Samuel Mackertich

Last week, rail fans were blindsided by the news that TfL is officially renaming all six branches of the Overground and giving them brand new colours. But as we all battle to adjust to these new monikers, let’s not forget that these lines have stories stretching back to before the Overground began its life in 2007. What is now called the Mildmay Line was once called the North London Line, and then the Silverlink. Other branches have picked up nicknames along the way: once, the new Suffragette Line, stretching from Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside, was affectionately known as The Goblin.  Before being added to the Overground network, this unsung hero of local transit was in a desperate state. There was the inconsistent half-hour schedule, sometimes breaking down to hourly, with passengers cramming themselves into a single diesel powered unit when the usual rolling stock failed. There was a severe lack of ticket machines, ticket barriers, station staff and ticket inspectors, and the announcement ‘There is no service on the Gospel Oak to Barking line’ was comically frequent.  But things weren’t always so grim. The oldest section of the Goblin is the western end, which is thought to have been built around 1868. A split venture by the prominent London, Tilbury & Southend Railway (founders of the District Railway) and the Midland Railway, it was constructed not just as a standalone route but also a way for the companies to share each other’s existing networks via a few curves of tra