TfL fairly recently issued a press release announcing daily through running on the Elizabeth line from Sunday 6th November 2022. This was not a surprise as a combination of leaks and intelligent guesswork based on dates of planned engineering work means that it was expected – but perhaps no-one was expecting it to be announced so soon.
Even more surprising is that the new timetable for Elizabeth line trains from November 6th was already present on the National Rail website as well as, slightly less surprisingly, the Open Train Times website. Until now it had been impossible to predict with any certainty the service planned to be provided but we can now see what will be running in early November.
Whilst this next stage in opening is undoubtedly a good thing, the press release, inevitably, emphasises the positive and minimises the negative so there is more than initially meets the eye with the new service. So, without wishing to detract from this encouraging new phase of the Elizabeth line opening, we look at some of the rather messy aspects of the timetable and what has caused this.
This was never the plan – until recently
You may have lost track of the revised plans for Crossrail implementation that still keep coming. Certainly, nowhere in any public plan until this May was there any suggestion that Crossrail would initially only be running six days-a-week. And, until fairly recently, Crossrail (and its successors) were adamant that it needed to be opened in incremental stages. The next stage (Stage 4 on the original proposals) would have been through running between Shenfield and Paddington with services from west of Paddington continuing to terminate at Paddington. This was originally deemed as essential, as trying to do too much in one go would clearly lead to problems.
The National Timetable issue
A major potential problem dominating Crossrail’s planned sequence of opening was the perceived need to change timetables impacting on the National Rail network on one of the two dates in the year (one in May, the other in December) when the national timetable changed. Clearly, opening only between Paddington and Abbey Wood wasn’t an issue as that section of the railway was self-contained. However, it was originally claimed that it was not possible to implement though running on either the Shenfield branch or west of Paddington unless it coincided with a national timetable change.
A bit of extra thought should make it clear that requiring synchronisation with the National Timetable change is unduly restrictive. If the trains run in existing timings west of Paddington and east of Pudding Mill Lane portal (east of Liverpool St where trains enter the Crossrail tunnels) then, in principle, there should be no problem in choosing any date to implement Crossrail through running.
In fact, one could be more flexible – a lot more flexible – than that
On the eastern side, the twin tracks almost exclusively reserved for Crossrail (known as ‘the electric lines’ for historical reasons) were normally only additionally used by a limited number of freight trains. These freight trains operate outside peak hours. However, since the North London Line was electrified, it has been operationally more convenient and sensible to run most freight workings on the fast lines, which means that Crossrail is largely unaffected by freight considerations. Indeed, nowadays the only scheduled freight paths on the electric lines are between 2315 and 0545. And remember that a freight path doesn’t mean that a freight train will actually run. It only means there is a ‘slot’ in the timetable in case one does run.
Despite the freedom from operational constrictions, the Crossrail timings in the November 6th off-peak timings east of Stratford are identical to those in the current (September 5th) timetable. Quite probably there was a desire not to needlessly alter these timings as existing passengers would be familiar with them.
West of Paddington, Crossrail uses the ‘relief lines’. Any other railway would call them the slow lines but the original Great Western Railway always had to be different in almost everything they did. Apart from Crossrail, the only other passenger trains that use these lines are the half-hourly GWR Didcot – Paddington semi-fast trains. Proposals to reinstate some peak-workings of these train have been put back because of post-Covid reduced demand.
There are also a number of off-peak freight trains west of Paddington on the relief lines. Typically, these originate at Mendip Quarry and terminate at Acton Yard before returning empty. Fortunately, the entrance to the yard is now grade separated as Acton Dive Under was constructed as part of the Crossrail project which eliminates conflicting flows. Unfortunately, the turnout at the junction is probably less than line speed for main route so this junction would still have some limited adverse effect on interworking with passenger trains.
Whilst freight trains do run to a nominal timetable, a few minutes adjustment here and there is generally not critical. In the up direction (towards Paddington) there is a freight loop between Iver and West Drayton which gives some additional flexibility.
Why introduce through running East and West at the same time?
What the above does not explain is why there is a need to commence through running on both the western and eastern sides at the same time. To understand why one must look at a little-publicised but fairly significant problem on the Elizabeth line and understand why it is such a big deal.
Modern Railways spills the beans
Concerns at LR Towers were first raised when reading an absolutely excellent one-off publication called Crossrail – London’s New Railway, published by the team that writes and publishes Modern Railways shortly before the railway opening date (and sadly seems no longer to be available). This has a considerable amount of insight and was clearly written with the co-operation of senior TfL staff who were interviewed. To a large extent, the publication seems to be toeing the TfL line, although we couldn’t help notice it used ‘Crossrail’ in the title, not ‘Elizabeth’!
It was in this publication that we first officially read that Auto-Reverse turn back functionality west of Paddington was not yet working sufficiently satisfactorily to be in implemented on the live railway. Not only that, it would not even be ready for the next stage of Crossrail as originally proposed. This was the original Stage 4, Stage 3 being the opening between Paddington and Abbey Wood. Stage 4 would implement Shenfield to Paddington (and nothing else). The problem was that this would require 24tph reversing at Paddington. This was supposed to be just not possible without an auto-reverse feature that would enable the trains to immediately reverse in the sidings whilst the driver walked down the train to take his or her position at the other end.
In the Modern Railways publication, the lack of Auto-Reverse was presented, rather emphatically, as no big deal even though it was admitted it would mean that an absolute maximum of 22tph could be achieved in the central section without it. More careful reading made it clear that even that 22tph depended on running all trains to the west of Paddington being through trains, to reduce the need to terminate trains at Paddington (Low Level).
In the article based on an interview with Howard Smith (Elizabeth line Chief Operating Officer) it is very tactfully suggested that running 22tph, rather than wait for full Auto-Reverse, was ‘an entirely sensible trade off’. We are not disputing this, but feel that it rather underplays the impact of not being able to run 24tph on the next phase of opening, and this does seem to be a major disappointment that has received very little publicity. Even the regular Modern Railways monthly publication seems not to think it worthy of pointing this out to their readers. Lack of Auto-Reverse also has another downside but it is not one visible to the public. The trains effectively have to queue up to reverse, and every now and again a through running train allows the queue to be cleared before another train arrives. Clearly running 22tph, of which 14tph terminate, is going to lead to a short queue at times, so an expensive train and driver is being unproductive.
The need to introduce through running in one go
If you don’t have Auto-Reverse in operation then a crucial question is ‘how many trains can you reverse in an hour at Paddington?’ This question is so critical that it is one of the reasons why Crossrail has still been closed on Sundays. One reason was that it was necessary to test out whether even a 22tph timetable could be run.
Obviously, we know that 12tph reversing at Paddington can be done because that is what happens now. It looks like 15tph was considered not possible, as the original plan was to have a 15tph Abbey Wood – Paddington service. However, this could have been because of problems terminating at 15tph at Abbey Wood and at present, with a 12tph service, trains can sometimes wait at Abbey Wood for a platform to be available, despite the simple and reliable train-every-5-minutes service.
Could 14tph terminating at Paddington (Low Level) be achieved?
The simple answer is ‘we don’t know’, although it could well be the case that this is known within Crossrail management. If you could terminate (and turn round) 14 trains per hour at Paddington and run 8tph through to destinations in the west (Heathrow and Reading) then you could run a true 22tph peak service on Crossrail. In practice, despite what is claimed by the Commissioner downwards (such as on this August video update) what is really being offered is a 20tph service with enhancements. We can be fairly sure that is possible because that is what they are confident they can introduce in November.
Is an alternative plan possible?
With no Auto-Reverse at Paddington, the original plan for Stage 4 to introduce through running from Shenfield to Paddington is just not possible – as you need to terminate 24tph at Paddington and only 12tph is possible – maybe slightly more but only slightly more.
One then wonders, why one does not introduce through running beyond Paddington westwards first? This would seem undesirable because you would be restricted to 12tph on the central section in London, because that is probably all you can terminate at Abbey Wood. At the same time, you would be increasing demand in the central section without providing more trains.
Introducing through running only west of Paddington would appear to have been possible and we do wonder to what extent that had been considered. This would certainly have been welcomed by some passengers such as those with large luggage travelling to or from Heathrow. It is unlikely that it could have been introduced without some timetable issues resulting in trains travelling west of Paddington having to wait either on approach to Paddington or after leaving Paddington – or both. This would disadvantage would seriously offset the benefit of providing a through service.
Just introducing through running beyond Paddington to the west surely could have been done, but it is arguable whether it really would have been beneficial if you still only run 12tph through central London. By way of contrast, introducing through running at both ends has real advantages – it enables a through service from Shenfield to Paddington to be introduced, and also enables at least 20tph in the peaks (and 16tph outside the peaks) in the central section.
Why not ‘Step Back’?
A puzzle with the consequences of the lack of Auto-Reverse is why not just have drivers ‘stepping back’ ie take the following train out so that trains can leave the sidings quicker. This is often implemented on the Underground (and some main line termini) in order to maintain a high frequency service. We don’t know the answer but we do know that stepping back introduces horrible complications and reliability issues, so it is avoided if possible. And, fairly obviously, it requires more drivers which is a problem either of expense or because you simply do not have the additional drivers.
No nice neat timetable
One thing that is so good about Crossrail at present is its absolutely regular 5 minute interval service. Except in cases of disruption (usually a train malfunctioning), it is a metronome regular service with a clearly defined interval between trains. The final timetable should be similarly regular, but this is next to impossible when you introduce 22tph and at the same time stick to existing frequencies on National Rail tracks.
It is only now becoming apparent how messy this would be. Whilst the majority of passengers won’t even notice, for some it will be extremely frustrating. In particular, it will cause two problems.
The Even Branches issue
The first and more obvious issue with running only 22tph in the peaks is that you have two eastern branches. You can’t run easily 11tph on each branch because you are trying to stick to even intervals as much as possible. Besides, passenger levels have generally recovered well on the Liverpool St – Shenfield line so you don’t want to reduce the level of service from 12tph in the evening peak and slightly more in the morning peak.
The actual solution
Despite what is publicly claimed, there will not be a proper 22tph service on Crossrail at the next timetable change. Basically, 22tph does not work well but 20tph does. So, quite cleverly, there is a 20tph peak service with some supplemental trains on the Shenfield branch. These exist in two forms:
- Supplemental peak trains to or from Liverpool St Main Line station.
- Extra trains squeezed into the timetable in one direction.
We shall look at these two options in detail.
Supplemental trains to Liverpool Street Main Line station
In the morning peak there will be two trains starting from Gidea Park (at 0743 and 0813) that will terminate at Liverpool Street platform 17. There is no return working. This is little different from today where there are two trains starting at Gidea Park at 0800 and 0827, whereas all the other peak hour trains start from Shenfield.
In the evening peak there will be also be two trains serving Liverpool Street main line station platform 17. These depart at 17.35 and 18.04.
Some readers may remember that, many years ago, the plan was to supplement the peak service on the Shenfield branch with 6tph in the peak direction only between Gidea Park and Liverpool Street main line. This then was reduced to 4tph. These extra trains were necessitated by the demand on the line to Shenfield, and an inability for Crossrail to cater for it once it was decided to build a branch to Abbey Wood (originally onward to Ebbsfleet). Covid and subsequent reduced demand has almost put an end to the need for these extra services which were never liked by the Crossrail team.
Longer term we suspect these supplementary trains will disappear. If demand does return on this branch, there will probably also be similar increased demand on the Abbey Wood branch. So any solution will be based on increasing the core frequency to both branches. It is possible that this could be achieved with fewer trains out of service for maintenance, but more likely that extra stock would have to be leased should this situation arise in the future.
It is worth noting that we could also see Crossrail trains serving Liverpool Street Main Line station at times of disruption. As well as that, some late evening services will continue to terminate at Liverpool Street Main Line station. In a similar way, some late evening services will terminate at Paddington Main Line station.
‘Push Through’ trains in the timetable
Crossrail has improved the 20tph service in the central section in the November timetable by introducing ‘push through’ trains. This is a concept often used on the Underground. The idea is you run the trains at the maximum sustainable frequency, then see if you can supplement the ‘peak of the peak’ by squeezing an extra train in. This involves adjusting timing of trains prior and after the ‘push through’ train before returning to regular timings.
Typical features of the ‘push through’ train are:
- It only makes one journey and only in one direction.
- It starts and ends at a depot or siding (so as not to block up terminal platform space).
- Often, but not always, it only operates in the more intensive morning peak.
A classic example is on the Northern line where to alleviate the busy section down to Morden, there is a morning-only extra train via Bank. This allows London Underground to claim that they run 31tph on the southern section in the peak – but it is only the morning peak and only in one direction.
The Crossrail November timetable appears to have two ‘push through’ trains in the morning from Shenfield to Paddington. These probably continue to the depot at Old Oak Common. In the evening there seems to be two ‘push throughs’ in the reverse direction which probably continue to the Shenfield sidings.
These extra trains result in the claimed 22tph in the peaks but it is a matter of interpretation as to whether you consider this to really be 22tph. What, to us, is much more impressive is just how long Crossrail sustains 20tph in the peak in both directions.
Between 07.00 and 10.00 in the morning peak Abbey Wood has a train arriving and departing consistently every six minutes. Gidea Park has slightly more frequent but erratic service to London from roughly 06.30 to 09.30 with trains never more than six minutes apart. In the evening peak there is 10tph to Abbey Wood between 16.00 and 20.00 (arrival time at Abbey Wood), with just the occasional train arriving a minute earlier or a minute later than a regular six minute interval would provide. Again, Gidea Park has a slightly more frequent but erratic service from London between 16.00 and 19.45. So the evening peak is sustained for roughly four hours.
The ‘Wait Outside Paddington’ Issue
The press release ‘Notes for Editors’ for these improved Crossrail services rather disingenuously states that:
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.
The ‘few minutes’ is not trivial. It might be true it is only three or four minutes but, if so, will be combined with trains travelling slower than necessary and seems to be typically more like 6 or 7 minutes. This seems excessive but the problem is that a train (on existing timings) has to wait until it can take the path of an Abbey Wood train. In the peaks, the worst case scenario is 5 minutes (12tph) but off-peak this could be up to 7½ minutes. Furthermore, one suspects the planners want to build in some contingency in any case because they don’t want a train that is a minute or two late messing up the service in the central London section.
No mention is made of any delay leaving Paddington, but there is an inconsistency in the time for Elizabeth trains not stopping at Acton Main Line to reach Ealing Broadway. So one suspects there may be some slowing down of trains to adhere to the timetable with the hope that passengers won’t notice too much.
Hopefully, there will be some limited ability in the national December timetable change to remove some of the dead time. National Rail timings could be tweaked and the contingency, which sometimes seems excessive, reduced to something less onerous. If the timetable is tweaked in December, then we will only have to live with the delays for 5 weeks which would seem quite sensible in ensuring a smooth introduction.
Off Peak Services
For completeness, we have added diagrams for off-peak services. From Monday 7th November these will be based on an 8tph pattern on the Abbey Wood and Shenfield branches but in May next year these will improve and be on a 10tph pattern as previously envisaged. However, Sunday is different with only 4tph on each branch before 10.00 and after 19.00. During these times of reduced frequency Elizabeth line trains to from Reading will terminate at and start from Paddington Main Line station (platform 12 or platform 14).
The Shenfield branch off-peak Mondays to Saturdays will have a simple regular interval timetable with identical timings as now.
On the Shenfield branch the Sunday service is reduced in the early morning and evenings in a similar way to the Abbey Wood branch. These frequencies on each branch have to tie with each other to give a consistent interval in the central section. Note that this means that on Sundays before 10.00 and after 19.00 there will be only 8tph (a train every 7½ minutes) in the central section between Paddington and Whitechapel.
Ongoing issues with no Auto-Reverse
Although the Modern Railways publication mentioned earlier suggested that the issue with the Auto-Reverse feature was down to more important signalling issues to resolve, anything that involves signalling that isn’t demonstrable as working is a concern. The extended saga of Crossrail signalling problems in the Heathrow Tunnels (now resolved by removing the old troublesome signalling) shows that one must never take unproven new signalling technology for granted.
Will this hinder plans for May 2023? Superficially, no because there is expected to be 4tph extra in the peaks west of Paddington, meaning the number of trains needing to terminate at Paddington will be the same (12tph) even though there will then be a 24tph service in the centre section. Off-peak there will be 20tph service, but with 10tph going west from Paddington there will be an easily manageable 10tph terminating at Paddington.
What may be a problem is recovering from service disruption if one can only terminate 14tph at Paddington. This alone should be of sufficient importance to ensure development of Auto-Reverse continues. In the very long term, the problem should disappear as normal reversing of trains at Paddington will be eliminated and the process transferred to the new interchange at Old Oak Common which is currently being built. If any plans develop in future to run more than 24tph on the Elizabeth line, Auto-Reverse will be essential.
Looking forward to May 2023
Whilst the Elizabeth line service from November 6th will be a considerable improvement, there are still further tweaks that need to be made. Service of 24tph needs to be properly implemented. Ideally, peak services into and out of Liverpool Street Main Line should be eliminated. Late night terminating into Paddington and Liverpool Street station needs to be at least reduced but preferably eliminated. Delays outside Paddington for trains to Heathrow and Reading need to be eliminated. This will probably involve some off-peak trains from the west terminating at Shenfield rather than Abbey Wood – which was the original plan.
The November 2022 timetable will bring considerable improvements but what could be regarded as the final phase of Crossrail implementation will not happen until May 2023. Even after that we expect to see some minor improvements. These will, perhaps, be discussed at another time. There is still scope for making things better still. In November 2022, Crossrail will seem almost complete and in May 2023 it will have the feeling of being fully implemented.
Thanks.
From a Stratford point-of-view it’s going to be a little bit odd that once-a-white trains will skip Whitechapel for no apparent reason! Platform 5 isn’t exactly “roomy”.
Where do trains reverse to or from at Paddington? I’ve looked at Carto metro, and guess it’s Paddington New Yard, but then why is it called reversing?
https://cartometro.com/cartes/metro-tram-london/
@James in one of the three turnbacks labelled “Turnback A”, “Turnback B” and “Turnback C”, between the running lines Paddington New Yard on Carto Metro.
Thank you, so is this correct? All passengers off at westbound Paddington, driver proceeds to the turnback, at which point the train will drive itself back to Paddington eastbound platform while the driver walks through the train to the new front?
Or was automation meant to control it all the way from west to east bound platforms?
[Auto-Reverse, when working, will eventually control it all the way from the west to the east bound platform at Paddington. I was speculating a bit as to when the driver starts walking. But what if it doesn’t reverse when it should? The driver needs to be in the active cab to sort it out. PoP]
The evening peak has two trains from Liverpool Street High Level to Gidea Park, not one. Departures are at 17.35 and 18.04.
There’s also a path for a standby train to sit in platform 16 at Liverpool Street from 16.02 to 19.16. This train currently operates but sits on the single track between Bow Junction and Gas Factory Junction each evening peak, occasionally making an early appearance to pick up passengers from Stratford if there’s an extended gap in the service leaving Liverpool Street.
[Thanks for pointing that out. My error which I have corrected. I stopped looking after 1800 thinking that if it was going to happen it would have happened by then. PoP]
Is there any indication that services will run through to past midnight rather than finishing at 11?
The driver doing the auto revese at Paddington on the BBC iPlayer as a 2 minute clip from The 15 Billion Pound Railway – “Emma comes close up to a driverless train”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0cd5q2g
“During a trial run, Emma tries out the new auto-reverse feature on the Elizabeth Line trains.
Any idea how/when extra trains will stop at West Ealing/Hanwell (currently only 4/hr but promised more)? Will there be some of the Maidenhead/Reading ones stopping there after May 2023? Or more than 4 Heathrow trains/hr?
[This should be covered in a follow-up article when we have a better idea of how definite plans are. PoP]
Very readable article on a complex subject, thank you! One thing that looked like a possible glitch, in the Off Peak Services section – first sentence of the para below the diagram for the Mon-Sat Shenfield service. Currently reads as if comparing the Sunday service on the Shenfield branch… with the *Shenfield* branch?
[Corrected. Thanks. PoP]
Two – maybe irrelevant – points:
The original, (whatever that means ) plans for Crossrail put forward a second “main line” branch in the West, to avoid auto-reverse – of which there was more than one option:
a} Up the GW Birmingham line to High Wycombe – impossible until HS2 is built
b] Take over the Euston semis as far out as … somewhere – abandoned.
c} The “other” Chiltern suburban service, to Aylesbury
Dithering & an aversion to spending money on railways has killed all of these, leaving us with this unnecessary complication.
As for published timetables .. has anyone else noticed that “Table 3” Gospel Oak Barking or Barking Riverside is completely missing from the NR lists?
It is visible on Tfl@s website (!)
[All mentioned alternative destinations are now completely irrelevant as the long term plan is to continue to Old Oak Common station. Indeed, there is some speculation that it will happen in the next year or so (prior to the mega-station being built) just to avoid the problem of auto-reverse – if it continues to be a problem. Long term, Old Oak Common is a far better option with interchange with HS2. As it turns out, dithering will have produced the best solution. PoP]
Nice article. Never understood the disparity between East and West Crossrail, both have two branches, and both a major destination (Heathrow and Canary Wharf). No trains should terminate at Paddington, that’s the whole point of Crossrail and it’s older cousins in Berlin and Paris.
@James, Peewee: the reversing sidings are described in Network Rail’s Sectional Appendix as Westbourne Park Turnback A, B, and C. If you look on Google Maps, they’re just south of the Bus Garage, just east of Westbourne Park station. Carto Metro necessarily distorts things a little bit, though of course not as much as the Tube Map does!
If you do look on Google Maps you can immediately see the problem with Stepping Back. There simply isn’t anywhere safe for drivers to walk alongside the track to get from the western to the eastern end of the train, particularly with trains coming and going from the other two sidings. They’d have to step down onto the ballast. At stations like Walthamstow Central on the Victoria, or Bank on the W&C, the driver can walk along the platform, which is relatively safe albeit having to avoid passengers wanting to board.
I suppose it would be possible for the new driver to enter the east-facing cab at Paddington, the original driver to drive to the sidings from the west cab, then the new driver to drive to Paddington, and the original driver to walk down inside the train while the new driver takes the train out.
Trying to follow a train through the turnbacks, looking at RealTimeTrains for Mon 7 November:
9Y23 arrives Paddington platform B at 1520
3Y23 departs Paddington for Westbourne Park Cs at 1521
It arrives Westbourne Park Cs ‘platform 5’ at 1523
The next departure from that ‘platform’ is 3W24 at 1533
That service arrives Paddington platform A at 1535
Departs as 9W24 at 1536
Following the original driver of 9Y23, the next service going to the turnbacks is 3Y29 also at 1536. That’s a bit tight. Planning for 3Y31 at 1544 would be more sensible.
This time we’re in ‘platform 3’. Our driver departs as 3W32 at 1557, arrives Paddington at 1559 then departs at 1600 as 9W32.
It’s now been 40 minutes since this driver originally arrived at Paddington. A long time to have drivers essentially out of circulation, particularly considering that the trip to Shenfield is only 53 minutes, and the round-trip back to Paddington is 1h56. TfL may not have recruited enough drivers to do this, if they were expecting the driver to only not be driving for 10-15 minutes while auto-reversing.
Regarding the delays to enter the tunnel, or to exit onto the mainline, that’s probably a good thing at the moment. I can easily see the driver having to reboot the train to get it to switch properly from ETCS to proprietary CBTC or vice versa, if it fails to do so automatically.
PoP
Good point, & maybe, perhaps …
Once HS2 construction in London is finished, would it lighten the load on Marylebone if CR was extended to Wycombe?
Worth the effort or not?
I would have thought a decent extension to Gravesend or Ebbsfleet would pay off better, but …
Greg T,
Would High Wycombe really warrant 9-car Crossrail trains from Old Oak Common and the cost of overhead electrification? I am not suggesting that there shouldn’t be a service between Old Oak Common and High Wycombe – just that Crossrail seems incredible overkill. I am told that once Crossrail serves Old Oak Common issues about terminating trains in the west of London go away.
I hope to go into Gravesend or Ebbsfleet in a follow up article but the suggested costs just for running on existing 3rd rail track are eye-watering and measured in billions of pounds (yes, really).
Original plan c1991 was a branch to Aylesbury. 🤔
Re the freight loop between Iver and West Drayton. You’ve described that as “down towards Paddington”. I thought the railways always used “up” towards London? Typo or is the Great Western different?
[Complete senior moment by me. But strictly speaking originally up and down were determined by ‘up’ being towards the company headquarters. So that is may Steventon or Bristol in the case of the original GWR. Platform numbering is normally determined on the same basis and it was the platform numbering that confused me. Now corrected. PoP]
I guess if you look at the GWR timetables, it seems like the main possibilities for extra western end trains would be to take over some of these services with Crossrail trains:
– Greenford branch off West Ealing.
– Windsor & Eton Central from Slough
– Marlow from Maidenhead
– Henley-on-Thames from Twyford
Of course, all these would require at least a junction to be redesigned as well as a way of finding the slots for these branch line trains to fit into the GWR timetable, which looks like about 3 trains per hour per branch line.
I would say that Windsor & Eton Central probably looks like the most do-able. Or Crossrail though Winsor and get to Staines: only 7 miles to hang wires over.
I’d not been paying attention to the Heathrow T4 frequency and I see it’s already the case, but a train only every 30 minutes seems pretty poor, ironically less frequent than the (albeit out of service) frequency at times while T4 itself was closed. It must make inter-terminal transfers for passengers and staff a bit frustrating.
Brian Butterworth,
A classic case of looking at maps or timetables and coming to absurd conclusions that would be clear with a bit of familiarity of the area.
The Greenford branch is unelectrified (like all the others mentioned) and has hardly any passengers at all. It contains some of the least used stations in London.
Windsor & Eton Central is literally on the wrong side of the tracks. A flat crossing would cripple the capacity of the fast lines on the Great Western Main Line and a flyover or dive under unbelievably challenging and expensive.
Marlow from Maidenhead involves a reverse at Bourne End on a platform 3 cars long with the junction immediately to the south of it. Probably in excess of £100 million is required in infrastructure modifications for Crossrail to serve a station at the terminus for which one carriage is normally more than adequate.
Henley-on-Thames is probably the least worst option but still non-sensical. Also, politically unpalatable given that it is well outside the Greater London Area.
Actually, the above are really just minor issues. The real showstopper, which I had hoped people would gather from the article, is that there just aren’t the train paths available on the relief lines out of Paddington. Until you get those, there is no point in speculating where to go – because you can’t go anywhere. And, if you could, places like Iver and Taplow hardly need more trains. There isn’t much point in running trains 25 miles out of London just to solve a reversing issue at Paddington.
@Pedantic of Purley
Of course. Anything of this kind would have been scoped into the project at the start. A £100m flyover for Windsor would have been easier to scope in to £16bn, but impossible now..
How will paths be found to get the Crossrail trains to Old Oak Common (“a £26 billion, 30-year project is under way to transform 1,600 acres into new homes and businesses with a major transport superhub at its centre”) the 5.4km from Paddington rather than reverse them at the Paddington turnaround? Will they have to “buy up” the Heathrow Express?
Brian Butterworth,
Not sure of the details but there will be associated track modifications. Remember that Old Oak Common is east of Acton Freight Yard so they shouldn’t be affected by freight traffic. As such there should effectively be exclusive use of the relief lines with the exception (possibly) of the few GWR Didcot – Paddington semi-fasts.
Andrews S – slightly off-topic but the poor frequency at Terminal 4 is exacerbated by the inexplicable failure to put departure boards at ground level so that passengers trying to get to Terminals 2,3 know whether it’s quicker to go by tube or crossrail.
“If” there are surplus trains
eastwest of Paddington, Greenford is the obvious solution. Right side of the tracks, connects with Central Line- just needs electricity. See earlier comment as Aylesbury being the original second branch…For context, Here are the approximate weekly usage figures for West Ealing – Greenford in 2018-2019
Greenford (NR only) – 2950
South Greenford – 540
Castle Bar Park – 1540
Drayton Green – 562
In that year Drayton Green was the least used station in London..
For comparison, even nearby Hanwell, which is a notably quiet station in the London area, on the Elizabeth line manages 7,480. For Ealing Broadway (NR) it is 126,000. I know some will say that, with a better service, numbers will increase but even a 10-fold increase would not justify a Crossrail service.
Have you taken into account the ridiculously poor current service to Greenford? Every 30 mins with a change at West Ealing? Regardless, a branch to Greenford would enhance the service to Acton, Ealing Broadway, and West Ealing (and in future Old Oak Common). Terminating at Paddington, just perpetuates the idea of trains running into central termini… Then, as pointed out by others, Heathrow is hardly well served by the Elizabeth Line 🙃
The Greenford branch produces the same problem as the Windsor line does in that Down trains must cross up trains on the flat – at a point where both relief lines will basically be full to bursting with Lizz line trains and quite a lot of freight.
That junction would require grade separation – but that in turn needs the rebuilding of west Ealing (again) with any gradients suitable for the mega long, mega heavy stone trains which use that bit of the GWML to get to Acton yard and cannot all be banished to the middle of the night just to suit the whims of Londoners (hint – if Londoners wanted a new tube line they should have paid for one that runs from end to end and left the national network alone. As it is TfL have to bend to the needs of the national rail network west of Paddington and east of Stratford, not the other way round. but I digress…)
Turning to the branch itself, the stations have tiny short platforms which would need significant lengthening (stopping a 9 car train at a 2 car platform with SDO won’t wash) plus you would have to build new platforms on the old main line at Greenford as the location of the current NR bay precludes lengthening it.
Finally with Greenford itself well served by the Central line its doubtful it would produce the huge uplift in users needed to justify the infrastructure costs.
One thing the article seems to overlook in its keenness to shove everything through the core is the need to handle disruption.
Although it only sees one scheduled train a day the stub of the Overground to Battersea Park is VERY useful for diverting trains should there be a fault (train / infrastructure) or engineering work preventing access to Clapham junction. This is only possible because drivers regularly take trains to Battersea Park and therefore maintain their route knowledge.
Given Paddington mainline and Liverpool Street mainline could in theory remain open even if an incident closes the underground Lizz line platforms at either, then the most logical thing to do is divert some Lizz line services services to them at the beginning or end of the day thus allowing a service to continue to be provided east and west even if the core is shut.
Doesn’t the “turn-back” at Paddington impose a capacity/time penalty? Or is it grade separated?
Could the turnback be both, when there is a long wait have the driver walkthrough when busiest use the second cab driver. Surely they are swapping anyway for restbreaks.
It may not be widely understood that Old Oak will have 8 platforms, 2 for the xrail westbound and two for the eastern terminators.
There are two depot lines that will be used for the easterns avoiding the reliefs. (may need realignment at Ladbrook Grove where they currently overlap)
High Wycombe service will be a Chiltern extension when warranted for HS2/Heathrow connections and Marylebone congestion.
Similarly Ebbsfleet may warrant another service depending on the Resort traffic and HS1 but cheaper to have a shuttle to an Abbey Wood terminating platform alongside the Xrail extension siding.
@PoP Steventon was only used for a year, Paddington was GWR HQ from 1843 and that was surely planned from the outset just delayed from 1840 for construction.
& @Mike Jones the turnbacks are ‘separated’ by being central between the running lines.
Great article, one small point to note is that the locations of Heathrow T5 and T4 on the map have been swapped.
[I have swapped them around and corrected some typos I hadn’t previously noticed. PoP]
Looking at the carto map linked above; Will EL services to OOC use the depot lines?
Getting to OOC soon to reverse will be fairly straight forward, with no interference by freight and GWR will be gone from the relief lines in May
2223 (99% certain).Extending from OOC to any existing LTV branch makes limited sense. Pushing the future Maidenhead terminators through to Henley is the only one that would not cost huge sums on junction/station rebuilding, but even that may not be easily possible at Twyford, would require platform work/ole on the branch, and is huge capacity overkill as well as being something TfL would not fund. Rebuilding a terminating platform at Slough is only other vaguely feasible/affordable option and has some logic but unlikely to happen. There may be value in a future extension from OOC to a new destination (Brent Cross? Richmond? Who knows!) but that is a crayonista 25+ year away possibility.
XR need to continue running at least a handful of trains – passenger service or empty – to both Liv/Padd mainline stations to maintain route knowledge to allow engineering/emergency alternatives if there are issues in the tunnel (in same way c2c run a handful to Liv to keep knowledge for Fenchurch St closures). It makes no sense for them to let that route knowledge and flexibility drop for sake of a handful of very late/early trains
I thought the C2C trains to Stratford and Liv St were largely to provide a direct service to Westfield Stratford at the weekend and take the strain off the Jubilee?
Given the seemingly excessive cost to enable the trains to be extended over the DC tracks to Gravesend, I wonder if it might be most cost effective to purchase new dual-voltage trains for SouthEastern (The networkers are getting somewhat old now anyway). Then, when the last DC-only train is withdrawn (from the area), throw up some wires and switch to using AC on that section of the line.
I’m sure it’s far more complicated than I make it sound though…
While running Crossrail trains over any of the Thames Valley branches wouldn’t really make any sense, I don’t think think the same is true for High Wycombe. Itself, Denham, Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield could probably warrant it. The problem there lies in the capacity of the Chiltern Main Line. The predominant services along the two track railway are fast trains to Oxford, Banbury and Birmingham. Those Crossrail trains just wouldn’t fit, without a relatively expensive 4 tracking job between South Ruislip and High Wycombe. It’s the same reason the stations between Ruislip and Wembley Stadium see such a pitiful service, there’s no more space on the railway.
Thanks for this explanation of the intricacies of Crossrail timetabling. It was always realised that operation of an intense tunnel service would be dependent upon on-time arrivals from the west. Some timetable padding is therefore inevitable west of Paddington, perhaps eased by extended stand times at OOC when opened.
Comments suggesting service diversion to Liverpool Street main line station, in the event of tunnel disruption, ignore the fact that these paths will inevitably be allocated to boost other services in time. Emergency reversal at the Pudding Mill tunnel mouth will permit service operation east of that point.
Once EL trains are no longer terminating at Paddington from the west, that will leave some additional capacity at Paddington platforms 10-14. Are there any plans (or indeed capacity on the line) for GWR to run additional terminating services to take advantage of this?
Presumably the drivers have been rotated to keep up route knowledge on the Paddington to Reading section
@Glbotu ” capacity of the Chiltern Main Line. The predominant services along the two track railway are fast trains to Oxford, Banbury and Birmingham. no more space on the railway.”
‘The Great Central had a reputation for fast services to and from London. In May 1903, the company promoted its services as Rapid Travel in Luxury, and Sheffield without a stop, adopted on 1 July 1903, became a trademark for the company,’
The built line had side platforms for stopping services whilst the through trains passed by on the straight central lines. When the route was run down by British Rail the extra lines and switches were rationalised, with smoothed out alignments. For more capacity the design could be reinstated without 4 tracking.
The capacity plan by Chiltern sees Inter-City services focused on Marylebone with commuter excess directed to Old Oak. Conceivably Old Oak Common could eventually become ‘full’ with interchange, local demand, and the terminators. I could see an argument for a better cross-platform interchange located at High Wycombe rather than an unsatisfactory end-on connection. An unlikely consideration before Euston-Manchester HS2 services established.
quoting – The capacity plan by Chiltern sees Inter-City services focused on Marylebone with commuter excess directed to Old Oak. Conceivably Old Oak Common could eventually become ‘full’ with interchange, local demand, and the terminators. I could see an argument for a better cross-platform interchange located at High Wycombe rather than an unsatisfactory end-on connection. An unlikely consideration before Euston-Manchester HS2 services established.
Where is the plan for Chiltern after OOC/HS2 is built? I’ve seen mention in one HS2 doc about having some trains from OOC to Chiltern from some bays – from memory, 1tph to each of High Wycombe, Oxford, Aylesbury (MKC?)and Banbury.
This would definitely enable more from Marylebone, especially via Rickmansworth (this would have suited Croxley and moving all Met to Watford Junction, sigh!) – but yes to Birmingham.
On the other hand, these could just be extras. I would expect new journeys to be possible (to the West, to Heathrow and Crossrail journeys which wouldn’t ever be considered before, e.g. to Stratford) – and so demand to Marylebone to remain.
Irony being that by this point, HS2 would be running to Birmingham. So the ‘inter city’ routes would really be focused on Banbury, Leamington and Warwick passengers (in both directions). More Oxford possibly, and Stratford might be a good hourly investment.
Crossrail growth westwards I see as incremental. If it can be proven/pathed after some time, perhaps an extra 2tph to Heathrow or to the Hayes bay. But very gradual. And not in entirety – OOC will need empty trains for HS2 and GWML (and Chiltern) folks flooding in.
Elizabeth line to Wycombe relieves Marylebone of passengers, but it doesn’t address the actual issues (rather than the artificial one of short trains creating Chiltern’s crowding issues) on the route, namely poor stopping service within London and the need for more mid-distance services to the fast-growing towns beyond the Green Belt/AONB (which restricts growth potential at the stations the new Liz branch would primarily serve).
Chiltern to OOC would enable both – it allows better usage of the spare capacity through Wycombe, by using it for mid-distance services, and it allows the diversion of semi-fast services away from Marylebone, giving room for more stopping services serving Wembley, Sudbury and Northolt Park.
The priority for more Elizabeth line trains extending beyond OOC, should that be seen as a good idea, has to be the GWML – which modelling shows high amounts of future crowding on. Its much simpler than adding a whole new branch, and with the mooted exclusive (passenger) usage of the Reliefs east of Slough, possible.
With the problem of merging services from the west into the intense central tunnel service noted above, the October TfL Board meeting has a report on the E.Line which states: The main challenge in terms of reliability in recent months has been the performance of services on the surface section between Paddington and Reading. We continue to work with Network Rail and with our Concessionaire, MTR Elizabeth line, to address the issues and offer the very best possible service to customers.
Thank you for this informative article. I’m struggling to square your remarks on Sunday services after 1900 with the 6 November timetable I’m looking at on the TfL website. It doesn’t look like (and I hope I’m right) the frequency reduces to 4 an hour until after 10pm.
John,
Either I got it wrong or changes have been made since the timetable was put online. I am convinced that some things have changed but I can’t prove it. I do remember being surprised that the enhanced Sunday service wound down after 1900 so I don’t think this was me getting it wrong, but I can’t be sure.
I notice that there are now 4tph off-peak towards Reading but two of them terminate at Maidenhead. I don’t know if I missed this because the Maidenhead ones were added later or whether it was because I wasn’t expecting this and was only looking at departures from Reading. There are also trains not stopping at Iver and other trains not stopping at Taplow which I almost certainly would have missed even if these were there.
It is certainly much easier to see what is going on now that the full timetable has been put online.
I’ll see if I can find time in the next few days to update the article to reflect the latest PDF timetable.
Thanks for another very detailed article. Now the full timetable is out it seems the waiting time outside Paddington is even greater than the numbers mentioned with some trains taking 17 minutes from departing Acton to departing Paddington, something we would expect in less than 6 minutes. This is adding 11 minutes to the journey time for everyone travelling from west of Paddington. Is it something you expect to improve considerably by next May? Else the advertised journey times under the Elizabeth line will be quite substantially different to those anticipated.
James,
The waiting time seems completely variable. 11 minutes seems to be very worse case. They talk about a ‘few minutes’ wait but I suspect that the trains may also travel at less than optimum speed to lose even more time when necessary.
I hope the delay will be reduced, as stated in the article, in the December timetable change but that is merely my hope and not based on anything I heard.
The good news is that there are very strong rumours that the GWR will no longer use the relief lines come the May timetable so the relief lines will only be used by TfL and freight trains. This gives me hope that there should not be any need for trains to wait before entering the central section from the west – although I suspect they may still add a little padding in the timings to be almost certain they do arrive when scheduled. As you say, otherwise the timing will not be as promised and there will be an awful lot of flak flying around.
I’ve probably missed something, but from this outsider’s point of view, access to the central core from NR seems to be similar at both ends – both 4-track, including freight. So why is there waiting time before Paddington LL but not before Liverpool St LL?
Even a few minutes is a long time to be scheduled to wait in the middle of nowhere in a high-frequency high-capacity train, particularly when an expectation of reduced journey times has been created. I hope TfL has a good comms strategy in place for when the proverbial hits the fan…
@Betterbee
This will be because the entry point at the eastern end Elizabeth Line is at the Pudding Mill Lane portal, just a few hundred metres outside Stratford. The junction where the Liz Line sections meet is just west of Whitechapel. Stratford has its own set of freight relief lines (because they share with the London Overground services, which are times to provide the necessary freight slots already).
Basically, freight trains go nowhere near Liverpool Street and there is full separation between the “Electric” lines on this section from Stratford eastwards that the Liz Line uses here and the long-distances Greater Anglia train have their own pair of tracks.
@Betterbee,
To put Brian’s reply another way, the freight trains on on the eastern side run faster (approx 70 mph) and are more suited to run on the fast lines espeically as they continue/come from the North London Line with its junction on the fast lines. So TfL effectively get exclusive access to the line to Shenfield and are unaffected by external events caused by other rail operators. Consequently they can treat the Shenfield branch as part of the core Crossrail network and not something they have to share – unlike west of Paddington.
But I don’t think this is the total answer. It does seem as if the current Shenfield Liverpool St service times were written with the intention of incorporating them into the November timetable whereas west of Paddington this probably wasn’t possible.
Thanks, Brian, but freight trains in the east get just about as close to the two-track tunnel portal (the crucial point) as freight trains in the west, so I can’t see the relevance of that factor (nor of the distance from Liverpool St).
I suspect that the point in PoP’s last paragraph is very relevant: it appears that the timetabling treats the the core section as an extension of the GE line, with the GW line awaiting full integration, perhaps because it has wider ramifications. But it is a bit surprising that this hasn’t been fixed – particularly with the benefit of an extra four years’ planning time!
Whatever, those delays aren’t a good look, and I wonder if they were anticipated when the Crossrail business case was done and the benefit/cost ratio calculated. A key benefit calculated was the value of the time saved by using the new line, and these delays will be knocking something of a hole in that. Will a post-implementation audit be done?
@Betterbee: You can watch it yourself now, google “Hidden London Hangouts S6E3 – Elizabeth line: West to East Driver’s Eye Exclusive”
Just found this at https://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/crossrail-project-update:
However, there are a few occasions where the new schedule, which connects the western section to the tunnel at an earlier stage than originally planned, will have a small, temporary impact on travel time as some services will pause outside Paddington for a few minutes to fit with train paths in the Central Section. This will cease when the final timetable is introduced in May 2023.
Reality: the mere suggestion that the cost of building grade separated junctions, doubling track on branches, extending platforms, rebuilding stations, resignalling, electrification, buying new stock, and the inherent performance issues of adding more junctions to a high intensity service, can be justified to get six 9-car through services an hour on a branch line where demand is currently met by a 3 car train every 30 minutes, is quite patently absurd.
Crayonista: but it looks good on a map so it must be right! And I’ll argue with experts until they see sense!
Still problems with Western Section performance: “This quarter the Elizabeth line delivered a better-than-target public performance measure of 94.3 per cent. At route level, the Western Section recorded 90.5 per cent, the Central Operating Section 95.9 per cent and the Eastern Section 95.5 per cent. [TfL Customer service and operational performance report Quarter 2 2022/23 (26 June – 17 September 2022)]
Taz, as a western-to-central section regular traveller, I’ can see why.. Since the lines opened up a month above, i’ve experienced a lot of disruption due to various issues (broken overhead lines, broken rail, people on track, strikes, the now frustrating Ealing to Paddington “pause”, and random trains going out of service at Paddington, where we get turfed out onto the platform to wait for the next one, or run up the escalators to try and catch a GWR train instead.
I hope these are just teething troubles but its really frustrating as the new service is a game changer for me to travel from Maidenhead to Canary Wharf and to the City, and when it works its brilliant. There are many good points, and an unexpected one is there are some trains that don’t stop at all stations, meaning there is a really viable commuter train, with no changes from my neck of the woods.
Thank you for this great article. I am interested to learn what service improvements us poor folk at Hanwell will see in future – it seems that we are stuck with 4tph for eternity even in the new timetable, and the trains are always completely stuffed so it’s hard to board. I’m sure you will cover it in future, your articles are always excellent and understandable.
M
Not so long ago ( less than ten years ) Hanwell had a train every half hour & it was a three-coach diesel unit, rammed to the doors.
Because the “suburban” services between Paddington & Reading were so dire, it was deemed, in the pre-crossrail “planning” that there was little demand, so services were & are curtailed, by turning back at Paddington.
I’m reminded of the “no demand” for the North London Line & it’s closure proposals in the 1970’s & it current loadings (!)
{ “See Also” older L-R articles on Marylebone’s narrow escape from closure & the current loadings out of that station. }
Early versions of the May 2023 Crossrail timetable are now shown on publicly available sources such as RTT:
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:PAD/to/gb-nr:EAL/2023-05-22/1200?stp=WVS&show=pax-calls&order=wtt&toc=XR
Unfortunately for “M” in Hanwell, there is no change with 4tph in each direction Abbey Wood – Heathrow.
Things appear a little better for passengers in West Ealing, with 6tph from May 2023. The additional service from now is 2tph Shenfield – Heathrow (stopping west of Paddington at: Ealing Broadway, West Ealing, Hayes & Harlington & Heathrow). Interesting to see this service skips Southall (possibly this was a compromise to prevent this service holding up freight as it may have done if it had stopped at both Southall and West Ealing?).
I look forward (hopefully?!) to a LR article on the future Crossrail timetable.
Inspired by an old LR article produced while XR was still under construction, I’ve created a service pattern diagram of the May 2023 Crossrail services based on what’s shown on RTT. It’s a work in progress – feel free to correct me on any mistakes:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/crossrail-service-pattern-from-may-2023.242908/
@John – It seems that railforums require a login to view images.
Maybe consider hosting elsewhere?
@DJL Sure – I’ve put a copy of them here:
https://imgur.com/a/K5vN6NA
@John
So that’s the end of the Gidea Park to Liverpool Street mainline extra trains peak trains (currently 0455, 0503, 0743, 0813)?
Brian,
According to Open Train Times there will be five morning peak services to Liverpool St at roughly half hour intervals and five corresponding evening peak services from Liverpool St plus the odd early morning and late evening service.
I am really surprised. I thought the peak ones would be hardly worth the inconvenience of running them – or at least most of them.
What’s the solution on the western side long term? Seems like the core tunnel is far to valuable an asset to not fully exploit, but the freight movement on the relief line are a blocker? I see some references in previous comments on this topic to 6-tracking out to airport junction having been a early part of CR plans but cut due to cost. Can it be done at a reasonable cost? Seems like it would be of great value in terms of opening areas to housing densification, and maybe more valuable than the Ebbsfleet/Dartford extension in Kent?
Short answer is extend all Paddington terminators to Old Oak Common so as to connect to HS2. Other options depend on the future of Heathrow Express. Apart from other factors, Old Oak Common may well make Heathrow Express less attractive.
@Pop
So, basically there a choice between the Heathrow Express and an all-stops service to make all passing Liz Line services stop a Hanwell, West Ealing and Acton Mainline, because I presume the service is first based around the Heathrow Express running non-stop, then the Liz Line and as third priority the Freight services. which slot into the remaining gaps?
I note with interest that out east, Maryland, which used to get treated to fewer services in peak seems to now have an all-trains service. I wrote the original MTR Crossrail staff application for their iPads and it took quite a bit of work to show the service pattern on that branch, and now it’s just “all trains serve everywhere”
@ Brian
Heathrow Express runs on the main lines, not the reliefs which is used by EL and freight. Freight is the major issue restricting paths west of OOC
@BB – I’m glad that Maryland is getting an all trains device … but you did give me a flashback to the “scenes” at Maryland on the first morning of the GE Metro skip stop service! (1998?)
The Western Access to Heathrow scheme has been waiting for funding since December 2020 https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/western/western-rail-link-to-heathrow/, but promises four trains an hour Paddington to Reading via Heathrow. https://consultations.networkrail.co.uk/communications/improving-rail-links-to-heathrow/. If/when this goes ahead I would assume these would be take over the current Heathrow Express paths, but how is this meant to fit into services west of Langley? Note trains travelling west re-join the relief lines.
“Word on the street” is that HeX services loadings are falling off, now that CrossLiz is properly operational.
A removal, or abandonment of HeX would free up much needed Main Line paths for more distant destinations.
@Chris – How WRLtH would be operated or integrated with CrossLiz / GWR has always been a bit of a mystery – to me at any rate. Any sort of Public Transport logic would suggest an integrated service and fare structure, but HAL’s limpet-like monopoly grip on anything within their perimeter as a potential direct revenue opportunity doesn’t fill me with much optimism.
On a loosely related topic, I wonder what impact the introduction of LHR pax drop-off charging has had on local public transport usage? Even after HAL withdrew the Heathrow Free Travel Zone funding (environmental commitments?? tosh..) the local buses remain a pretty good option – coming from the west then Reading -> West Drayton -> 350 Bus -> T5 was a whole lot cheaper and usually quicker than any other method, so wonder if loads have improved from their previous, rather dismal levels?
Elizabeth Line trains revised timings w.e.f. 21..05.2023 :
https://www.ukpocketguide.com/2023/03/elizabeth-line.html?m=1
@AJ that is a curious arrangement, the first Abbey Wood weekdays is T5 and the first Gidea Park is T4. Any likely explanation?