Elizabeth Line / Crossrail Updates.

[RJS1977]

3 hours ago, DY444 said:

Projects rarely fail out of the blue.  Plenty of people know they are going wrong (often from the start) and either say nothing or are ignored by higher ups.  As an engineer myself I've always subscribed to the view that getting it right is far more important than doing it on time as people quickly forget it was late if it works but you never hear the last of getting it wrong. 

 

Depends a bit on the project of course, there would have been no point in say completing the Olympic stadium three years late!

 

However, agreed that often those "on the ground" can see that a project is going to fail, but that the message doesn't always get as high up as it needs to. 

[Michael Hodgson]

It somehow seems appropriate that the Elizabeth Line should have had to close this morning, along with other services to Paddington.  Whatever caused the dewirement must be a royalist.

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

It somehow seems appropriate that the Elizabeth Line should have had to close this morning, along with other services to Paddington.  Whatever caused the dewirement must be a royalist.

Or a republican wanting to stop people getting to the funeral?

[KeithMacdonald]

Ah, Mr Marshall, we've been expecting you!

 

 

[Kris]

Having had the chance to experience the experience the Elizabeth line earlier in the week, I have got to say that I was impressed. Clean trains, smooth running.

[Northmoor]

On 27/10/2022 at 20:56, Kris said:

Having had the chance to experience the experience the Elizabeth line earlier in the week, I have got to say that I was impressed. Clean trains, smooth running.

The outgoing Commissioner would be glad to hear it.  Andy Byford left TfL on Monday afternoon having opened Bond St Elizabeth Line station in the morning.

 

There were about 70 of us there to applaud him out of the building as he left with the acting Commissioner and went across the road to the pub.  He will be a hard act to to follow; few people reach his level of seniority while retaining the ability to talk to and treat everyone equally.

[Ron Ron Ron]

Through running on the Elizabeth Line has commenced, with the introduction of the penultimate phase of the Crossrail project.

 

Heathrow and Reading trains now run through central London, calling at the underground Paddington low level platforms, to terminate at Abbey Wood...

...and trains from Shenfield now run through the central section to terminate at Paddington (low level).

 

The final phase is due to be introduced next spring, when the through running will be extended on both sides of the capital and the full timetable is introduced.

 

 

In the current phase, you can now board trains at Tottenham Court Rd, Bond St, etc, etc, heading....

 

westbound - terminating at...

Reading

Maidenhead

Heathrow Terminal 4

Heathrow Terminal 5

Paddington (low level)

 

eastbound - terminating at...

Shenfield

Abbey Wood

 

 

 

.

 

[KingEdwardII]

18 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Through running on the Elizabeth Line has commenced

Hurrah! About time.

 

No more awkward lengthy walks to change trains at Paddington and Liverpool Street... so just one more step and we shall be complete, next spring with the direct Shenfield to Heathrow services. I'm looking forward to that since I travel from west London to Stratford for sports events.

 

Yours, Mike.

[woodenhead]

Crossrail is oh so boring now.

 

But of course that's what we want, the drama is all gone, the trains are now running at 22 frequency and it should be spectacularly mundane from here on.

 

Maybe I will be down in London soon and with some time to spare to get to try it out though generally I arrive from the North and exit South.

[melmerby]

18 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Crossrail is oh so boring now.

 

But of course that's what we want, the drama is all gone, the trains are now running at 22 frequency and it should be spectacularly mundane from here on.

 

Maybe I will be down in London soon and with some time to spare to get to try it out though generally I arrive from the North and exit South.

However:

https://railcam.uk/rcdata/RCData2_detail.php?r=S&hc=9W64&td=Q0&vip=Y&as=Y

 

Doesn't seem to have affected any other service, just late joining in. (it's out of sequence)

Edited November 7, 2022 by melmerby

[KingEdwardII]

34 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

oh so boring now

Not boring - just quietly efficient, doing what it says on the tin...

 

...that is what you really want from any transport system.

 

Yours,  Mike.

[Chris116]

In the month after the central section opening I had a ride from Paddington to Abbey Wood and now that I find I can get to Reading on my Freedom Pass I will be doing a Paddington - Abbey Wood - Reading - Paddington trip.

[Pacific231G]

45 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

In the month after the central section opening I had a ride from Paddington to Abbey Wood and now that I find I can get to Reading on my Freedom Pass I will be doing a Paddington - Abbey Wood - Reading - Paddington trip.

Really? That's great news if true but I thought the Freedom Pass issued by London boroughs only covered the Greater London travel area out as far as W.Drayton on the GWML whether by GWR, or TfL (formerly Heathrow Connect) trains  . Does this just apply to Elizabeth Line trains? In Ealing we get both those and GWR ones going to Reading and I've always been able to use my Freedon Pass as far out as W. Drayton on any train (after 09.30 for GWR)  There are anomalies- I can travel for free on Derby Day to visit a friend who lives near Tattenham Corner but she can't use her Surrey issued pass to travel by train into London- which seems rather unfair. 

[Chris116]

1 minute ago, Pacific231G said:

Really? That's great news if true but I thought the Freedom Pass issued by London boroughs only covered the Greater London travel area out as far as W.Drayton on the GWML whether by GWR, or TfL (formerly Heathrow Connect) trains  . Does this just apply to Elizabeth Line trains? In Ealing we get both those and GWR ones going to Reading and I've always been able to use my Freedon Pass as far out as W. Drayton on any train (after 09.30 for GWR)  There are anomalies- I can travel for free on Derby Day to visit a friend who lives near Tattenham Corner but she can't use her Surrey issued pass to travel by train into London- which seems rather unfair. 

You can only use TfL Elizabeth Line services to Reading as the Freedom Pass is only valid outside zones 1 to 6 on TfL services. I will check the map that TfL has on their website but I am certain I am right. If I have got it wrong I will post on here and at the same time edit my comments so noone is misled if I am wrong.

[Pacific231G]

9 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

You can only use TfL Elizabeth Line services to Reading as the Freedom Pass is only valid outside zones 1 to 6 on TfL services. I will check the map that TfL has on their website but I am certain I am right. If I have got it wrong I will post on here and at the same time edit my comments so noone is misled if I am wrong.

Hi Chris

Thanks for this.

Yes, I've just looked it up and, after 09.00,  the Freedom Pass is valid on any train on the GWML, which in practice means EL and GWR,  as far at West Drayton (and now including Heathrow)  but only on EL trains to Reading. 

Goody. I can now get to Reading for free (not that I really want to except as a jumping off point for points further west)  and more to the point can get to Windsor with just a ticket from Slough.

Does anyone know where EL trains from the west terminating at Paddington now go (or are they now a thing of the past?) All we need now is for GWR to beef up its current half-hourly Mon-Sat only service on the Greenford branch to give Rusilip, Northolt, N. Greenford (currently being developed on a large scale) Perivale and a few other places a decent access to the EL  

[phil_sutters]

38 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

 she can't use her Surrey issued pass to travel by train into London- which seems rather unfair. 

Senior Citizen (bus) passes outside London generally only cover buses. We can use our bus passes on TfL buses, although in my fairly limited experience they sometimes don't scan and you have to show the driver. The London Freedom card is a major asset for London pensioners, which I miss now that I live down on the south coast.

[Chris116]

33 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

 

Goody. I can now get to Reading for free (not that I really want to except as a jumping off point for points further west)  and more to the point can get to Windsor with just a ticket from Slough.

Does anyone know where EL trains from the west terminating at Paddington now go (or are they now a thing of the past?)

Be careful about journeys beyond any boundary station. In many cases you can get Advance tickets from the London terminal to the longer distance stations that are cheaper than tickets from the boundary station.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, KingEdwardII said:

Hurrah! About time.

 

No more awkward lengthy walks to change trains at Paddington and Liverpool Street... so just one more step and we shall be complete, next spring with the direct Shenfield to Heathrow services. I'm looking forward to that since I travel from west London to Stratford for sports events.

 

Yours, Mike.

And of course you can very easily change at Ealing Broadway - step off a GWR 387, wait a few minutes (with time to 'swipe in' your Oyster ard), and join a Crossrail train at the same platform

 

And yes, TfL Freedom Passes. area available beyond West Drayton as far as Reading on TfL:operated trains only and that has applied since the service was first introduced.  A friend of ours has travelled down from Ealing Broadway to Twyford a couple of times using his Freedom.   Oyster Cards an not valid beyond West Drayton.   What I'm interested in trying is to see what happens should I alight at a central section Liz Line station and use my All Stations pass to open the barriers as they are very definitely valid.

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

..…..Does anyone know where EL trains from the west terminating at Paddington now go (or are they now a thing of the past?) …….

For this phase, some very early morning and late evening EL services from the west (GWML), will still start or terminate at platforms in the Paddington mainline terminus, as the service starts up early on, or ramps down at the end of the day.

 

Quite a few early westbound EL trains start from the mainline platforms, up to 0630, but apart from a few EL arrivals just after midnight, there are no eastbound morning trains terminating at the mainline station.

 

After 2200, about half the eastbound EL trains terminate at Paddington mainline, with the rest going on to Abbey Wood.

 

After 2240, there are only 2 trains departing from the mainline station before the end of services. These go to Heathrow T5.

All other trains will have started at Abbey Wood

 

Otherwise, throughout all of the day, from 0630 in the morning through to after 2200 in the late evening, all EL trains will route via the tunnels and call at Paddington’s low level EL platforms, on their way to or from Abbey Wood ( until next spring and the full service pattern).

 

The residual GWR services on the relief lines, will obviously continue to use the Paddington mainline terminus.

 

.

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

Senior Citizen (bus) passes outside London generally only cover buses

Several of the Metro areas' passes allow train and/or tram usage, but for those of us in the sticks buses only

Edited November 7, 2022 by melmerby

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Oyster Cards an not valid beyond West Drayton.   

Staff Oyster cards ARE valid, but they have to be shown at the barrier to be let through.

[The Stationmaster]

here's an interesting one.  This afternoon my son has gone up to London to a meeting near London Bridge station.  No worries about getting there off the GWML because he can take a Liz Line train to Farringdon and change there to Thameslink to get to London Bridge.  but there arises the interesting question of ticketing (and I don't know what he's doing about that) so I wonder if Travek Cards are valid Lonf don bridge - assuming he can actually buy one in the first place?  i can't thnk of any other way of getting a through ticket and as he's ona through Liz Line train he can't swipe in or out anywhere with his Oyster Card.

 

Looking at it another way it looks like a fare evader's paradise because unless there are any on-train checks (which do occasionally happen on Liz Line trains) the only place on his entire journey where he's likely to pass through any sort of ticket barrier is at London Bridge itself.

[RJS1977]

London Bridge is in Zone 1 so a Travelcard will be valid.

[The Stationmaster]

21 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

London Bridge is in Zone 1 so a Travelcard will be valid.

He did indeed use a Travelcard (which I'd presumed might well have been the simple answer) and the only place it needed to be presented was at London Bridge - as I'd expected.  

 

Revenue splitting must be a nightmare on this sort of journey and might explain why TfL were talking about ending Travelcards.  As it happened he travelled by GWR, Liz Line and Thameslink with the order reversed on the return journey.  Outward he'd decided to use the Liz Line train all the way from Twyford instead of travelling by GWR train to Ealing Broadway (no difference in overall journey time as it happened as the GWR 387 would have connected at Ealing Broadway into the Liz Line train he travelled on from Twyford.

 

But it does leave a question about the way revenue splits will be arranged on the GWML side with trains being run by two different operators?

[RJS1977]

I would imagine revenue splits for Twyford-Paddington would work exactly the way they do for any other route where services are operated by more than one operator (which IIRC means that the revenue for a journey is split between the operators in the ratio of the number of services they offer over the route).

 

Splitting revenue for journeys from Reading to London are sufficiently complicated anyway that I don't think the EL will make a great deal of difference - you don't need to pass through a barrier to change on to the Tube at Ealing Broadway or Richmond either. 

For example, there are at least four different routes from Reading to Whitechapel which would only involve passing through barriers at each end of the journey!