Geoff Marshall

A First Look At The New Tube Map

Update: TfL has now made the downloadable PDF version live on its website

We've been waiting with bated breath for the new Tube map to hit dispensing racks at all the tube stations — now only a few days away.

There's quite some excitement about it as it includes the largest change to the pocket sized map (still lovingly referred to as The Journey Planner by many) as 28 new stations get added to it in the form of the new Overground Lines. See the video that we made here a couple of months back to explain the new additions.

But — hang on! It is already out in one printed form, but not in another. Firstly on Twitter, Ben Mathis found a London Rail map that had the lines now in the new colour — but that's still not the Tube Map that you get at Underground stations.

However, TfL has now published the map on its website, which is zoomable and scrollable, but not the downloadable PDF version — and from it, we can see that the changes are pretty as much as we expected:

The new Overground lines are indeed coloured orange. There had been some talk that they may appear in different colours, and while there were some prototypes knocking around that had this, someone has overruled this and and insisted that all Overground lines continue to be orange.

There is a triple-connection-blob at Walthamstow to link up Walthamstow Queen's Road, with the Overground and Tube bits at Walthamstow Central. And yes, it's perfectly in keeping with the logic for how the blobs should be used — but it ain't pretty, is it?

Hackney Downs to Hackney Central gets a connector blob between these now two Overground stations. A footbridge/path is currently being built between the pair, and should be finished in the new few weeks.

Ooh! That's new — a connector blob between Wanstead Park and Forest Gate — the latter of course now appearing on the line that is ...

... TfL Rail! What will become Crossrail eventually, in a 'cased' blue line — and we hovered our RGB-colour-scanning-software over the pixels, and it tells us that yes, it's the same shade of blue as the Piccadilly Line

Romford to Emerson Park is also on there connecting up TfL Rail with the District Line at Upminster.

Seven Sisters to South Tottenham though does not get a connection blob, but intriguingly does on the London Rail map, which puts South Tottenham in a different place so that it can manage this.

There are now two Bethnal Green stations — one on the Central Line and one on the Overground. That's going to lead to some confusion, isn't it?

A final thing that may not be obvious is there's now a second bend in the Central Line. The line that was so perfectly straight through the middle had a bend put into it many years ago, to enable Bank and Monument to be closer to each other — there's now a second one of these between Notting Hill Gate and Bond Street, and it can only be due to Crossrail, as this significant change will make it easier to incorporate the purple- coloured line when it joins the map in a couple of years time.

Did we miss anything? Have a look for yourself, and let us know in the comments.