PRACTICE & PERFORMANCE
WORTHY OF HER NAME
John Heaton FCILT looks at performance on this year’s newly-opened Elizabeth Line, finding a slick operation with much to be admired.
World Record Officially the world’s longest-running railway series, established in 1901
Elizabeth Line unit No. 345056 heads east through the London suburbs at West Ealing on test a March 23 test run.
ALSTOM
WHERE the road used to run parallel to platform 1 on the east side of London Paddington station, there is now a cavern. A series of escalators provides high passenger volume access to a barrier line and another short descent leads to a choice of platforms.
Intending travellers are protected from mishap by modern platform sliding doors aligned with those of the trains. A sleek ninecar Class 345 is about to leave the right-hand platform, but do not try to join it. This is an empty stock working in automatic driverless mode to Westbourne Park sidings, where it will reverse before reappearing in similar fashion at our left-hand platform.
These automatic moves are rapid. Putting a stopwatch on the 205 metre (224yd) trains passing the front end starting point and comparing it with split times as each coach passes the point, I make the last coach entering the tunnel at 45mph. Meanwhile the ‘driver’ changes ends ready for its return.
Make no mistake, this is a slick operation and on my four visits so far there has been a uniformity and reliability that has to be admired.
In the summer of 2022, the new line operated in three portions: from Reading and Heathrow Terminal 5 to Paddington; the adjacent so-called ‘Central Section’ from Paddington to Abbey Wood; and a currently dismembered eastern arm from Liverpool Street to Shenfield. It has been suggested that the Central section trains have been 3½ years late arriving at Paddington but, more positively, the wait has been worth it.
A nine-car Class 345 leaves Paddington platform ‘A’ every five minutes between 05.30 and 23.00, six days a week. That’s 108 vehicles every 60 minutes, demonstrating rail’s ability to handle dense passenger flows efficiently.
When the three parts are joined (scheduled for Sunday, November 6), it is intended to provide up to 16/22 off-peak/peak trains an hour each way on the section between Paddington and Stepney Green Jct, where Abbey Wood and Liverpool Street services part company. Eastbound, an off-peak hour at Paddington platform ‘A’ will have eight trains to Shenfield and eight to Abbey Wood, the former starting from Paddington (usually empty stock from Westbourne Park) and the latter starting at Reading, Maidenhead, Heathrow Terminal 4 and Heathrow Terminal 5. By May 2023, there should be 24 trains per peak hour.