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| A TFL Rail Class 345 is seen at Goodmayes station on a service towards Gidea Park. This photo was taken a couple of days before the rebranding to "Elizabeth Line". |
The opening day on the 24th of May 2022 was quite something. People all around the world had come to witness the brand new railway being opened, even going as far as camping nearby or staying in a hotel that they booked to catch the first train out of London Paddington. I am sure on that day it must have been fun, although I was unable to make the trip on that route. It's also worth noting that this was part of Phase 1 of the line opening in stages.
Phase 1 - Tuesday 24th of May 2022:
The section between Abbey Wood and Paddington opens to the public, with the East and West sections of the route being rebranded from TFL Rail to Elizabeth Line.
- London Paddington to Abbey Wood (Central section)
- London Paddington to Heathrow Airport Terminals 4 and 5/Reading (West section)
- London Liverpool Street to Shenfield (East section)
At the time of operation the line was not fully connected, so to access the West sections (i.e. towards Heathrow Airport and Reading) passengers at Paddington had to go platforms 11, 12 and 14. Similarly for Liverpool Street, passengers needed to change over to platforms 16, 17 and 18 to continue their onward journey towards; Stratford, Romford and Shenfield. The central section was also not operational on Sundays as a result of engineering works, to ensure everything was running okay and to iron out any issues. Another thing, is that Bond Street station did not open in time with the other stations, but the station itself fell behind schedule meaning - it needed more time to be fully complete. So yes, as much as it was a grand opening it felt like one part of a jigsaw puzzle that is missing.
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| The Elizabeth Line map showing Phase 1 of the Elizabeth Line, with the stations at Liverpool Street and Paddington showing where passengers had to change platforms to continue their journey. |
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| This information was also displayed on the maps, upon rebranding of the route. |
Phase 2 - Sunday 6th of November 2022:
The East and West sections are connected to the central section of the Elizabeth Line, with the route now running seven days a week.
- Heathrow Airport Terminal 4/Terminal 5 to Abbey Wood (the West route now goes via the central section)
- London Paddington to Shenfield (the East route now goes via the central section)
It had been a couple of months since the Elizabeth Line opened, though soon another section of the route become operational. The West and East sections had become connected up to the core section, which was good news for me as I needed to go somewhere on the day. Here's how it went.
It was a cold and rainy Sunday morning, as I walked into Chadwell Heath station while I waited for the train. Roughly around 10:15am the train arrived onto the platform with the destination boards displaying "Paddington", this did slightly baffle me a bit as I was used to seeing "London Liverpool Street" but then I realised what happened - the second phase of the Elizabeth Line had arrived and coincidentally being the first day I hopped onboard.
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| The interior of the Class 345s taken during the evening rush hour, a few days after phase 2 become operational. The train has largely longitudinal seating, though transverse seats are also present on some some carriages seen above in the other carriage. |
To give you a bit of context, the train that I boarded was the Class 345 Aventra built by Bombardier Transportation. 70 of these trains were built between 2017 and 2019, with the first train entering service in June 2017 under the TFL Rail brand. I have already covered a blog post on this already and contains a bit of background on TFL Rail itself. Click here for more information on that. Upon introduction, the trains were 7 carriages, as of now all trains on the route are 9 carriages and over 200m long. They are fully air conditioned (a plus on the previous passenger train stock that was lacking), equipped with free Wifi and has a mix of longitudinal seating (the front and rear being fully this type) while near the middle of the train there are some transverse seats, as this line goes outside of Greater London boundary.
Departing Chadwell Heath (at 10:20am) through the miserable weather, we made our way towards Central London. Of course since these trains were introduced, I had been quite familiar with the seating layout and luckily I managed to bag a two by two seat facing the window, just to let you know, these seats are popular and tend to get taken up quickly. There are no toilets or USB charging sockets onboard, the latter being something that new trains nowadays tend to come equipped with but, given the intense services these trains have to go through, you have question whether it's worth it or not. The announcements are pretty much straight to the point, albeit it does sound robotic, that said I am sure passengers wouldn't want to be listening to bombarded next station information! Some of the stations that we stopped at on route (Seven Kings, Manor Park, Forest Gate and Maryland) could not accommodate the full 9-car, due to where they are situated thus, the doors on that carriage didn't open. Despite all the platforms being extended on the route but hey ho...
By the time we got to Stratford, the loads started to pick up a little bit - maybe not too much due to the weather. Usually at Stratford station I would have gotten off and changed over to the other platform to get a Central Line train. Not anymore. Not on this journey, as after a couple of minutes waiting (presumably we arrived early) we departed away and a view of the Olympic Park became visible. Turning off the Great Eastern Main Line, could only mean one thing.... underground!!! That's right, we entered a tunnel and now running underground for the remainder of the journey into Central London, taking about roughly 6 to 7 minutes to reach Whitechapel. Our next stops were; Whitechapel, Liverpool Street, Farringdon and Tottenham Court Road. I needed to change at Tottenham Court Road (arrival into the station at around 10:51am) for an onward connection elsewhere but wow... those platforms are certainly spacious! No kidding, each of the stations here felt futuristic. I enjoyed travelling onboard this journey, particularly through the core.
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| The platforms westbound at Tottenham Court Road - very large indeed! |
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| Information displayed at Tottenham Court Road informing passengers where to exit the station at. |
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| Information showing how long it would take to get from one station to another. Also includes timetable information - considering the date at the time I took this photograph, the timetable most likely would have been updated. |
The second part of my Elizabeth Line journey occurred on Sunday 15th of January 2023. At Tottenham Court Road, I decided to instead of going home, have a look at Paddington station and explore another section of the route. So I took a short journey from Tottenham Court Road to Paddington calling only at Bond Street along the way and arrived at London Paddington. Very spacious when I arrived, even had designed "clouds" on the rooftop to make you think it's actually shining outside. Well, guess what, you're wrong! I spent 10 minutes exploring the station before boarding another Elizabeth Line service.
I made my way down to the Elizabeth Line platforms after taking in views of the station at London Paddington. The next service towards Abbey Wood came by and was notably busy, as it served stations from the West section of the route (i.e. from Heathrow and Reading). Departing Paddington, after serving a couple of stations in Central London, we made our way towards Whitechapel and this is where the line splits in two sections after leaving the station. Diverging onto the Abbey Wood branch, we headed to Canary Wharf, staying underground until emerging from the tunnel to serve Custom House station. Going through two tunnels, (the second tunnel of which goes under the River Thames) Woolwich station followed, another underground station and the penultimate stop for this service. Couple of minutes later, the daylight appeared once again rising out of the tunnel, with the terminus of Abbey Wood station following briefly. The whole journey took around 30 minutes, felt insanely quick!
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| The station entrance at Abbey Wood station. |
The station entrance is situated on a bridge, with around 7 main TFL routes (as well as one night route) serving the station, some of which have had their routes altered, or have been newly introduced to serve the Elizabeth Line. You might immediately think that with the greenery and housing development around that you're outside of London. Yes, although there a couple of shops including a big Sainsburys if you exit and head towards the left. My explore here was brief, though I am sure for passengers that regularly use this station, are happy that they have a quicker alternative to Central London and beyond, seeing as the two other train operators (Southeastern and Thameslink) are under National Rail and goes to London Bridge, which must be a tedious journey just to interchange onto other lines. Nonetheless, they do have services that head towards Kent, so, definitely handy. The station is Zone 4 believe it or not.
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| A Elizabeth Line Class 345 is seen at Abbey Wood station about to start a service towards Heathrow Terminal 5. |
It was certainly an interesting journey, however, I needed to catch to the next service out of Abbey Wood and given how long they take on Sundays compared to weekdays, I wasn't going to take the risk of getting a later service. Conveniently, there was a Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 bound train on the platform (seen above) thankfully as I had time, the departure wouldn't be for another 10 minutes meaning I managed to grab a seat (thank god, the standing was killing me on this day) and board another Elizabeth line service home at Whitechapel. Sadly, the lack of time meant I could not explore the Heathrow and Reading branches and even if I did go up to Reading (which is outside the Greater London boundary) my oyster card would not have been valid, though that adventure is for another day.
Recently, Phase 3 began on Sunday 21st May 2023, enabling trains on the Eastern section to go from Paddington to Heathrow direct. Yes, direct. This means that the whole route is fully connected from east to west, a year later after opening. Here's how the services look now;
Phase 3 - Sunday 21st May 2023
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| The departure board inside the shelter at Goodmayes station, on the first day of Elizabeth Line services extending further to Heathrow. |
The full route runs in seamless network with more trains running towards Heathrow Airport. Shenfield services from Paddington are extended to Heathrow.
- Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 to Abbey Wood
- Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 to Shenfield
- Maidenhead to Abbey Wood
- Reading to Abbey Wood
- London Paddington to Shenfield
Note: Some services may during the peak time, or early/late evening services go to London Paddington and London Liverpool Street. Additionally, some services may terminate at shorter destinations along the route. This is so that there are many trains running through the core section and to spread out the number of trains at the terminus.
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| A Elizabeth Line Class 345 is seen approaching Goodmayes station on a service towards Heathrow Terminal 5. Taken during: July 2023 |
Notably, on the more recent trips I tend to see that the Heathrow bound trains are more busier than the Paddington services, obviously since the train goes to Heathrow + passengers with suitcases boarding, it equals a recipe for a very busy journey - I imagine those passengers are slightly annoyed that they have hold their suitcase with them, with trains lacking a suitcase rack to store their belongings. Overall, the Elizabeth Line has completely transformed travel around London, in a good way, as getting to stations are quicker and require less interchanging which is a bonus. The stations served on the line is flourishing, to be expected. The trains, despite breaking down from time to time are nicely air conditioned and have a maximum operating speed of 90mph, with the acceleration being rapid departing from stations. Admittedly the service as of late has been hit and miss, while the East section has been operating okay, the Abbey Wood and West sections, alright, considering it runs over an existing section of track west of Paddington, I accept, having said that, the Abbey Wood branch is the new bit and given that if a delay happens over there it causes alot of trouble for trains heading in other directions - especially signal failures. Those are the worst. The whole line just goes into meltdown mode. Otherwise, if you can overlook those minor things, the line is brilliant.
What's next?
As for the Elizabeth Line the main project is complete, however, of course there will be extensions and proposals as such that eventually may come into place in the future. Generally, trains come every 7 minutes, note this may vary depending on what section of the line you are on. If you want more information on the timetable and about the line, click here as it provides the necessary information in regards to that. Alternatively, speak to member of station staff if any assistance is required or grab an Elizabeth Line leaflet at stations.
As I type this post, the trains currently serving the route are being equipped (one by one) with USB charging sockets - eventually the whole fleet will get them but at the moment its very early stages.
What else can I say? If this post does not encourage you to ride on the Elizabeth Line then I don't know what will, just try it out!
And with that, I know it has been a long one (as always), thank you for reading and happy riding on the Elizabeth Line!
