If you are a TFL Freedom Pass holder it is free travel between Abbey Wood/Reading,If you are a 60plus Oystercard holder you need to buy a ticket from West Drayton to Reading. You can only use contactless to pay as you go at Reading Rail Station (not Oyster). If you don't use contactless, you need to buy a paper ticket.
You can only use contactless to pay as you go at Reading Rail Station (not Oyster). If you don't use contactless, you need to buy a paper ticket.
Apologies for being thick here. My Mrs is going to Reading in a couple of weeks. So she has to buy a ticket for the outward journey but can use contactless on the way back?
You can only use contactless to pay as you go at Reading Rail Station (not Oyster). If you don't use contactless, you need to buy a paper ticket.
Apologies for being thick here. My Mrs is going to Reading in a couple of weeks. So she has to buy a ticket for the outward journey but can use contactless on the way back?
See my post above, Oystercards are not valid at Reading Station, it is contactless pay as you go or paper tickets only.
If you are a TFL Freedom Pass holder it is free travel between Abbey Wood/Reading,If you are a 60plus Oystercard holder you need to buy a ticket from West Drayton to Reading.
@RickAddick Thanks for your insights, fascinating (well for me, anyway)!
I'm just wondering whether when they were thinking about a possible link to Woking, did nobody ask about the feasibility of extending such a link on to Redhill and *Gatwick* ? There is an existing line from Guildford to Redhill, and it looks quite straight on the map;such a link might still not be cheap , if it would be suitable for high speed running, but I wonder how much more expensive than the third runway? If you could link up the two airports with a fast high-capacity rail link, you change the options for possible expansion.
I've always thought this would be the smart solution especially after I took an ICE from Brussels to Frankfurt, and found that it stopped at a station called Cologne/Bonn Airport, and the next stop, after a
The most recent publicised Heathrow Southern Railway study proposed services from Guildford, Woking, Basingstoke and Staines to Heathrow, continuing on to the proposed new station at Old Oak Common. The scheme I looked at briefly provided a triangle junction to the NE of Staines on the Waterloo to Reading line, with the airport branch heading north though open country and into a tunnel under the southern airport perimeter road to the Terminal 5 station. This was probably the shortest link considered in the various schemes, with less tunnelling, but favoured the Waterloo link. In the HSR scheme, extensions at both ends to Southampton and Paddington were considered as future possibilities, but would require either the availability of new train paths or extensions of existing services, ie. CrossRail to Staines. The latter would avoid expensive infrastructure upgrades to create new paths, if physically and economically viable. Additionally, new trains compatible with the three signalling systems present on the CrossRail system would be required to accommodate the greater distance operated. The problem with extending services from Guildford to Gatwick via Redhill is the extent of upgrade works required for this route and the resultant cost! There would need to be at least two trains per hour between Heathrow and Gatwick if the rail link is going to be used as a means of transfer between a significant number of flights and possibly more depending on the number of air passengers required to be carried. These services would have to be combined with the existing two trains per hour Reading to Gatwick service. So we are looking potentially at resignalling to accommodate the increased service, line speed improvements, platform extensions at certain stations for longer trains, upgrading key junctions (and possibly a new west to south avoiding line at Redhill, to eliminate the reverse), additional terminating platforms at Gatwick and possibly additional tracks over some sections of the route where the available capacity will be exceeded (ie. Redhill to Gatwick). Track, structures and existing electrification may need to be upgraded to accommodate the increased number and length of trains. Electrification of the non-electrified section between Reigate and Shalford Junction, south of Guildford, would also be required, as the use of diesel powered (tri-mode) trains would be prohibited in the tunnels under Heathrow, due to the fire risk. I believe a self contained railway was considered in the last ten years. This would have run from Heathrow around the SW section of the M25 and follow the M23 from the Redhill area, possibly to a new underground station at Gatwick. There is no space to extend the existing Gatwick station within the current railway boundary at ground level, I know this, having worked on two improvement schemes in the last 10 years. The new link would be designed for high speed trains (say 250 km/h plus) and run mainly in tunnel. This may have been proposed as an alternative to a third runway at Heathrow and may have been linked to the second runway scheme proposed by Gatwick Airport. I don’t think it was developed beyond a very high level feasibility study. A self contained, high speed railway between the airports would be preferable, despite the cost, simply because upgrading the existing railway would never be able to provide a comparable journey time. It would also eliminate the risk of disruption imposed by the existing railway.
A correction to my previous post: the western rail link to Reading extends from the western end of the T5 platforms 1 and 2 to a connection with the Great Western main line east of Langley and not from the existing Heathrow branch between Heathrow and the GW main line. It would effectively provide a loop between Hayes and Langley serving the Airport.
There are various articles, including diagrams, on the western and southern rail connections to Heathrow in Wikipedia, which I haven't been able to link from my tablet.
The direct HS2 branch to Heathrow I mentioned, was developed in the early design to provide a direct connection between Heathrow and Birmingham and Manchester airports, the latter two being served by the HS2 main line. I believe it was intended that a high speed rail link would enable the number of domestic flights between London and Manchester, freeing runway slots for longer distance flights and reducing the need for an additional runway. It was a victim of early cost cutting, possibly due to a significant increase in the amount of tunnelling (and cost) between Old Oak Common and the north chilterns. Some of the additional tunnelling was included for practical engineering reasons (Old Oak to West Ruislip - the existing railway corridor was not really wide enough and there were a lot of overbridges to reconstruct; easier to dump in a tunnel) and some due to public and political pressure (Chilterns - concerned Tory MPs!).
Will the Elizabeth line run on the strike days? I’m supposed to be going to a function in London on the 13th and just realised there’s a strike.
On RMT strike days it normally operates a normal service between Abbey Wood & Paddington between 05.30 & midnight. A reduced service between Paddington/Heathrow/Reading & Liverpool St /Shenfield & no trains after 18.00. On ASLEF strike days it operates a normal service on all branches.
Will the Elizabeth line run on the strike days? I’m supposed to be going to a function in London on the 13th and just realised there’s a strike.
On RMT strike days it normally operates a normal service between Abbey Wood & Paddington between 05.30 & midnight. A reduced service between Paddington/Heathrow/Reading & Liverpool St /Shenfield & no trains after 18.00. On ASLEF strike days it operates a normal service on all branches.
Thanks. Hopefully should be ok then. Gig is in Chelsea so can change at Paddington and jump in the circle line
Will the Elizabeth line run on the strike days? I’m supposed to be going to a function in London on the 13th and just realised there’s a strike.
On RMT strike days it normally operates a normal service between Abbey Wood & Paddington between 05.30 & midnight. A reduced service between Paddington/Heathrow/Reading & Liverpool St /Shenfield & no trains after 18.00. On ASLEF strike days it operates a normal service on all branches.
Thanks. Hopefully should be ok then. Gig is in Chelsea so can change at Paddington and jump in the circle line
Details of Elizabeth Line services on RMT strike days below
Elizabeth line
Reduced service. Services will operate in 3 sections:
Liverpool Street - Shenfield
Services will run 07:30-18:30
2 trains per hour
Abbey Wood - Paddington
12 trains per hour until 17:30
6 trains per hour from 17:30
6 trains per hour before 08:00 on Wed 14 and Sat 17 December 2022, and Wed 4 and Sat 7 January 2023
The Elizabeth line is the most popular of all TfL services, scoring an average of 83 out of 100 for customer satisfaction - and 87 for its central section between Abbey Wood and Paddington.
This will increase peak frequencies from 22 to 24 trains an hour under central London and will enable full “through running”, allowing direct journeys between Shenfield in the east and Heathrow and Reading in the west.
Transport for London said the milestone was reached on Wednesday morning, in the latest sign of how passengers have flocked to the £20bn line since last May.
The “Lizzie line” is now carrying about 600,000 passengers on weekdays and more than three million a week, well in excess of the two million that were expected. It is the single busiest rail line in the UK.
Transport for London said the milestone was reached on Wednesday morning, in the latest sign of how passengers have flocked to the £20bn line since last May.
The “Lizzie line” is now carrying about 600,000 passengers on weekdays and more than three million a week, well in excess of the two million that were expected. It is the single busiest rail line in the UK.
@clive Clive, I can't help it but I have a geeky question re this! At Abbey Wood for example, you tap in and then after go left to normal trains or right to Elizabeth Line. How do they know what service you use to get these figures ?
Transport for London said the milestone was reached on Wednesday morning, in the latest sign of how passengers have flocked to the £20bn line since last May.
The “Lizzie line” is now carrying about 600,000 passengers on weekdays and more than three million a week, well in excess of the two million that were expected. It is the single busiest rail line in the UK.
@clive Clive, I can't help it but I have a geeky question re this! At Abbey Wood for example, you tap in and then after go left to normal trains or right to Elizabeth Line. How do they know what service you use to get these figures ?
Amongst my complaints to Southeastern on their ‘All Change’ timetable they did reply and I think suggested their trains are weighed to help assess how full / utilised.
No idea if that applies to your question but whatever metric is used will be an estimate / proxy to some extent.
Transport for London said the milestone was reached on Wednesday morning, in the latest sign of how passengers have flocked to the £20bn line since last May.
The “Lizzie line” is now carrying about 600,000 passengers on weekdays and more than three million a week, well in excess of the two million that were expected. It is the single busiest rail line in the UK.
@clive Clive, I can't help it but I have a geeky question re this! At Abbey Wood for example, you tap in and then after go left to normal trains or right to Elizabeth Line. How do they know what service you use to get these figures ?
Transport for London said the milestone was reached on Wednesday morning, in the latest sign of how passengers have flocked to the £20bn line since last May.
The “Lizzie line” is now carrying about 600,000 passengers on weekdays and more than three million a week, well in excess of the two million that were expected. It is the single busiest rail line in the UK.
@clive Clive, I can't help it but I have a geeky question re this! At Abbey Wood for example, you tap in and then after go left to normal trains or right to Elizabeth Line. How do they know what service you use to get these figures ?
Where you tap out.
.. but you can tap out after changing to Underground/DLR from Elizabeth Line when you exit so again no actual proof of what you travelled on ?
They make assumptions about what route people take. So if there are two ways to get from a given station to London Bridge, they effectively count the total travellers and divide them between Southern and Southeastern according to what proportion they think will use each service. I know there are occasional checks where they get market research people to stop travellers and ask them about their route. I don't know what other methods they use to work out how to allocate the numbers; some trains and trams have technology to count people getting on and off, but I've no idea if that's used much in the UK.
Transport for London said the milestone was reached on Wednesday morning, in the latest sign of how passengers have flocked to the £20bn line since last May.
The “Lizzie line” is now carrying about 600,000 passengers on weekdays and more than three million a week, well in excess of the two million that were expected. It is the single busiest rail line in the UK.
@clive Clive, I can't help it but I have a geeky question re this! At Abbey Wood for example, you tap in and then after go left to normal trains or right to Elizabeth Line. How do they know what service you use to get these figures ?
Since Southeastern/Thameslink are both slower and more expensive than the Elizabeth Line, I'd imagine anyone getting off pretty much anywhere that isn't on the routes to Cannon Street, Charing Cross, etc, will be counted for the Liz Line.
Transport for London said the milestone was reached on Wednesday morning, in the latest sign of how passengers have flocked to the £20bn line since last May.
The “Lizzie line” is now carrying about 600,000 passengers on weekdays and more than three million a week, well in excess of the two million that were expected. It is the single busiest rail line in the UK.
@clive Clive, I can't help it but I have a geeky question re this! At Abbey Wood for example, you tap in and then after go left to normal trains or right to Elizabeth Line. How do they know what service you use to get these figures ?
Im pretty sure the CCTV is able to count passengers.
Transport for London said the milestone was reached on Wednesday morning, in the latest sign of how passengers have flocked to the £20bn line since last May.
The “Lizzie line” is now carrying about 600,000 passengers on weekdays and more than three million a week, well in excess of the two million that were expected. It is the single busiest rail line in the UK.
@clive Clive, I can't help it but I have a geeky question re this! At Abbey Wood for example, you tap in and then after go left to normal trains or right to Elizabeth Line. How do they know what service you use to get these figures ?
Im pretty sure the CCTV is able to count passengers.
Probably just an estimate as that sounds like a massive waste of time. The figures could just be for tapping in/out on the central tunnel.
The DLR has actual counters. You will see them on entry/exits to stations if you look. Think at interchanges (Greenwich for example), they are pointed at train doors.
The DLR has actual counters. You will see them on entry/exits to stations if you look. Think at interchanges (Greenwich for example), they are pointed at train doors.
Really ?? Or am I going to look like a plum when I try and find them lol?
Mainly on the horizontal crossbar type bars as you walk in/out. Used it as a method of payment from DRL when franchises ran sections. The franchises were payed on footfall. CGL for example, manage Mudchute to Lewisham
Whilst on a geeky run, check out the Global 78’ and 86” advertising moving image screens (TV screens) across TfL. In the centres at the top are iris recognition cameras.
Comments
If you are a TFL Freedom Pass holder it is free travel between Abbey Wood/Reading,If you are a 60plus Oystercard holder you need to buy a ticket from West Drayton to Reading.
You can only use contactless to pay as you go at Reading Rail Station (not Oyster). If you don't use contactless, you need to buy a paper ticket.
If you are a TFL Freedom Pass holder it is free travel between Abbey Wood/Reading,If you are a 60plus Oystercard holder you need to buy a ticket from West Drayton to Reading.
The scheme I looked at briefly provided a triangle junction to the NE of Staines on the Waterloo to Reading line, with the airport branch heading north though open country and into a tunnel under the southern airport perimeter road to the Terminal 5 station. This was probably the shortest link considered in the various schemes, with less tunnelling, but favoured the Waterloo link.
In the HSR scheme, extensions at both ends to Southampton and Paddington were considered as future possibilities, but would require either the availability of new train paths or extensions of existing services, ie. CrossRail to Staines. The latter would avoid expensive infrastructure upgrades to create new paths, if physically and economically viable. Additionally, new trains compatible with the three signalling systems present on the CrossRail system would be required to accommodate the greater distance operated.
The problem with extending services from Guildford to Gatwick via Redhill is the extent of upgrade works required for this route and the resultant cost!
There would need to be at least two trains per hour between Heathrow and Gatwick if the rail link is going to be used as a means of transfer between a significant number of flights and possibly more depending on the number of air passengers required to be carried. These services would have to be combined with the existing two trains per hour Reading to Gatwick service.
So we are looking potentially at resignalling to accommodate the increased service, line speed improvements, platform extensions at certain stations for longer trains, upgrading key junctions (and possibly a new west to south avoiding line at Redhill, to eliminate the reverse), additional terminating platforms at Gatwick and possibly additional tracks over some sections of the route where the available capacity will be exceeded (ie. Redhill to Gatwick). Track, structures and existing electrification may need to be upgraded to accommodate the increased number and length of trains.
Electrification of the non-electrified section between Reigate and Shalford Junction, south of Guildford, would also be required, as the use of diesel powered (tri-mode) trains would be prohibited in the tunnels under Heathrow, due to the fire risk.
I believe a self contained railway was considered in the last ten years. This would have run from Heathrow around the SW section of the M25 and follow the M23 from the Redhill area, possibly to a new underground station at Gatwick. There is no space to extend the existing Gatwick station within the current railway boundary at ground level, I know this, having worked on two improvement schemes in the last 10 years.
The new link would be designed for high speed trains (say 250 km/h plus) and run mainly in tunnel. This may have been proposed as an alternative to a third runway at Heathrow and may have been linked to the second runway scheme proposed by Gatwick Airport. I don’t think it was developed beyond a very high level feasibility study.
A self contained, high speed railway between the airports would be preferable, despite the cost, simply because upgrading the existing railway would never be able to provide a comparable journey time. It would also eliminate the risk of disruption imposed by the existing railway.
A correction to my previous post: the western rail link to Reading extends from the western end of the T5 platforms 1 and 2 to a connection with the Great Western main line east of Langley and not from the existing Heathrow branch between Heathrow and the GW main line. It would effectively provide a loop between Hayes and Langley serving the Airport.
There are various articles, including diagrams, on the western and southern rail connections to Heathrow in Wikipedia, which I haven't been able to link from my tablet.
The direct HS2 branch to Heathrow I mentioned, was developed in the early design to provide a direct connection between Heathrow and Birmingham and Manchester airports, the latter two being served by the HS2 main line. I believe it was intended that a high speed rail link would enable the number of domestic flights between London and Manchester, freeing runway slots for longer distance flights and reducing the need for an additional runway.
It was a victim of early cost cutting, possibly due to a significant increase in the amount of tunnelling (and cost) between Old Oak Common and the north chilterns. Some of the additional tunnelling was included for practical engineering reasons (Old Oak to West Ruislip - the existing railway corridor was not really wide enough and there were a lot of overbridges to reconstruct; easier to dump in a tunnel) and some due to public and political pressure (Chilterns - concerned Tory MPs!).
A reduced service between Paddington/Heathrow/Reading & Liverpool St /Shenfield & no trains after 18.00.
On ASLEF strike days it operates a normal service on all branches.
Elizabeth line
Reduced service. Services will operate in 3 sections:
Liverpool Street - Shenfield
Abbey Wood - Paddington
Paddington - Heathrow
- Services will run 07:30-18:30
- 2 trains per hour Paddington - Reading
- 2 trains per hour Paddington - Heathrow T4
https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/strikes?intcmp=35779The Elizabeth line has rapidly become the busiest train line in the country, according to latest passenger figures.
Between July and September it carried 44.12m passengers, well in excess of key commuter services such as South Western Railway (35.1m), Southeastern (29.7m) and the London Overground (39.3m), according to the Office for Rail and Road.
The Elizabeth line is the most popular of all TfL services, scoring an average of 83 out of 100 for customer satisfaction - and 87 for its central section between Abbey Wood and Paddington.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/elizabeth-lizzie-line-railway-passengers-london-b1047730.html
The final stage of the opening of the Elizabeth line is due to happen on Sunday May 21, Transport for London has revealed.
This will increase peak frequencies from 22 to 24 trains an hour under central London and will enable full “through running”, allowing direct journeys between Shenfield in the east and Heathrow and Reading in the west.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/elizabeth-lizzie-through-running-east-west-heathrow-shenfield-date-may-reading-tfl-tube-b1055448.html
Transport for London said the milestone was reached on Wednesday morning, in the latest sign of how passengers have flocked to the £20bn line since last May.
The “Lizzie line” is now carrying about 600,000 passengers on weekdays and more than three million a week, well in excess of the two million that were expected. It is the single busiest rail line in the UK.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/elizabeth-line-100m-passengers-opening-tfl-trains-b1057106.html
Think at interchanges (Greenwich for example), they are pointed at train doors.
Used it as a method of payment from DRL when franchises ran sections.
The franchises were payed on footfall.
CGL for example, manage Mudchute to Lewisham
In the centres at the top are iris recognition cameras.