• Crossrail finally opens after decades of struggle; photo essay (Guardian)
• Crossrails/Elizabeth Line opening: video tour (RMTransit)
• Signaling upgrade online on Great Northern (City) line into Moorgate (IanVisits)
• Andy Byford: Next TfL deal needs to be long term (ModernRailways)
• It was inevitable: Roundle, the Tube version of Subwaydle (Roundle)
• Crashing trains for fun, Rome Metro archeology, origin of diners (99%Invisible)
• Fleets of Modernism: The Streamliner Era & beyond (NorthwesternU)
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Two Crossrail criticisms among general praise:
Diamond Geezer’s piece today on the tapping in and out fiasco for interchange passengers at Abbey Wood, Custom House and Farringdon is shocking, given how much time there has been to prepare the finer points.
A big disappointment for those who get the coveted transverse window seats: They stop exactly in line with the back of the ad panels within the platform edge screens completely blocking the window at every tunnel station. At least in the carriage I was in.
Other than that, most impressive. Having toured the line finishing at Paddington today we intended to go to Charing Cross on the Bakerloo. The tube entrance below the lawn was jam-packed and at shuffling pace so we went back to the purple and reached Tot Ct Road (where the Northern connection is very easy) before we would have boarded a Bakerloo train back at Paddington. I wondered how many of the people in the crush were even aware of the new alternative, or had failed to re-compute possible connections even if they were.
NickBxn
Today Diamond Geezer has continued his useful series. This time regarding timings of interchanges & what might be called “unhelpful” signage & misdirection.
I’ve done the Liverpool Street once twice myself and it was 6 minutes 20 seconds both times. Also different schedule basis means that you arrival to go to Shenfield is “noisy”.
“I wondered how many of the people in the crush were even aware of the new alternative, or had failed to re-compute possible connections even if they were.”
I was on a Thameslink southbound train from Cambridge recently and heard a couple nearby talk about getting from SP to Paddington for a train to Wales, assuring themselves it was the Circle line they needed.
Granted there is very little difference if they go one stop to Farringdon and get the EL instead due to going back on yourself (a couple of minutes faster if TfL is accurate), but the change from SP Thameslink to the SSL platforms is longer and busier, with the latter route just a more comfortable alternative in general, esp. if carrying luggage. Both the SP main station and KXSP Tube station have been very busy to move around off-peak the past few times I’ve been this year