please empty your brain below
“ At present eight purple trains an hour depart Shenfield for Liverpool Street.” and yet your first diagram (which take ascii art line diagrams to the next level!) only has 6 trains an hour from Shenfield marked.

dg writes: fixed, thanks.

Dan | 24.08.22 - 7:14 a.m. | #

As a regular user of the purple service from Canary Wharf, these were my first thoughts when I saw the press release too. I tend to take the northbound DLR to connect to the Elizabeth Line and the great thing at the moment is that the mostly five minute frequency of the DLR is currently timed perfectly so I reach the Elizabeth Line platform just in time for the eastbound train and with a minute or so to wait for the westbound. Things won't be quite so neat and time efficient from November! Plus the reliability will undoubtably suffer once things connect up. Still looking forward to the change though.

JP | 24.08.22 - 7:26 a.m. | #

Whilt understanding the logic of the piece, it's worth remembering that most places outside London would be extremely excited if offered an off peak service of 8 trails per hour with 200m long trains.

100andthirty | 24.08.22 - 7:30 a.m. | #

In any other part of the country, 10 trains an hour (never mind 12) would be the height of luxury.

(I'm currently visiting my parents, where the commuter line gets 1tph, with the occasional bonus train in the peaks)

martin | 24.08.22 - 7:49 a.m. | #

Your exemplary presentation of these complex facts is impressive. However, to postulate that these changes will be a disappointment to some seems to miss the point that they'll still have an excellent and convenient service, much better than pre-Crossrail and the envy of most other travellers.

Frank F | 24.08.22 - 7:55 a.m. | #

Unfortunately many trains on weekdays will dwell for around 5 minutes at Westbourne Park, which is going to create quite a frustrating experience for people travelling in the West.

Anon | 24.08.22 - 8:05 a.m. | #

TfL have put that into the press release.

"To regulate services coming into Paddington some trains may be held outside Paddington station for a few minutes before being routed into the tunnels. This is factored into timetables and will be announced to customers.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 24.08.22 - 8:07 a.m. | #

Do Crossrail drivers sign the whole line or just certain branches? I’m trying to understand what might happen upon full opening if, say, the Abbey Wood branch was blocked just west of Whitechapel at 10pm. Would all trains be diverted to the Shenfield branch to keep the service moving?

Andrew | 24.08.22 - 8:13 a.m. | #

There is another disadvantage of the changes; for passengers who interchange between Overground and the Shenfield Liz Line at Liv Street. Their walk will get a *lot* longer.

Still worth it!

Dan | 24.08.22 - 8:36 a.m. | #

Our local BBC commentator (Reading) called this "transformational" for the area. But any convenience of not having to get off at Paddington is somewhat mitigated by having to take the slow train (15 stops) from Reading, which from memory takes an hour, compared to less than 30 minutes for the non-stop. I'd rather change at Paddington if I need the Elizabeth line.

John Abbott | 24.08.22 - 9:18 a.m. | #

You... you... you investigative journalist, you!

Chris | 24.08.22 - 9:59 a.m. | #

What with the wait before entering the tunnel, sometimes it's 6 miniutes, as on this detailed timetable for this service from Reading, people wanting Paddingtion will find other trains from stations like Ealing Broadway are faster. They currently and will still do it in 10 - 11 minutes, Crossrail takes up to 17.

ap | 24.08.22 - 10:00 a.m. | #

Appreciate some padding is needed and I presume all this will be removed in the full timetable next May.. but before that point it’s really not a great start for a brand new railway if journeys actually get significantly slower for many people!

Anon | 24.08.22 - 10:24 a.m. | #

8 trains per hour from Paddington to Shenfield, 4 tph from Maidenhead to Abbey Wood (2 from Reading) and 4 tph from Heathrow Central to Abbey Wood (2 each from T4 / T5) is what RealTimeTrains says as well.

ASL | 24.08.22 - 10:28 a.m. | #

In fairness this was always the plan, amply covered in London Reconnections .

Introducing the initial self-contained Phase 1 service between Paddington and Abbey Wood necessitates an interim superior service east of Whitechapel in order to provide a decent 5-minute frequency in the core. This was bound to upset people between Canary Wharf and Abbey Wood when their service was reduced, and doubtless Tom Edwards & co will make a big thing of it.

Perhaps TfL could have managed expectations by publicising all this, but I somehow doubt that would have been effective with the majority.

dg writes: In fairness, I covered it 4 years ago too.

Strabismus | 24.08.22 - 1:07 p.m. | #

In fairness, the plan keeps changing to adapt to the latest reality (technical issues, reduced peak demand and timetable opportunities). On top of that, I could well imagine that things might change as regards the Heathrow service in the next couple of years.

Pedantic of Purley | 24.08.22 - 2:25 p.m. | #

This "later finishing" at 11pm: what does that mean exactly? Given that the last departures today are at 2303 (from Abbey Wood) & 2258 (from Paddington) and this is unchanged from September, so far as I can see.

Paul | 24.08.22 - 6:11 p.m. | #

Must say, my heart bleeds for Shenfield and Abbey Wood only getting 10tph in addition to the other private TOC trains that serves them. In my part of London we have no tube and are dependent on the DFT to supply us with…TWO tph since the pandemic and another raft of cuts coming from next Sunday. Presenting a drop from 12 to 10 tph as of ANY significance is very much the perception of a tube line dweller! There really are two Londons, transport wise.

Matt Sawyer | 28.08.22 - 1:04 p.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy