Prior to the name being adopted in November 2024,[1] the service was labelled in Transport for London timetables as the "Highbury & Islington to New Cross, Clapham Junction, Crystal Palace and West Croydon route".
[4] In July 2023, TfL announced that it would be giving each of the six Overground services unique names by the end of the following year.
[5][6] In February 2024, it was confirmed that the East London / South London section would be named the Windrush line (to honour the Windrush generation of immigrants to the area from the Caribbean) and would be coloured red on the updated network map.
[7] The Empire Windrush was a passenger vessel that arrived at Tilbury, in Essex, in 1948 bringing migrants to the UK from what was then the British West Indies.
Before 1948, there were several areas in the UK, such as Canning Town in London, and Tiger Bay in Cardiff that had a black presence, but the arrival of the Windrush is seen as a watershed, after which point black people would form a much larger part of the community.