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Elizabeth Line / Crossrail Updates.


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Personally I think it sounds clumsy.....

.....the "Elizabeth Line" is just lumpen.....

......i suspect the name won't catch on because it is so awkward. 

It'll either be called the "Lizzy" or something else in popular culture.

 

100% agree.

No disrespect to HM, but it definitely is awkward and clumsy.

 

 

 

.

Edited by Ron Ron Ron
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100% agree.

No disrespect to HRH, but it definitely is awkward and clumsy.

 

 

 

.

 

Careful Ron, or you'll end up in the tower.

The monarch is always referred to as HM, not HRH. The latter (lesser) title is reserved for all the other bums, stiffs and associated hangers on.

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If the other cross London route is "Thameslink" I wonder how long it'll be before this becomes known in the vernacular as "Lizlink"?

Hi,

 

It must be remembered that Crossrail is Transport for London financed and run (via a separate operating company) and Thameslink is Network Rail financed and run.

 

The renaming I think is a little long for a railway line, and I think it could possible be confusing after 10+ years of Crossrail branding, but it is almost certainly due to the fact that Crossrail is the company that constructed the line, but not th ones who will run the line, therefore the name would have to change to avoid confusion with and attachment to the construction company. This is actually the same for a new Depot I'm helping do the design for, which is for a railway company, but the Depot can't be named specifically for the company as that will prevent usage by other companies without a lot of change. We probably won't change the name on the scheme plan though!

 

Currently for the surface works, two major stages are left, Easter 16 and Christmas 16, this is when all the infrastructure changes are to be pretty much complete, with only the integration of ETCS and the odd signal installation to be done after December.

 

Well, back to Crossrail 2 work for me, or whatever they are going to call it (anyone for the Charlotte line perhaps?)

 

Regards,

 

Simon

Edited by St. Simon
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To be honest I doubt most people will give a fig for who owns and operates the line, as a catchy brand and marketing tag "Thameslink" works, "Elizabeth Line" sounds like a cosmetic brand or a Greek shipping company.  London Transport were past masters at branding and public awareness from the 30s onwards, but they've definately lost the knack with this branding.

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More chance that on Saturday nights, it'll regularly be the Puked in line.

 

 

.

 

Especially with no toilets on the trains.  I can just imagine folk coming home from 'a good night out' being taken short and left with little choice .....

 

And I do wonder how the 'Elizabeth Line' is going to look on a timetable at Slough or Maidenhead - again no disrespect to HM but it will be utterly meaningless in terms of what it is supposed to offer.  At least 'Crossrail' means something and describes what it is doing.  Just imagine a US tourist getting on an 'Elizabeth Line' train at Heathrow and trying to puzzle out which stop he should get off at for Buck-ing-hamm Pal-ace' (and wondering why his Britrail Pass doesn't work when he gets to Oxford Circus).

Edited by The Stationmaster
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I

 

I'm interested to see how much more it will cost to travel on this, all the stations out east have segregated platforms and gates being installed.It certainly will not be the same cost as the existing services.

If managed by TfL, cheaper than managed by DaFT.

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I'm interested to see how much more it will cost to travel on this, all the stations out east have segregated platforms and gates being installed.It certainly will not be the same cost as the existing services.

The service out east has already been transferred to TfL with fares adjusted to match - it's being run by the future Crossrail operator under the temporary 'TfL Rail' brand.

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I'm interested to see how much more it will cost to travel on this, all the stations out east have segregated platforms and gates being installed.It certainly will not be the same cost as the existing services. 

 

That simply won't be possible on the GW side as a number of stations will be served by both GWR/its successor and Crossrail although it is reported that Oyster Cards will be valid right out to Reading.  So logically an Oyster Card at Reading would have to be the same cost as an existing season ticket from Reading to Paddington plus Zone1 (and possibly Zone 2?) or alternatively the London commuting revenue support implicit the GWML franchise would have to increase to compensate the franchise operator for loss of revenue (some of which is going to happen anyway.

 

To be honest I still have my suspicions that the GW side is going to be a potential mess - Crossrail will be mixing it on the Relief Lines with GWR services plus freights operated by several different companies and running on long term contracts so inevitably I still can't see how Crossrail's proclaimed service frequencies and 'journey times' will actually be achieved, the line capacity to do it simply doesn't exist to allow reliable operations at those sort of frequencies and traffic mixes especially east of West Drayton.

 

Wehen we were working in the early 1990s on the previous iteration of Crossrail the proposed service density was nothing like as great and we were running into capacity problems - in fact one study proposed six-tracking out to Airport Junction and that was for fewer total trains than is now proposed with Crossrail east of West Drayton/Airport Junction.  Obviously ERTMS will make some difference but not much, even if it is a full moving block all bells & whistles version (which it won't be as I understand things?).

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Hi Mike,

 

The current scope is to only install ETCS Level 2 on the surface lines, not full ERTMS with CBTC in the tunnels until a reliable ETCS Level 3 products is available, but this isn't going to be for a long time yet.

 

A lot of the GWR RDG - PAD services are to be replaced with Crossrail trains. I believe the frequency is 2 trains per hour from Reading and 4 trains per hour from Maidenhead, with all Crossrail empty stock being from Maidenhead.

 

Simon

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Hi Mike,

 

The current scope is to only install ETCS Level 2 on the surface lines, not full ERTMS with CBTC in the tunnels until a reliable ETCS Level 3 products is available, but this isn't going to be for a long time yet.

 

A lot of the GWR RDG - PAD services are to be replaced with Crossrail trains. I believe the frequency is 2 trains per hour from Reading and 4 trains per hour from Maidenhead, with all Crossrail empty stock being from Maidenhead.

 

Simon

 

Thanks Simon - the outer Crossrail frequency is as you state with 2 GWR stopping services per hour from Reading also although their number of station calls will be reduced east of Maidenhead to, probably just Slough and Ealing Broadway according to the most recent information from GWR.  What is not clear is whether or not these trains will be through from/to Oxford (as some are at present) or Reading turnrounds and they are of course additional to the through Oxford and Newbury trains will run fast east of Reading.

 

This will thus reproduce more or less the current situation of stopping trains between Maidenhead and Reading at 4 per hour (some hours on the clockface have more).  Crossrail don't seem to have much idea of their intended timetable beyond quoting number of trains per hour - their most recent advice to our Branch User Group (BUG) was that all their trains would call at all stations but their doesn't sit with their quoted journey times (some of which are nonsensical anyway even for non-stop running!) or the timetable pattern GWR are proposing let alone accommodating the freights.  I suspect that when NR comes to try to integrate the various timetables some of Crossrail's ambitions will have to be trimmed back to more realistic levels otherwise they will simply be destroying line capacity.  Time will tell.

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My guess is that the Class 345's will be nicknamed Tin Lizzies and as for there being no toilets remember Class 315's don't have toilets on them as well on the Liverpool to Shenfield stuff.

 

Maybe 315s don't have them but they're on inner suburban workings (Shenfield is only 20 miles from Liverpool St) and journeys are likely to be short.  On the GW side the existing trains have toilet provision as did their predecessors so in fact Crossrail stock will be a step back to the 1950s where in some cases - even on Crossrail's sometimes optimistic journey times - the journey durations will be longer than ATOC's recommended journey duration (30 minutes maximum) for provision of on-train toilets on new stock.

 

Mind you as Crossrail's cleaners or contractors will have to clean them the consequentials are really down to them but it does represent a reduction of standards for many passengers - including commuter groups who have already expressed their displeasure.

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I also agree with Stationmaster re toilets on trains; My local trains (class 314) don't have them and as I get older, this can be a worry even for a 30 minute journey ! I find it astonishing that in 2016, building stock for main line rail services without toilets can even be contemplated.  

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Hi,

 

There's quite a few interesting articles on the Rail Engineer Website about Crossrail:

 

Christmas 2015 West Inner Surface Works: http://www.railengineer.uk/2016/01/27/from-paddington-to-stockley/

 

Signalling Crossrail: http://www.railengineer.uk/category/subways-and-underground/

 

Crossrails SouthEastern Section: http://www.railengineer.uk/2015/05/29/crossrails-south-east-section/

 

Simon

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I also agree with Stationmaster re toilets on trains; My local trains (class 314) don't have them and as I get older, this can be a worry even for a 30 minute journey ! I find it astonishing that in 2016, building stock for main line rail services without toilets can even be contemplated.

I recall discussing this issue once with someone involved in the planning. I think one of the issues is one of the space a toilet takes relative to the number of commuters you can have standing in the expected crowded central section

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