New London & The South East map (digital)

[Basil Jet]

The date says "Last updated: 24 May 2022" but it wasn't there 24 hours ago! I wonder if my attempt to download a non-existent PDF yesterday made them realise they'd forgotten to update it?

Find a Station | National Rail

You can find information about every single National Rail served station in Great Britain – and there are 2,589 of them! From facilities to access information, ticket buying and collection, onward travel and more helpful knowledge.

www.nationalrail.co.uk

 

[ess]

Change from TfL Rail to Elizabeth Line?

 

[AM9]

Change from TfL Rail to Elizabeth Line?

Yes, and I'm not suire that it was a good choice of colour having GWR dark blue alongside the Lizzie's deep purple, - especially when the TV branches are shown off the northern side.

 

[zoneking]

The 'London’s Rail & Tube services' map shows Stratford International (both Rail and DLR) in zones 2/3. However, there is a note at the bottom to say that travelcards aren't valid at Stratford International Rail. So the map is confusing.

 

[Kite159]

Interestingly they haven't removed the request stop flags for the stations in GA which are no longer request stops.

Also the Southeastern High Speed doesn't show the limited HS service between Dover & Ramsgate (pretty sure it had that correct in the last map update)

At least the old SWR route towards Bristol & Weymouth (via Yeovil), GWR to Brighton, Southern to Milton Keynes etc has been removed with the daily GWR service to Axminster added

 

[yorkie]

Change from TfL Rail to Elizabeth Line?

This is consistent with their inconsistent attempt to mislead people into thinking that brand or route names are TOCs.

Many of the entries listed under "Train companies" are not train companies, including Island Line, Elizabeth Line and the constituent brands of GTR.

The exception to the rule is Stansted Express, which is correctly shown as being operated by Greater Anglia.

There is no reason they could not have made it clear that TfL Rail/Crosrail (XR) is the TOC, with Elizabeth Line merely being line branding, and there is also no reason not to make it clear that Island Line is a route brand of SWR and that GN, Thameslink, SN and GX are all brands of GTR.

I suspect they do this deliberately in order to mislead people because they want people to doubt whether certain tickets are valid on these services.

It's a shame as the map is generally pretty good otherwise.

 

[swt_passenger]

The 'London’s Rail & Tube services' map shows Stratford International (both Rail and DLR) in zones 2/3. However, there is a note at the bottom to say that travelcards aren't valid at Stratford International Rail. So the map is confusing.

It’s not new though, and is the same on the TfL map. Before the vertical combination of Z2&3 in that area, they were shown in zone 3. I think the note about travelcards also dates from PAYG special fares becoming available on HS2 between there and St Pancras, I guess that was 6 or 7 years ago?

 

[AM9]

The 'London’s Rail & Tube services' map shows Stratford International (both Rail and DLR) in zones 2/3. However, there is a note at the bottom to say that travelcards aren't valid at Stratford International Rail. So the map is confusing.

It would be extremely difficult and far more confusing trying to create a zoneless area just big enough for the International station. Anybody using the map is unlikely to rely on the links within the zones when there's a reference to the London map.

 

[JaJaWa]

This is consistent with their inconsistent attempt to mislead people into thinking that brand or route names are TOCs.

Many of the entries listed under "Train companies" are not train companies, including Island Line, Elizabeth Line and the constituent brands of GTR.

The exception to the rule is Stansted Express, which is correctly shown as being operated by Greater Anglia.

There is no reason they could not have made it clear that TfL Rail/Crosrail (XR) is the TOC, with Elizabeth Line merely being line branding, and there is also no reason not to make it clear that Island Line is a route brand of SWR and that GN, Thameslink, SN and GX are all brands of GTR.

I suspect they do this deliberately in order to mislead people because they want people to doubt whether certain tickets are valid on these services.

It's a shame as the map is generally pretty good otherwise.

The TOC is MTR Elizabeth line (MTREL), branded as Elizabeth line. For the Overground, the TOC is Arriva Rail London (ARL) branded as London Overground.

 

[PTR 444]

While I appreciate it would take a lot of time to change without much gain, I do think it is a bit odd that some TOCs are shown in their predecessors’ colours, rather than ones which better reflect their image today. SWR for example is shown in red which was appropriate for when it was SWT, but nowadays it would be better off shown in the light blue that currently depicts LNER (and LNER itself would be better off shown in red, so basically a swap). Additionally, GWR would make more sense as a dark shade of green, although I appreciate that this may cause contrast issues with the green for Southern unless that changed too.

Also I’m not too keen on the use of diamonds for limited stop stations instead of hollow circles. On the map they overlap the solid circles for ordinary stops, which just doesn’t look consistent.

 

[yorkie]

The TOC is MTR Elizabeth line (MTREL), branded as Elizabeth line. For the Overground, the TOC is Arriva Rail London (ARL) branded as London Overground.

I think that's the legal entity of the TOC in a similar way to Arriva North London (and London Overground Rail Operations Limited before that) but the public name for that TOC is simply London Overground.

My understanding was that Crossrail (XR) was to be the TOC name but it was temporarily named TfL Rail because the Crossrail core wasn't open yet. However I believe TfL are trying desperately to convince people it's not part of National Rail and that National Rail ticketing should not apply and therefore trying to avoid anyone referring to anything that sounds like a TOC. This is then reflected on signage, maps etc.

Anyway the map creators have no control over the absolute dogs dinner that TfL are making over this, so I suggest we park that there!

 

[swt_passenger]

While I appreciate it would take a lot of time to change without much gain, I do think it is a bit odd that some TOCs are shown in their predecessors’ colours, rather than ones which better reflect their image today. SWR for example is shown in red which was appropriate for when it was SWT, but nowadays it would be better off shown in the light blue that currently depicts LNER (and LNER itself would be better off shown in red, so basically a swap). Additionally, GWR would make more sense as a dark shade of green, although I appreciate that this may cause contrast issues with the green for Southern unless that changed too.

Also I’m not too keen on the use of diamonds for limited stop stations instead of circles. It just doesn’t look consistent.

Funnily enough I think red, green and blue south of London predate privatisation, they were the colours used on maps to differentiate the 3 operating divisions of Southern Region, and later the corresponding parts of Network Southeast.

But the colours were not always used in the same geographical areas, under NSE in the late 80s it was red for southwestern, blue for central, dark green for southeastern. I think before NSE the Southern Region used green for southwestern, red for central and blue for southeastern.

In any case, why is red necessarily associated with SWT? At the end of their franchise many of the trains were blue…

 

[Basil Jet]

Also I’m not too keen on the use of diamonds for limited stop stations instead of hollow circles. On the map they overlap the solid circles for ordinary stops, which just doesn’t look consistent.

Faygate is a circle for no obvious reason...

 

[Kite159]

Faygate is a circle for no obvious reason...

Indeed, looks like whoever changed the hollow circles for limited served stations forgot to change that one to the diamond (as Faygate is mostly peak time only with a couple offpeak calls)

Hollow circles look better in my eyes

 

[ert47]

I think that's the legal entity of the TOC in a similar way to Arriva North London (and London Overground Rail Operations Limited before that) but the public name for that TOC is simply London Overground.

My understanding was that Crossrail (XR) was to be the TOC name but it was temporarily named TfL Rail because the Crossrail core wasn't open yet. However I believe TfL are trying desperately to convince people it's not part of National Rail and that National Rail ticketing should not apply and therefore trying to avoid anyone referring to anything that sounds like a TOC. This is then reflected on signage, maps etc.

Anyway the map creators have no control over the absolute dogs dinner that TfL are making over this, so I suggest we park that there!

Could it be like how Southern was originally called South Central as a shadow franchise when Govia originally took over from Connex?

 

[Horizon22]

I think that's the legal entity of the TOC in a similar way to Arriva North London (and London Overground Rail Operations Limited before that) but the public name for that TOC is simply London Overground.

My understanding was that Crossrail (XR) was to be the TOC name but it was temporarily named TfL Rail because the Crossrail core wasn't open yet. However I believe TfL are trying desperately to convince people it's not part of National Rail and that National Rail ticketing should not apply and therefore trying to avoid anyone referring to anything that sounds like a TOC. This is then reflected on signage, maps etc.

It definitely isn't - Elizabeth Line is the TOC branded and public name like the London Overground. It's been planned to be called the Elizabeth Line for at least 12 months. It might be an odd choice of name, but it is what it is!

Yes, and I'm not suire that it was a good choice of colour having GWR dark blue alongside the Lizzie's deep purple, - especially when the TV branches are shown off the northern side.

Yes I'm surprised it wasn't changed to GWR's dark green (like in the all operators map) but seems to be using the residual FGW colours. Some TOCs do have some strange colours, but I supposes that's to try and differentiate them.

 

[Davester50]

The date says "Last updated: 24 May 2022" but it wasn't there 24 hours ago! I wonder if my attempt to download a non-existent PDF yesterday made them realise they'd forgotten to update it?

Find a Station | National Rail

You can find information about every single National Rail served station in Great Britain – and there are 2,589 of them! From facilities to access information, ticket buying and collection, onward travel and more helpful knowledge.

www.nationalrail.co.uk

I really do wish they'd get rid of the absolutely awful Project Mapping diagrams, and return to the GB Timetable version.