Elizabeth Line

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  • MartynSinclair
    Participant

    The Elizabeth Line is finally open and offers another central London to Heathrow terminals, travel option. Elizabeth Line can be accessed via the main London (west end and city) stations of Liverpool Street, Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road & Bond Street. With between 8 and 10 stops to Heathrow it should be quicker than the tube.

    Access through Paddington station will be interesting. Will passengers still use HEX or transfer to the Elizabeth Line? Presume it may boil down to how much walking is needed between platforms.

    I am looking forward to trying Elizabeth Line out as a new way to get to Heathrow from the north of London.

    5 users thanked author for this post.

    FrequentTraveller
    Participant

    Except you will have to wait until Autumn 2022 before you can travel from central London to Heathrow or Reading without changing at Paddington. The line won’t be fully connected until May 2023.

    For now you will still have to change trains at Paddington, whether it’s Elizabeth line to Elizabeth line or Elizabeth line to HEX or any of the other possible connection combinations.

    Initially, the line operates in London as three separate railways, in the east, west and through central London. Elizabeth line customers travelling between:

    1) Shenfield and the central section of the route will need to change trains at Liverpool Street, walking to/from the new Elizabeth line Liverpool Street station.
    2) Reading or Heathrow and the central section will need to change trains at Paddington, walking to/from the new Paddington Elizabeth line station.
    3) Paddington and Abbey Wood only – no changes needed.

    Source tfl.gov.uk

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    FrequentTraveller
    Participant

    The full explanation of the Elizabeth Line and future plans are available from:

    https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-elizabeth-line

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    That’s true FrequentTraveller.

    Interviewed on LBC 97.3 this morning one of the Tfl bosses said the direct link to LHR (from the East) is set to open in May 2023.

    Another point to note is that Bond Street station (on this new line) will not open until later.

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    PeterCoultas
    Participant

    What a lot of fuss about the opening of the Elizabeth Line – trouble is it is only half open and half the use it could be

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    bluehoop
    Participant

    Perhaps even more remarkable, than the fact that the line is “opening” 3.5 years late, is the fact that TfL management was still insisting right up until August of 2018 that it would be open before the end of that year! To make such assertions, and THEN only deliver (well, half-deliver, as other readers here have correctly observed) 3.5 years late, amounts to incompetence on a simply spectacular scale. Indeed, it makes the new Wembley look like a triumph of project management.

    In terms of what we’ve been left with, and looking at the new London Underground map, I would not wish to be the person in the tourist information office at Paddington station, trying to explain the network to a newly arriving visitor. Two separate Circle Line stations, both with the same name and serving the same line, but with the correct choice between the two being critical. And now two Elizabeth Line stations, for which the same holds true. It makes the Tokyo underground network look like a piece of cake!

    4 users thanked author for this post.

    cwoodward
    Participant

    What is not often mentioned is that the Elizabeth lines 23 stations were built and are operated by Hong Kong government’s NGO ‘The MTR Corporation’. The MTR corporation are of course the builder and operator of Hong Kong’s rail system and many others around the world.
    They as the worlds acknowledged leader in metropolitan underground/overground rail operation have been involved in London’s underground system since 2009 and this is not the first line that MTR has run on the London system.

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    AdamMarley
    Participant

    To be honest I never really understood why people chose the HEX given how outrageously expensive it is and the fact that it is only a few minutes quicker than the Heathrow Connect and TfL Rail were and Lizzy Line now is.

    I live by one of the western stations and have been in the train most days this week. Although it’s a bummer that the interchange at Paddington is necessary while the last problems with systems are sorted out, it makes getting into and through London much quicker.

    The TfL journey planner has been indicating about 15 minutes for the change between the high level and central section of the line at Paddington, but if you get off at the front of the above-ground train and walk straight across to the central section entrance, the change takes more like 2 minutes.

    I’d much rather they had opened the line as soon as possible, albeit in sections, rather than waiting until Autumn to open it all together.

    2 users thanked author for this post.

    LuganoPirate
    Participant

    I can’t recall the station in the City, but a friend who travels in from the West of London, told me it took him longer to get out of the station with all the escalators and passageways, than the journey itself! I think it was Liverpool Street?


    Montysaurus
    Participant

    LuganoPirate. The station was probably Bank. I used it regularly for at least 2 years before I really understood the correct exit for the places I wanted to end up. Having mastered it the new Northern Line platform has now set me back again.

    4 users thanked author for this post.

    jjlasne
    Participant

    I watched a video on YouTube by RM, a Canadian train nerd, and I found the entire network and its new stations quite amazing. But what I found unusual and rather scary is the depth/length of the escalators.

    2 users thanked author for this post.

    TonyR
    Participant

    Whoever designed the Elizabeth line really wasn’t thinking. It manages to just miss all the mainline stations from the North – Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross – in favour of Liverpool Street for slow trains to Cambridge and East Anglia. And there are no easy connections from them either. It’s still as quick to jump on the Piccadilly or Victoria (change at Green Park) lines than go via Paddington, even with HEX, and much cheaper.

    Given Cambridge is one of the world’s top tech ecosystems, alongside Silicon Valley and Boston, you’d think they’d want to give it good international connections but CBG-KGX is 45mins non-stop while CBG-LST is 70-90 minutes trundling on old rolling stock stopping trains 🙄.


    cwoodward
    Participant

    The route was probably decided some 40 years ago or so when things were rather different and never changed.
    Of course it should have been but this is not a private enterprise initiative.


    ASK1945
    Participant

    [quote quote=1217034]Whoever designed the Elizabeth line really wasn’t thinking. It manages to just miss all the mainline stations from the North – Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross – in favour of Liverpool Street[/quote]

    This line was originally named “Crossrail” – which answers your point. These stations “from the North” are already well served by tube lines and the middle of London by the Central line. This line is more or less a diagonal from Paddington down to Stratford, which fills a gap and will bring much relief to Central London.

    I live in North London and so it won’t be of a lot of direct benefit to me. Nevertheless, I am relaxed that is was properly designed – even if this was “40 years ago”.


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    [quote quote=1217067]I live in North London and so it won’t be of a lot of direct benefit to me.[/quote]

    Afternoon ASK1945 – I believe there are 2 tube and 1 Thames Link stations in ‘our’ vicinity that will provide ca. 20-25 minute travel time access to the Elizabeth Line. I will certainly be trying it out as an alternative mode of travel to T5.

    Should be fully open by the time BA manage to get their act together.

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