Riding the Elizabeth Line!
Posted: | Updated: | Tags: status train toots transportThe contents of this post were originally toots on Mastodon, you can find the original thread there.
Recently, I had the opportunity to ride the Elizabeth Line, a commuter rail and rapid transport system, much like the Paris RER, connecting greater London to its core. After starting construction in 2009 it was officially inaugurated on 17 May 2022, the line goes from Reading and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. As part of the construction, 10 new stations were built along with refurbishing some of the existing stations along the route making them more accessible.
The Elizabeth Line aims to ease congestion on existing services such as the Central Line and can also be used as an express service in the core going from one main station to another. For example, both Elizabeth and Central lines share several stations between zones 1 to 3. The photo of the Central Line tube was taken at Ealing Broadway a station also used by the Elizabeth Line.
Bombardier was contracted to supply 70 Class 345 EMUs based on the Aventra family, to be used on the Elizabeth line. The 9 car units run on 25 kV 50Hz AC, with a maximum speed of 145 km/h. You can walk along all cars, with good visibility, allowing passengers to spread out. Platform screen doors are used at the core, and the stations are noticeably quieter than the regular tube lines.
Signaling on the Elizabeth Line was something of a challenge. Sharing infrastructure with the Great Eastern and Great Western Main Lines meant also adopting their TPWS/AWS signaling. Preparing for the future, the rolling stack had to be compatible with ETCS, which is currently in use on the Heathrow branch. Within the central core and Abbey Wood branch CBTC was chosen, allowing the Elizabeth Line to reach 24 trains per hour. These stations are also equipped with platform edge doors.
