really from what I see from South Paris, the Elizabeth Line/Crossrail is really to London what our Paris RER A is. It's not a Tube ( métro here ), it's not an Overground ( Transilien here ), it's in it's own very specific category.
What Tim said about the Paris Metro trains running on the right ... actually the Central Line runs on the right for quite a stretch of its route, and the Northern Line for a bit ...
It is in the same category of service as Thameslink. That also makes it like the RER, because lines A & B are operated by RATP, the equivalent of TfL, and C, D & E are run by SNCF.
As a regular commuter I can confidently say the H&C to Liverpool Street / Farringdon is often delayed and held around Aldgate especially at rush hour, and I often have to wait 10 minutes for the train. Geoff is really overestimating how quick the current journey is. I'll definitely be taking Crossrail!
This! I'm not sure how much the new signalling has helped things but I'd often be waiting for the H&C up to 10 minutes at Whitechapel with no indication of how long it will be and then sit in a tunnel for a couple more minutes at Aldgate before reaching Liverpool Street
Yeah I was going to say that too. It usually takes me about 12-15 minutes to get from Whitechapel to Farringdon and from when I've actually boarded and that's after waiting for a Hammersmith and City train to actually arrive at Whitechapel!
I was just thinking of Geoff visiting the new stops on the Elizabeth line and 3 SECONDS LATER he uploaded this Video! These odds are almost impossible.
Geoff, I love your passion for trains. It's a subject I never thought would interest me, but your enthusiasm makes learning about them fun and entertaining. As someone who doesn't live in London but sometimes needs to commute there, I've always found the Underground quite intimidating and confusing, but your videos have helped me see it differently and have made my journeys there much less stressful. Please don't stop releasing great content.
I always thought it was interesting how Paris (and most cities) have lines with letters or numbers, while London has whimsical names like Piccadilly and Bakerloo.
In London you need to have a sense of compass bearings. In Paris you need to know what the CURRENT terminus station is called of the line in question. If you are an infrequent visitor you might be flummoxed to find that it's no longer Direction Porte D'Orleans but Bagneux on line 4 for example
@@houseclearance7509 Well except for the line 7 and 13 which have branches you don't need to know the 2 terminus stations of each metro line. Knowing only one is enough, the other one obviously going in the opposite direction. That's mostly how I have used the Paris metro in the first few years. Usually one terminus name of a metro line stands out more than the other terminus name of the same line, here are my "prefered" directions : 1: La Défense 2: Nation 3: Levallois 4: Clignancourt 5: Italie 6: Etoile 7: Courneuve (branches...) 8: Créteil 9: none (can't decide) 10: Austerlitz 11: Châtelet 12: none (can't decide) 13: none (can't decide) (branches...) 14: Olympiades So basically knowing from 10 to 14 names (and knowing their vague location on a Paris metro map) would enable you to find your way in the Paris metro without too much problem. Of course you also have the RER within Paris...
Crossrail is the mode type, Thameslink and Elizabeth are the lines, and I will die on this hill. (And yes this means Crossrail 2 should really be thought of as Crossrail *3* if we're thinking in terms of RER-type lines versus "The Tube"... Hey, I'm just following TfL's own precedent...)
@@willneverforgets3341 My personal feeling is that "Overground" is a good brand for commuter lines that TfL runs (and may run in future). So that's the Euston-Watford line and Lea Valley lines. But in practice I think most people treat the Goblin and the main outer circle routes as de facto "the Tube" (even if the service frequency isn't quite there relative to the deep tunnel and SSR lines), so they should probably be rebranded into the Underground family with its own colour.
Exciting times to be in London! Despite living in Canada, I can feel all the energy building up towards the opening of the Elizabeth Line. Toronto’s major project - a light rail line which will cross the city - is dwarfed in comparison.
I’m on a supported internship and work 3 days a week at Paddington, can now direct people on the purple train towards Liverpool Street and avoid the tube!
Thameslink is weird though because outside of London it doesn't really operate as a commuter/suburban rail mostly but more as a regional/intercity rail. The trains up to 60 miles from the city centre and can reach speeds of 100mph. But then in the centre of London and inner city areas its very much operated like a tube line or a standard urban mainline train like southern, southeastern etc. Crossrail is much more comparable to a tube line than Thameslink is but they are both much more similar to the RER. I feel like crossrail can be seen as a sort of express tube line in a way like Thameslink can't
Yeah. Both are long distance, cross-city commuter lines, with a cluster of stops in the dense city centre. Crossrail has the advantage, in comparison, of being an all-new construction rather than being cobbled together from a bunch of leftovers. :P
Why is this so interesting??!?!?!!! I sporadically visit London, and just use the Underground to get around, like millions of other people. Don't really care about times because I'm not in a rush, but this information is soooooo fascinating! Top marks, Geoff!
@@li_tsz_fung the stations are incredible. I live in the south west and can tell that this line is hugely valuable to the country as a whole in terms of benefiting the economy.
so judging from tim's explanation on what the rer is my judgement on what the elizabeth line is compared to what i know from my native germany is basically correct: it's an s-bahn line going through a city tunnel (think s-bahn stammstrecke munich or city tunnel leipzig)
from my knowledge after using for almost two month the S-Bahn in Frankfurt, yes. Another suburban train system that it can be compared to is the Stockholm Tunnelbanna. ( while they are locally considered subway, they are not really subways )
Thanks for inviting Phillip and for advertising the magazine. I would not have bought this magazine, if it wasn't for this mention! I am looking forward to reading the supplement!
From memory, various stage openings of RER Line A in early 1970s attracted much comment as to why London wasn’t doing something similar. That might have led to resurrecting the Crossrail concept in the 1975 London Rail Study. Big timesaver will be Paddington to Liverpool St which was always a painful trek when arriving on WR express services and fighting along the old narrow passage to the Circle Line platform before it was widened out.
Coming from a tourist/crappy weather perspective even if the direct route takes a little longer I am willing to do a direct connection for simplicity. Overall, it looks like a great addition to London transport options.
The fact High Speed 1 is completely isolated from the tube and Elizabeth line is a transport scandal. For those who don't know- Stratford International was intentionally built at the OTHER side of the shopping centre to force commuters to walk through the shopping centre to buy things. It takes 5 mins from St Pancras to Stratford International but 10 mins from Stratford International to Stratford.
So HUGELY excited. Popped into Sainsburys next door and thought, first day, why not be there. So went to Liverpool Street and back and home for tea. Amazing!
What is this 'weekend part closer' thing every week in London? Service should be available 7 days a week. Occasional emergency closer is understandable once in a while. It has become the normal now. Rubbish. Some dudes need to get fired.
Got back from Heathrow last Sunday and took almost 2 hours by tube to Stratford. Only cost me £1.20 on a Railcard though, but still... Looking forward to do that trip with Crossrail soon.
I believe prices will compare to tube (if I have understood it correctly). I’ll be doing LHR- Liverpool Street on 21st June so will test out the theory.
@@NeilsCarsAviationTravel nice funnily enough by luck i arrive at heathrow the same day ot opens. for live streaming if all goes well. I should go on it as well at some point
Nice to see you discussing times between trains of 4 and 2½ minutes. The (Dutch) village I live in has an hourly bus service (weekdays 07:00~23:00) with 4 buses/hour during commute times. Still a lot better than no public transport at all.
@@gillchatfield3231 I used to live in a village in Northamptonshire which had an hourly bus service to Northampton. A neighbouring village had one bus every three weeks to Kettering.
A friend of mine wanted to travel to a village in Northumberland. When he rang to ask for bus times, he was told "Every Thursday" (Market day)! One bis an hour seems like overkill compared to that.
@@georgebirchall4281 I live in Newcastle. Bus and train services along the A1/East Coast Main Line corridor to Berwick and through the Tyne Valley are at least acceptable and often quite good. But if you are heading into the interior of Darkest Northumberland or the Borders ... and travelling to Cairnryan for the ferries to NI takes hours longer than travelling to London or Bristol.
Thanks Geoff and Tim! I lived in Paris for a couple of years and the RER, though very practical, has quite a negative connotation (ie systematically overcrowded and unsafe). But I'm sure that Crossrail will be the better and more enjoyable version of the RER, and I look forward to riding it!
It depends on the line.. the RER A going from one very posh neighbourhood on one side to DisneyLand on the other is perfectly safe… the RER D spanning one dodgy hell hole to another is another story
The RER and Crossrail are essentially the same thing. They act like a faster metro within the city, but they are full-size trains (just with a high frequency).
Another great video, thanks very much. Must comment on the one moment that tickled me: "It's a 4 minute wait for a Central Line train." 😂😂 Living in Mid Wales, a wait of 4 minutes for any transport is a nanosecond. Keep up the good work, Geoff, the vids are great.
I'd compare it to German S-Bahn, and there especially Berlin's Stadtbahn, the West-East diameter line. But the proportions of Crossrail are really massive. I hope to get a chance to visit London again in the future and see it myself. And I think the fact it has the purple roundel instead of red makes it clear enough it isn't just a tube line.
So would I, but that might be because I've lived in Germany while I've only visited Paris briefly. In 1929 the name Stadt-Schnell-Bahn ("City Rapid Railway" with the unfortunate in hindsight abbreviation SS-Bahn) was applied to the electrified urban and suburban railways in Berlin for the first time. This was shortened to S-Bahn in 1930. The CrossLizPurp line is wonderful, but anybody who complains it's four years late is missing the point - it's at least 60 years late; and most cities outside London will never ever get anything remotely like it.
@@roderickjoyce6716 Liverpool to Newcastle via Manchester, Leeds and York? That has to be Britain's first crossrail? Would Stalybridge be our Chatelet? or Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse?
Great video Geoff, loved the cameo from Tim. What nobody has ever been able to answer for me however, is why it isn't a Thameslink line, or why Thameslink doesn't get rebranded to Crossrail. They're the same thing, one's just deep level whilst the other isn't*. Thameslink does go further out, but Reading isn't exactly any more 'London' than Peterborough is. Thameslink in the core has a similar frequency, and Crossrail at Reading will have a similar frequency (2 off peak) as we see at St Neots. For simplicity's sake, given the wealth of different modalities (Underground, Overground, Wombling Free, DLR, Tramlink) is already confusing to tourists and out of towners, should they not be merged? *Canal Tunnels are deep level, but you get my point.
It's about ownership, Thameslink is Network Rail, Crossrail is TfL/London Transport. I imagine it must be confusing to someone not used to it, especially someone from somewhere with no metro. I've lived in London all my life. I've been to Tokyo and had no problem understanding their network, but saw other people finding it very confusing.
This new line reminds me about the passante suburban railway line (that's how they call it) in Milan, which allows suburban trains to cross over Milan without needing to change at either the main stations in Cadorna, Milano Centrale, or in Porta Garibaldi. But that's been opened a few decades earlier.
The Metropolitan line, the Bakerloo to Watford or the outer ends of the Central line are also just suburban rail lines that were connected underground. Of course nowadays noone sees it as a main-line train anymore, but I don't see that big a difference to the Elizabeth line. Of course the Elizabeth has fewer stops, but express metros are a thing elsewhere
Don't they have fast and semi-fast trains on the Bakerloo-Watford section of the Metropolitan Line, as well as stoppers? I don't have occasion to use those trains very often, so don't know.
With that comparison to the RER (great to see Tim pop up, by the way), it makes me wish Crossrail had had the foresight to make Elizabeth Line double decker.
Wouldn't work with any of the pre-existing London commuter lines which are used further out as the bridges are too low. Their network was created later and thus with more 'headroom' to begin with. First mover costs.....
@@DavidBeddard it's more than that - double deck trains are less accessible and take longer to and load/unload. Running a high capacity train like a 700 will get more people, further faster.
The music at the beginning was wonderful and fun. It’s awesome surprise to have Tim Traveller here! Riding the Elizabeth line is on my list when I finally get to visit the UK (and not just because I’m Elizabeth ;-) ).
One observation from someone who used to use the Paris RER. I agree if you at or going to one of the stations on the new line, it is clearly quicker. However my experience was if you were already on the tube/metro it could be as quick to stay on the tube and if required change rather than have an additional and an additional wait to travel on the new line
Yes. The question some have asked is whether people who currently travel in from north west London on the Jubilee Line to Canary Wharf will want to change at Bond Street to the Elizabeth Line. Will the time spent changing trains be made up by the faster journey from Bond Street to Canary Wharf, and/or being able to avoid the crush if you were a standing passenger on the Jubilee Line train?
The other disruptive impact that this will have is that, in going straight from A to B without faffing on the underground, you could feasibly get an unbroken stream of work done on the train, as long as it's offline by the time you get to the underground bits. That is a huge quality of commute upgrade for those of us struggling to make commuting time productive time.
It actually makes so much sense to compare those two as well. Thameslink is a great 'realtively' undercover way to cross London North to South And it even has a 24hour service at the weekends lol
Because Crossrail is closer to RER (A & E especially) than Thameslink > deep gigantic stations, high frequency, fast speeds, deep tunnels that link previously existing suburban lines that ended at railway terminals... Thameslink is closer to S-Bahn or RER C as it's made mainly of scraps of previous railways, etc.
Farringdon-TCR I would be walking to Chancery Lane and take the Central Line. About the same distance as the length of the platforms at City Thameslink!
Munich's S-Bahn system is similar - full size trains spreading out to about 13 outlying locations, with all routes sharing a single tunnel through the city centre. A second parallel tunnel is being built slightly to the north to allow more frequent services. There is already less than 2 minutes between trains though the tunnel The city centre stations all link to one or more underground lines, plus the tram network on the surface. All work on a single ticket system.
If nothing else there will be ENORMOUS time savings when there are big conference events on at the ExCel. The DLR station there rivals Bombay super-dense crush busy-ness sometimes at the moment!
8:22 Pretty sure walking Farringdon - Chancery Lane and then Central Line would be quicker than waiting for thameslink and then walking to St. paul’s. Geoff must really love his thameslink
Great to see Tim on your channel again.. love the potential of the purple line.. but doubt anyone will take it from Reading.. you'll be faster to take the fast train to Paddington and chance to purple there.. but anyone between Reading and Paddington will benefit off course :)
Omg! Tim! I love when Tim and Geoff work together for videos! Some of my favorite European RUclipsrs (plus the Southerner and Nonstop Eurotrip)! Thank you for sharing and educating!
hey Geoff, this video should be the fewest changes possible on the route,not necessarily with this point checking mode, I would just go from dlr and one simple change at west ham for J or HM lines and additional for Bond ST, I'll just change at Stratford or Mile End for Central line
Also, consider that for example a lot of people going from Bond Street to Paddington would just get on the Bakerloo at Oxford Circus rather than go to Bond Street and change, especially if your starting point is between the two stations.
As someone who lives in the NL and visited London only once, this video really drives home the point for me. A good break-down of what's going to improve and how.
This means I now have 3 ways of getting home avoiding HS1 From Victoria (roughly 50 mins) TL (Roughly 1hr 30mins) Purp train + TL (gonna guess 55 mins - 1hr if good changes) so this is gonna be exciting
It's worth adding that the journey time on Crossrail from Reading to Paddington is very significantly slower than the mainline trains. There's a relatively short walk to underground trains in Paddington too, particularly for the circle line, so journey times from Reading to a number of central London stations isn't really reduced
@Geoff Marshall can you confirm the railway magazine that Phil has in his hand is on sale now. 3:17 Strangley I wentbto WHSmiths and it was not available. Please confirm.
Geoff! Enjoyed this one - what a great cameo. So I’ve thought on this a while. Train or tube, rail or line. My answer? Neither, both. I echo a bunch of the statements made already below. It is wholly unique - the Elizabeth Rail Line. Cheers
So could thameslink be put in the same category as the RER? Often wondered why the thameslink route doesn't appear on Google maps, now that cross rail does it makes even less sense.
I didn’t realise that the day this opens I have to go to london on the train from Plymouth. I have to go to Tottenham Court Road so will definitely be trying this line out lol
As a resident of Reading the only time I will get on an Elizabeth line train at Reading station will be to travel to one of the stops between Reading and London. If I want to travel further, say to Custom House, then I will get on a fast GWR train to PAD and change to the Elizabeth line there.
Also from Reading to Bond Street - would get GWR service to Paddington and change - GWR non-stop will be 30 minutes faster than Purple Train, plus you get to use two Elizbeth line stations
Excellent video, made even better by your Paris correspondent. Crossrail should be lumped in with overground and thameslink as a London version of the RER…
A moderately well-traveled American here (Paris, London, Singapore, Bangkok, Moscow, NYC, DC), & I surely see how being intimate with your city’s public transport is vital knowledge, especially if it’s as complex as what you’re showing here.. Tourist types should not leave the house unless they know EXACTLY where they’re going, & how to get there.. If they don’t, they’ll only annoy the locals.. ;-)
Few Londoners are familiar with more than a small fraction of the entire system. They probably know how to get to and around Central London from their district or suburb, buy that's it. Obviously Geoff is an exception.
Geoff is interested in the details, but a tourist can more or less turn up, figure out a route through the wiring diagram that is the tube map, and off they go. Perhaps they will miss some slight efficiency where there's a better connection that isn't obvious unless you know your way around, but as long as they don't stand in the way on the escalators they should do fine.
I imagine the link to Heathrow in to central London is going to be especially popular and will probably kill the express to Paddington. It'll take about as long but will be cheaper and far more frequent, not to mention easier to change to other lines.
Would you make a video singing god save the queen at all the stations on the Elizabeth line ? Figured your the perfect person to do this !! Love the content by the way
Excellent video Geoff! I cannot wait to go on the Cross/Eliz/Purple train. I went to visit the new Canary Wharf Elizabeth Line on the 24th April and it looks brilliant.
Should do an Abbey Wood to Farringdon comparison on the Thameslink route, just for a laugh as the NKL is painfully slow, especially in the 20mph Woolwich tunnels!
Tim Traveller, our Paris Correspondent, was such a delight to hear from. Crossrail is not part of the Tube methinks, it’s a new form of Trains.
really from what I see from South Paris, the Elizabeth Line/Crossrail is really to London what our Paris RER A is.
It's not a Tube ( métro here ), it's not an Overground ( Transilien here ), it's in it's own very specific category.
What Tim said about the Paris Metro trains running on the right ... actually the Central Line runs on the right for quite a stretch of its route, and the Northern Line for a bit ...
Just like Thameslink then.
It is in the same category of service as Thameslink.
That also makes it like the RER, because lines A & B are operated by RATP, the equivalent of TfL, and C, D & E are run by SNCF.
@@ricktownend9144 Victoria aswell for a bit
As a regular commuter I can confidently say the H&C to Liverpool Street / Farringdon is often delayed and held around Aldgate especially at rush hour, and I often have to wait 10 minutes for the train. Geoff is really overestimating how quick the current journey is. I'll definitely be taking Crossrail!
Not to mention the frequency!
Since Covid, Hammersmith and City has got far worse. It doesn’t turn up for upto 15 mins
This! I'm not sure how much the new signalling has helped things but I'd often be waiting for the H&C up to 10 minutes at Whitechapel with no indication of how long it will be and then sit in a tunnel for a couple more minutes at Aldgate before reaching Liverpool Street
Good to meet other people suffering the same problem with the H&C. Not long to go now! ☺️
Yeah I was going to say that too. It usually takes me about 12-15 minutes to get from Whitechapel to Farringdon and from when I've actually boarded and that's after waiting for a Hammersmith and City train to actually arrive at Whitechapel!
I was just thinking of Geoff visiting the new stops on the Elizabeth line and 3 SECONDS LATER he uploaded this Video! These odds are almost impossible.
Mid May: non stop crossrail hype videos
Mid June: I'll be used to using it and forget that it's even new
Geoff must be able to read your mind, it's the only logical explanation!
That is not Geoff Marshall, guess what number he is
Geoff, I love your passion for trains. It's a subject I never thought would interest me, but your enthusiasm makes learning about them fun and entertaining. As someone who doesn't live in London but sometimes needs to commute there, I've always found the Underground quite intimidating and confusing, but your videos have helped me see it differently and have made my journeys there much less stressful. Please don't stop releasing great content.
I always thought it was interesting how Paris (and most cities) have lines with letters or numbers, while London has whimsical names like Piccadilly and Bakerloo.
In London you need to have a sense of compass bearings. In Paris you need to know what the CURRENT terminus station is called of the line in question. If you are an infrequent visitor you might be flummoxed to find that it's no longer Direction Porte D'Orleans but Bagneux on line 4 for example
Just because doesn't justify doing it just because.
It's because the British are a whimsical nation and have an antipathy to clear, rational organisation.
@@houseclearance7509 Agreed, I find the Paris system much more confusing... And I'm French!
@@houseclearance7509 Well except for the line 7 and 13 which have branches you don't need to know the 2 terminus stations of each metro line. Knowing only one is enough, the other one obviously going in the opposite direction.
That's mostly how I have used the Paris metro in the first few years.
Usually one terminus name of a metro line stands out more than the other terminus name of the same line, here are my "prefered" directions :
1: La Défense
2: Nation
3: Levallois
4: Clignancourt
5: Italie
6: Etoile
7: Courneuve (branches...)
8: Créteil
9: none (can't decide)
10: Austerlitz
11: Châtelet
12: none (can't decide)
13: none (can't decide) (branches...)
14: Olympiades
So basically knowing from 10 to 14 names (and knowing their vague location on a Paris metro map) would enable you to find your way in the Paris metro without too much problem.
Of course you also have the RER within Paris...
I went to Abbey Wood recently and saw all the crossrail tests, they were going in and out very frequently
It would be better if it actually went all the way to [Filton] Abbey Wood.
@@engineeringvision9507 we need our own metro. Thanks
@@freddiepearce6455 Bristol could have an underground line. Maybe run it from Bedminster up Gloucester Road to Parkway or Abbey Wood.
@@engineeringvision9507 That would not happen.
@@JP-rc3nl Thank you captain obvious
Crossrail is the mode type, Thameslink and Elizabeth are the lines, and I will die on this hill.
(And yes this means Crossrail 2 should really be thought of as Crossrail *3* if we're thinking in terms of RER-type lines versus "The Tube"... Hey, I'm just following TfL's own precedent...)
Thameslink is Up-And-Down-Rail. Crossrail goes across, side to side. That's if you use a north-centric system of mapping...
@@paulsengupta971 that equally applies to south-centric systems of mapping too!
@@MarkDibley Ah yes, of course!
This sounds more like it. What is overground then?
@@willneverforgets3341 My personal feeling is that "Overground" is a good brand for commuter lines that TfL runs (and may run in future). So that's the Euston-Watford line and Lea Valley lines. But in practice I think most people treat the Goblin and the main outer circle routes as de facto "the Tube" (even if the service frequency isn't quite there relative to the deep tunnel and SSR lines), so they should probably be rebranded into the Underground family with its own colour.
Thanks
Following this journey from Australia. It's really interesting. Can't wait to get back there and try the new line - which isn't a tube line.
It's shiny, it's new, but most importantly IT'S PURPLE!
Good to see another collab with Tim. 🙂
I'm looking forward to part 2 of this video, when you do the same journey when the line actually opens!
Exciting times to be in London! Despite living in Canada, I can feel all the energy building up towards the opening of the Elizabeth Line. Toronto’s major project - a light rail line which will cross the city - is dwarfed in comparison.
Hey, every little helps! :) gotta start somewhere. Ps thanks for sharing, I’m looking up this project next 😂
"So do I know someone in Paris, who..." -> here's a segue that gets me jumping right on the spot!
I’m on a supported internship and work 3 days a week at Paddington, can now direct people on the purple train towards Liverpool Street and avoid the tube!
I'd say both Thameslink and Crossrail are a similar type of transport to the RER.
Would concur. Comparing Elizabeth line to Thameslink is closer to truth than comparing it to London Underground.
Thameslink is weird though because outside of London it doesn't really operate as a commuter/suburban rail mostly but more as a regional/intercity rail. The trains up to 60 miles from the city centre and can reach speeds of 100mph. But then in the centre of London and inner city areas its very much operated like a tube line or a standard urban mainline train like southern, southeastern etc.
Crossrail is much more comparable to a tube line than Thameslink is but they are both much more similar to the RER. I feel like crossrail can be seen as a sort of express tube line in a way like Thameslink can't
@@fatherfountain1906 thameslink is a crosstown line
@@fatherfountain1906 Thameslink offers fast and semi fast services. The "stoppers" seem most comparable to me.
Yeah. Both are long distance, cross-city commuter lines, with a cluster of stops in the dense city centre. Crossrail has the advantage, in comparison, of being an all-new construction rather than being cobbled together from a bunch of leftovers. :P
Why is this so interesting??!?!?!!! I sporadically visit London, and just use the Underground to get around, like millions of other people. Don't really care about times because I'm not in a rush, but this information is soooooo fascinating! Top marks, Geoff!
I don't even visit London and don't live anywhere nearby. Still weirdly interested in these videos.
Even if time is not a problem for you, new trains and stations give us a fresh modern look, and AC in summer. Both of them are rare in London
@@li_tsz_fung the stations are incredible. I live in the south west and can tell that this line is hugely valuable to the country as a whole in terms of benefiting the economy.
Would have actually been quicker for you just not to bother watching then, rather than write about how you don’t care about it. Muppet.
@@simonmoore2380 WTF??? Read the comment properly. Muppet.
Geoff's confidence is proper inspiring. Especially for a man speaking aloud on a London tube!
so judging from tim's explanation on what the rer is my judgement on what the elizabeth line is compared to what i know from my native germany is basically correct: it's an s-bahn line going through a city tunnel (think s-bahn stammstrecke munich or city tunnel leipzig)
from my knowledge after using for almost two month the S-Bahn in Frankfurt, yes.
Another suburban train system that it can be compared to is the Stockholm Tunnelbanna. ( while they are locally considered subway, they are not really subways )
I think that London's "S-Bahn" network would comprise of Thameslink, Crossrail and the Overground routes.
Based on the trains, it strikes me as more similar to the RE trains (Regionalbahn) which e.g. go through Berlin.
@@pixoontube2912 yeah, of course. i always considered the overground to be londons s-bahn, thameslink fits into this as well.
@@DrumHeadV nah, there are other services that fit much more into the rb/re scheme.
Thanks for inviting Phillip and for advertising the magazine. I would not have bought this magazine, if it wasn't for this mention! I am looking forward to reading the supplement!
Being able to bring out a random Paris correspondent for a mini segment is why this Channel is next level good. I don't even like trains.
From memory, various stage openings of RER Line A in early 1970s attracted much comment as to why London wasn’t doing something similar. That might have led to resurrecting the Crossrail concept in the 1975 London Rail Study.
Big timesaver will be Paddington to Liverpool St which was always a painful trek when arriving on WR express services and fighting along the old narrow passage to the Circle Line platform before it was widened out.
Coming from a tourist/crappy weather perspective even if the direct route takes a little longer I am willing to do a direct connection for simplicity. Overall, it looks like a great addition to London transport options.
thats a very good point. I think there are many travellers who prefer simplicity over time savings
The fact High Speed 1 is completely isolated from the tube and Elizabeth line is a transport scandal. For those who don't know- Stratford International was intentionally built at the OTHER side of the shopping centre to force commuters to walk through the shopping centre to buy things. It takes 5 mins from St Pancras to Stratford International but 10 mins from Stratford International to Stratford.
So HUGELY excited. Popped into Sainsburys next door and thought, first day, why not be there. So went to Liverpool Street and back and home for tea. Amazing!
*Heathrow route would be interesting if the price is good*
Agreed. I have relatives in Manor Park - so flying into Heathrow would allow me to get to their place in one shot
What is this 'weekend part closer' thing every week in London?
Service should be available 7 days a week.
Occasional emergency closer is understandable once in a while.
It has become the normal now.
Rubbish.
Some dudes need to get fired.
Got back from Heathrow last Sunday and took almost 2 hours by tube to Stratford. Only cost me £1.20 on a Railcard though, but still... Looking forward to do that trip with Crossrail soon.
I believe prices will compare to tube (if I have understood it correctly).
I’ll be doing LHR- Liverpool Street on 21st June so will test out the theory.
@@NeilsCarsAviationTravel nice funnily enough by luck i arrive at heathrow the same day ot opens. for live streaming if all goes well. I should go on it as well at some point
Much quicker than our current route from King's Cross to Abbey Wood to visit family I expect! Also faster than a lot of Rollercoasters!
Ha, transport museum socks star in all our London theme park vlogs!
Isn't that just thameslink? Shouldn't it be comparable
Thameslink with its massive... One train per hour
@@hamzasadiq7672 I think it would be much more refined than thameslink. Which seems to go slow through the core.
11:25 Yes the Elizabeth line is like the RER in Paris. And it's also like the Thameslink in London that we've had for a while now!
When I visited London for the first time, I made the mistake of being at Canary Wharf Jubilee Line at peak times, it wasn't ideal lol.
Nice to see you discussing times between trains of 4 and 2½ minutes. The (Dutch) village I live in has an hourly bus service (weekdays 07:00~23:00) with 4 buses/hour during commute times. Still a lot better than no public transport at all.
Try Lincolnshire! One bus an hour maximum. Nothing after 7.30pm (just one route), and nothing Sundays and Bank Holidays.
@@gillchatfield3231 Fellow Lincolnshire yellowbelly 😁
@@gillchatfield3231 I used to live in a village in Northamptonshire which had an hourly bus service to Northampton. A neighbouring village had one bus every three weeks to Kettering.
A friend of mine wanted to travel to a village in Northumberland. When he rang to ask for bus times, he was told "Every Thursday" (Market day)! One bis an hour seems like overkill compared to that.
@@georgebirchall4281 I live in Newcastle. Bus and train services along the A1/East Coast Main Line corridor to Berwick and through the Tyne Valley are at least acceptable and often quite good. But if you are heading into the interior of Darkest Northumberland or the Borders ... and travelling to Cairnryan for the ferries to NI takes hours longer than travelling to London or Bristol.
Thanks Geoff and Tim! I lived in Paris for a couple of years and the RER, though very practical, has quite a negative connotation (ie systematically overcrowded and unsafe). But I'm sure that Crossrail will be the better and more enjoyable version of the RER, and I look forward to riding it!
I think you mean that RER in Paris is "unsafe" as it goes to "edgy" suburbs. It is not that the trains are unsafe.
It depends on the line.. the RER A going from one very posh neighbourhood on one side to DisneyLand on the other is perfectly safe… the RER D spanning one dodgy hell hole to another is another story
Great for Tim to pop up there. I just viewed his Charleroi Metro film a few minutes ago.😀
The RER and Crossrail are essentially the same thing. They act like a faster metro within the city, but they are full-size trains (just with a high frequency).
Best new feature: Its purple. Love it.
Another great video, thanks very much. Must comment on the one moment that tickled me: "It's a 4 minute wait for a Central Line train." 😂😂 Living in Mid Wales, a wait of 4 minutes for any transport is a nanosecond. Keep up the good work, Geoff, the vids are great.
I'd compare it to German S-Bahn, and there especially Berlin's Stadtbahn, the West-East diameter line. But the proportions of Crossrail are really massive. I hope to get a chance to visit London again in the future and see it myself. And I think the fact it has the purple roundel instead of red makes it clear enough it isn't just a tube line.
So would I, but that might be because I've lived in Germany while I've only visited Paris briefly. In 1929 the name Stadt-Schnell-Bahn ("City Rapid Railway" with the unfortunate in hindsight abbreviation SS-Bahn) was applied to the electrified urban and suburban railways in Berlin for the first time. This was shortened to S-Bahn in 1930. The CrossLizPurp line is wonderful, but anybody who complains it's four years late is missing the point - it's at least 60 years late; and most cities outside London will never ever get anything remotely like it.
I'd argue the North-South axis is an even better comparison as that is also underground while within the city.
@@roderickjoyce6716 Liverpool to Newcastle via Manchester, Leeds and York? That has to be Britain's first crossrail? Would Stalybridge be our Chatelet? or Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse?
Yes we have the s-bahn here in Frankfurt and it seems to be something similar to the crossrail!
It more reminds me of the Munich S-Bahn, because it’s in tunnel, whereas the main east-west S-Bahn line through the centre of Berlin is elevated.
Great video Geoff, loved the cameo from Tim.
What nobody has ever been able to answer for me however, is why it isn't a Thameslink line, or why Thameslink doesn't get rebranded to Crossrail. They're the same thing, one's just deep level whilst the other isn't*. Thameslink does go further out, but Reading isn't exactly any more 'London' than Peterborough is. Thameslink in the core has a similar frequency, and Crossrail at Reading will have a similar frequency (2 off peak) as we see at St Neots.
For simplicity's sake, given the wealth of different modalities (Underground, Overground, Wombling Free, DLR, Tramlink) is already confusing to tourists and out of towners, should they not be merged?
*Canal Tunnels are deep level, but you get my point.
It's about ownership, Thameslink is Network Rail, Crossrail is TfL/London Transport.
I imagine it must be confusing to someone not used to it, especially someone from somewhere with no metro. I've lived in London all my life. I've been to Tokyo and had no problem understanding their network, but saw other people finding it very confusing.
Nice to see that London has a new line.
This new line reminds me about the passante suburban railway line (that's how they call it) in Milan, which allows suburban trains to cross over Milan without needing to change at either the main stations in Cadorna, Milano Centrale, or in Porta Garibaldi. But that's been opened a few decades earlier.
I did my work experience building these trains on the factory floor, in Derby, back in 2018. So I look forward to seeing the line open!
The Metropolitan line, the Bakerloo to Watford or the outer ends of the Central line are also just suburban rail lines that were connected underground. Of course nowadays noone sees it as a main-line train anymore, but I don't see that big a difference to the Elizabeth line. Of course the Elizabeth has fewer stops, but express metros are a thing elsewhere
Don't they have fast and semi-fast trains on the Bakerloo-Watford section of the Metropolitan Line, as well as stoppers? I don't have occasion to use those trains very often, so don't know.
The Bakerloo hasn't been as far north as Watford for decades. It terminates at Harrow & Wealdstone.
@@englishciderlover7347 true, but I mean it's still the Watford DC line that it travels on, together with National Rail (Overground)
@@AnnabelSmyth The Met only has fast trains during rush hour in the peak direction nowadays, but it used to have fast trains throughout the day.
@@wasmic5z Thank you
Thanks Geoff, your video was highly illustrative... just goes to show how utterly TRANSFORMATIONAL the Elizabeth line will be.
Great video, I loved seeing Tim Traveller as your Parisian correspondent!
With that comparison to the RER (great to see Tim pop up, by the way), it makes me wish Crossrail had had the foresight to make Elizabeth Line double decker.
Wouldn't work with any of the pre-existing London commuter lines which are used further out as the bridges are too low. Their network was created later and thus with more 'headroom' to begin with. First mover costs.....
it's using gauge on the existing lines from Paddington to reading and Liverpool street to shenfield unfortunately
@@shawnli4746 That's less of a reason why not than it is part of the same decision not to. Probably a budget thing.
@@DavidBeddard it's more than that - double deck trains are less accessible and take longer to and load/unload. Running a high capacity train like a 700 will get more people, further faster.
@@chrisdenham9086 Ah, OK, that makes sense. Thanks 😊 👍
Was a pleasure seeing you outside the Woolwich Crossrail station. Apologies for my girlfriend’s ignorance of your status 😅
AND TIM TRAVELER! OMG OMG OMG OMG. Its like an Avengers Transit Team!
Well that was a nice surprise. A familiar face. Great video as always. Will have to come to London to check out the system myself
The music at the beginning was wonderful and fun. It’s awesome surprise to have Tim Traveller here! Riding the Elizabeth line is on my list when I finally get to visit the UK (and not just because I’m Elizabeth ;-) ).
A 48 Page Crossrail Special? That’s very cool BRB SCREAMING
One observation from someone who used to use the Paris RER. I agree if you at or going to one of the stations on the new line, it is clearly quicker. However my experience was if you were already on the tube/metro it could be as quick to stay on the tube and if required change rather than have an additional and an additional wait to travel on the new line
Yes. The question some have asked is whether people who currently travel in from north west London on the Jubilee Line to Canary Wharf will want to change at Bond Street to the Elizabeth Line. Will the time spent changing trains be made up by the faster journey from Bond Street to Canary Wharf, and/or being able to avoid the crush if you were a standing passenger on the Jubilee Line train?
The other disruptive impact that this will have is that, in going straight from A to B without faffing on the underground, you could feasibly get an unbroken stream of work done on the train, as long as it's offline by the time you get to the underground bits.
That is a huge quality of commute upgrade for those of us struggling to make commuting time productive time.
i love your videos geoff. you are always smiling as positive.
Why does no one compare Crossrail to London's RER that's existed since the 80s - Thameslink?
It actually makes so much sense to compare those two as well.
Thameslink is a great 'realtively' undercover way to cross London North to South
And it even has a 24hour service at the weekends lol
Because Crossrail is closer to RER (A & E especially) than Thameslink > deep gigantic stations, high frequency, fast speeds, deep tunnels that link previously existing suburban lines that ended at railway terminals...
Thameslink is closer to S-Bahn or RER C as it's made mainly of scraps of previous railways, etc.
Farringdon-TCR I would be walking to Chancery Lane and take the Central Line. About the same distance as the length of the platforms at City Thameslink!
Tim Traveller shout out earns this video a LIKE!
Munich's S-Bahn system is similar - full size trains spreading out to about 13 outlying locations, with all routes sharing a single tunnel through the city centre. A second parallel tunnel is being built slightly to the north to allow more frequent services. There is already less than 2 minutes between trains though the tunnel The city centre stations all link to one or more underground lines, plus the tram network on the surface. All work on a single ticket system.
If nothing else there will be ENORMOUS time savings when there are big conference events on at the ExCel. The DLR station there rivals Bombay super-dense crush busy-ness sometimes at the moment!
8:22 Pretty sure walking Farringdon - Chancery Lane and then Central Line would be quicker than waiting for thameslink and then walking to St. paul’s. Geoff must really love his thameslink
Great to see Tim on your channel again.. love the potential of the purple line.. but doubt anyone will take it from Reading.. you'll be faster to take the fast train to Paddington and chance to purple there.. but anyone between Reading and Paddington will benefit off course :)
Omg! Tim! I love when Tim and Geoff work together for videos! Some of my favorite European RUclipsrs (plus the Southerner and Nonstop Eurotrip)! Thank you for sharing and educating!
hey Geoff, this video should be the fewest changes possible on the route,not necessarily with this point checking mode, I would just go from dlr and one simple change at west ham for J or HM lines and additional for Bond ST, I'll just change at Stratford or Mile End for Central line
Also, consider that for example a lot of people going from Bond Street to Paddington would just get on the Bakerloo at Oxford Circus rather than go to Bond Street and change, especially if your starting point is between the two stations.
Love how I immediately knew it was going to be Tim when Geoff talks about his friend in Paris.
3:55 The guy in the blue suit wondering what on earth's going on!
Can't wait for this to open to reduce the number of people on the Central Line
Just saw you on BBC London news on 1.30pm with line of purple streak on your hair 💜
[Fancy meeting you here!] [Brought prepared pamphlet]
geoff this video literally made my day thank you
As someone who lives in the NL and visited London only once, this video really drives home the point for me. A good break-down of what's going to improve and how.
This means I now have 3 ways of getting home avoiding HS1
From Victoria (roughly 50 mins)
TL (Roughly 1hr 30mins)
Purp train + TL (gonna guess 55 mins - 1hr if good changes) so this is gonna be exciting
Where to?
@@marcusrashid don't wanna disclose exactly where I am but it's not past Rainham
It's worth adding that the journey time on Crossrail from Reading to Paddington is very significantly slower than the mainline trains.
There's a relatively short walk to underground trains in Paddington too, particularly for the circle line, so journey times from Reading to a number of central London stations isn't really reduced
Is the crossrail any cheaper from Reading to London vs existing GWR trains?
@Geoff Marshall can you confirm the railway magazine that Phil has in his hand is on sale now. 3:17 Strangley I wentbto WHSmiths and it was not available. Please confirm.
I love the jubilee line!!
I am SO excited for the Elizabeth line!!!
Thank you for the video Geoff that was very interesting and informative.
Fantastic video. I might do that myself 1 day as I love trains.
Geoff! Enjoyed this one - what a great cameo. So I’ve thought on this a while. Train or tube, rail or line. My answer? Neither, both. I echo a bunch of the statements made already below. It is wholly unique - the Elizabeth Rail Line. Cheers
You should have your own documentary mate..love the whole video style and production values!
So could thameslink be put in the same category as the RER? Often wondered why the thameslink route doesn't appear on Google maps, now that cross rail does it makes even less sense.
Rode it today. Weird feeling of being motionless at some point because it so smooth.
‘I like Thameslink’ first & only person I’ve ever heard say that!
Abbey wood looks spacious ,modern
Ok I wasn’t really expecting the Time Trav- uh, Tim Traveller but I love the collaboration. More please!
I like the new audio processing on your voice-over microphone Geoff!
I didn’t realise that the day this opens I have to go to london on the train from Plymouth. I have to go to Tottenham Court Road so will definitely be trying this line out lol
As a resident of Reading the only time I will get on an Elizabeth line train at Reading station will be to travel to one of the stops between Reading and London. If I want to travel further, say to Custom House, then I will get on a fast GWR train to PAD and change to the Elizabeth line there.
How would that compare in terms of ticket prices?
awesome work i cant wait for this to open now and i cant wait to try it out after it opens
This will be a great benefit when Elizabeth Line opens that journey times will be slashed.
Looking forward to this opening
I am so lucky to work for the Elizabeth Line! I glad you like it Geoff. great video as always
What do you do for them? Good luck with the opening!
Also from Reading to Bond Street - would get GWR service to Paddington and change - GWR non-stop will be 30 minutes faster than Purple Train, plus you get to use two Elizbeth line stations
8:57 Geoff's got the moves!
Abbey Wood will be having the first Elizacrosspurple line train! 06:30 compared to 06:33 at Paddington
Excellent video, made even better by your Paris correspondent. Crossrail should be lumped in with overground and thameslink as a London version of the RER…
Great to see Tim on the channel again!
A moderately well-traveled American here (Paris, London, Singapore, Bangkok, Moscow, NYC, DC), & I surely see how being intimate with your city’s public transport is vital knowledge, especially if it’s as complex as what you’re showing here.. Tourist types should not leave the house unless they know EXACTLY where they’re going, & how to get there.. If they don’t, they’ll only annoy the locals.. ;-)
Few Londoners are familiar with more than a small fraction of the entire system. They probably know how to get to and around Central London from their district or suburb, buy that's it. Obviously Geoff is an exception.
I just use an app to plan my journey's around the London underground.
@@user-jt1jv8vl9r I do that sometimes.
Geoff is interested in the details, but a tourist can more or less turn up, figure out a route through the wiring diagram that is the tube map, and off they go. Perhaps they will miss some slight efficiency where there's a better connection that isn't obvious unless you know your way around, but as long as they don't stand in the way on the escalators they should do fine.
Looking forward to trackbashing on CrossRail in two weeks from today! :)
even compared to a train currently from paddington to abbey wood, crossrail is 41 minutes quicker than the current quickest option
I imagine the link to Heathrow in to central London is going to be especially popular and will probably kill the express to Paddington. It'll take about as long but will be cheaper and far more frequent, not to mention easier to change to other lines.
Would you make a video singing god save the queen at all the stations on the Elizabeth line ? Figured your the perfect person to do this !! Love the content by the way
Can't wait to see your video when the Purple Train finally comes this way (to Maidenhead)
Excellent video Geoff! I cannot wait to go on the Cross/Eliz/Purple train. I went to visit the new Canary Wharf Elizabeth Line on the 24th April and it looks brilliant.
Should do an Abbey Wood to Farringdon comparison on the Thameslink route, just for a laugh as the NKL is painfully slow, especially in the 20mph Woolwich tunnels!
Looking forward to returning to London in October, for the first time since August 2019, and taking a ride on the Purple Line.
Sweet! Another Tim Traveller collaboration or in this instance more like onsite location correspondent.