).

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?

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.

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”.

Branding also underscores a thing that transit nerds would know but is not necessarily obvious to visitors or infrequent users - that these are just part of the same transit network and so there's no extra friction. You don't need a special ticket or whatever - an Overground train, just like London's Underground trains or buses or trams, obviously works with Oyster, it has the common fare system, if your journey involves a mix of modes that'll integrate smoothly and so on.

I don’t think oyster worked on overground when TfL took over, other than the special sections where there was co-acceptance (harrow-queens park, Richmond branch). Of course in those days most regular users had a travelcard.

Oyster, and later contactless, makes things far easier to travel. I’ve just been on a u-bahn and bus trip in Nuremberg, had to download an app to buy a ticket, no idea whether I got the right one or not.

Oh, I see, you mean maybe when it's "Silverlink" your Oyster might not work at a barrier and then maybe a month later it's "Overground" and now it works?

Maybe. There are definitely cases where the re-brand is accompanied with physical works that make access legal, but I couldn't find cases where those works change practical access. If I have an Oyster card, and I walk up to a station with no barriers and board a Silverlink train that "doesn't take" Oyster, it does work it just wasn't legal. A month later with new "Overground" branding, that's legal and they've installed a barrier-less validation terminal so I could and should tap it with the Oyster as I pass.

I looked for, but couldn't find, pre-Overground stations where there's a NR style gate line which is physically capable of reading Oyster, but Oyster is forbidden and so you can't enter until - with the re-branding - TfL turns on the Oyster mode. I think it's likely that did not happen because it just seems pointlessly annoying, but I can't prove it.

Oyster came in as travelcard only, and was valid on all in zone transport including the pre-tfl North London Line etc.

It wasn’t valid to say Watford though.

When PAYG was introduced it was not valid on trains (other than a couple of exceptions)

But You’re right, Oyster PAYG came in the day TfL took over from silverlink - 11 November 2007. It was 2010 before it came out across the whole travelcard area on rail services. That was because the other TOCs didn’t like the idea and felt they’d lose out on revenue.

> Oyster came in as travelcard only

I don't think this can be correct. One of the early Oyster "problems" was that people who'd routinely made some particular journey on their travelcard, perhaps for years, would get locked out of Oyster and be unable to start a second journey. The reason was that their Travelcard had never been valid for their journey but it was valid for both the entry station and exit station and before Oyster it had no way to connect the dots, now Oyster could see the journey route wasn't allowed and so it charged them, making their balance negative, whereupon they can't start a second journey until they pay for the first.

Edited to add: Oh wait, maybe you meant only on (what would be) Overground stations ? That seems very weird, but I guess I can't prove you're wrong.

First was staff travel, then annual and monthly travel adds, then Prepay (later PAYG) on the tube, then bus, then overground, then later suburban trains.

If you had a z1-3 travelcard you could travel to zone 6 with Prepay as long as you had a positive credit and would have the allroaite fare deducted. For travel on train you had to buy an “extension ticket” though. That I think might have extended even past payg availability on trains for a while.

It’s amazing in hindsight how quickly things changed, but I remember the various messes were quite notable for the first 10 years of oysters existence.

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.

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.

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.

Of course they do in Moscow too, the metropolitan/commuter areas exist in most big cities. Seems to be about 8 million less than Moscow for Paris, 6 million less for London, based on what Wikipedia currently says about the respective metropolitan areas.

For what it's worth, I lived in London for some time and its commuter rail system is much less integrated and much more confusing (with different companies, incompatible tickets and so on). In the city it's fine, though the tube isn't very comfortable (except for, ironically, its oldest lines which have luxuries such as ventilation).

> with different companies, incompatible tickets and so on

They have all been using the same tickets for a while now, and of course it has been all Oyster for more than a decade as well. I’ve been commuting using Thameslink or Southeastern without trouble for about as long.

> 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.

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.

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.

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!

Seeing an Underground, Overground sign triggers an instant memory.

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

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

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

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.

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)

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

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

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.

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?

Loads fine here in the UK.

Works for me from Australia

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

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.

> "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).

When in Rome.

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.

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

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

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?

https://cities-today.com/malta-makes-most-public-transport-f...

They mean ... trams?

  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.

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

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.

You added the phrase "unique passenger" yourself. The article doesn't talk about that at all. It does use the phrase "passenger journeys" and "passenger numbers". While this sentence could perhaps be slightly better phrase, in context it's pretty obvious that it's talking about the number of journeys. All of this is a classic extremely pedantic and obnoxious cherry-picking.

I was explaining the parent comment, not defending it.

The sentence which was reproduced in that comment does not talk about "passenger journeys".

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”

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.

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

From the point of view of the network, does it matter if it's 200 unique people or the same person 200 times? The capacity used is the same either way.

The statement that there were 183 million passengers in a single year is false.

Whether 'number of passengers' (the metric used in the relevant part of OP) is a useful metric is a separate question.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com