Elizabeth Line journey times to Heathrow cut from today – but T5 loses Canary Wharf services

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• Dominic says:

  21 May21 May 05:53

  No longer based in the UK, but this is an excellent set of changes. As someone that was based in Essex, the Elizabeth Line has done wonders for Heathrow accessibility

• Mohamed says:

  21 May21 May 06:12

  I mean is there more passengers connecting between city airport and T4 or T5??? Are canary wharf bankers flying more Qatar, AF, KLM or BA.
  Complete non sensé.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    21 May21 May 10:25

    It’s about train paths and making best use of the track and signalling and providing a regular service across the whole network.

    In fact serving LHR was a relatively late addition to the project and sending 2 trains an hour to T5 an even later one.

    Even when the Abbey Wood trains went to T5 there were still only two of them an hour.

• Paul says:

  21 May21 May 06:52

  Still nothing direct fro the west

  • Michael Jennings says:

    21 May21 May 12:17

    This requires building another rail link. There are plans and it would be great, but I am not holding my breath.

• Just Nick says:

  21 May21 May 07:00

  The crazy thing is that Maidenhead to T5 takes 55 minutes.

  • Dominic says:

    21 May21 May 07:03

    Can you not go to Hayes and Harlington and then switch? Dependent on cross-over time, should be less than 55?

    • TimM says:

      21 May21 May 07:08

      Only via Mornington Crescent.

      • G says:

        21 May21 May 07:19

        That’s only if you stop at Euston? Can I have Euston?

        • RCHammer says:

          21 May21 May 08:23

          Yes, if you use the Argyle Street parabola

        • G says:

          21 May21 May 21:24

          Wouldn’t that leave me in nidd?

    • Bagoly says:

      21 May21 May 07:54

      But once you add changing, to a service which doesn’t run every 5 minutes, one has to add a significant margin of safety – in this case probably 30 minutes.
      The HAL rent-seeking from the tunnel is the primary problem.
      But I do wonder whether the timetabling planners are making a mistake by assuming no-errors – that two fast services per hours is more useful than say six less fast ones.
      For transport to an airport where missing the flight is a major cost, reliability (and recovery if one gets delayed getting to the starting station) is higher priority than speed.

      • Richie says:

        21 May21 May 08:00

        Very good points, only every half hour to T5 isn’t great.

        • The Original David says:

          21 May21 May 08:10

          All these “only every half hour to T5” complaints are either trolls or totally missing the point. There are 4 (free) HEX services every hour from T2/3 to T5, that use the same platforms as the Elizabeth line. Plus the 2 Elizabeth line trains makes 6 trains/hr from T2/3 to T5. Just get on the first Elizabeth line to Heathrow that you see, if it’s not going to T5 then get off at T2/3 and wait on the same platform for about 10 minutes max and you’ll be on your way again. No story to see here.

• KP says:

  21 May21 May 07:15

  No direct service from canary wharf? What about all the bankers making trips to NYC on BA ?

  • Dan says:

    21 May21 May 07:44

    You just have to get of the platform and wait for the next train will be less that 8 mins.

  • Luca says:

    21 May21 May 07:51

    Work from home then straight to airport. Another covid evolution.

    • Amo says:

      21 May21 May 21:08

      For some of us, Canary Wharf is home

• Jenny says:

  21 May21 May 07:38

  Looking at the live departures just now, still only one train every half an hour from Farringdon toT5, and even fewer to T4. I tried it the other week and concluded I would have got to Heathrow just as quickly on the Piccadilly line, due to the long wait for a Heathrow train. Departure board is still showing around half of all westbound trains terminating at Paddington, which is completely useless.

  • lumma says:

    21 May21 May 10:19

    There’s 6 trains per hour to Heathrow T2/3 from Farringdon right now. They’re not evenly spaced out though, it’s 15 min, 15 min, 3 min, 15 min, 15 min, 3 min0p

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    21 May21 May 10:29

    Early Sunday morning isn’t the best example of the service patterns.

    And as I posted above LHR was a relatively late addition to Lizzie Line and T5 an even later one.

  • redlilly says:

    21 May21 May 11:09

    I live in Islington and time leaving the house via the bus or taxi to the Elizabeth Line either from Moorgate or Farringdon. You just have to treat it as a train timetable, with fixed departure times, not a tube I.e. turning up and expecting a carriage to be going about where you want within the next 4 minutes. It has worked faultlessly for us at least 6 times now from home to Heathrow. Same when leaving work for the airport from Tottenham Court Road.

• David Cohen says:

  21 May21 May 08:00

  Heathrow really need to give the train paths for the Hex back and end the service. It’s now a pretty pointless. Returning those paths would allow both GWR to run more services, taking the remaining 2tph from the relief lines, and enabling the Lizzie line to serve an extra 2tph to T5 instead.

  • MT says:

    21 May21 May 08:12

    I do agree in theory the time of HEX should be over. My only question is that currently there are 8 trains per hour (4 HEX & 4 EL) from Heathrow. If HEX ceased to exist do TFL actually have the EL trainsets to pickup the slack. They would need to add 2 extra services mininum, making it 6 trains per hour, but overall it would be a large reduction in seats and my recent experience of the HEX is that its still pretty busy, especially from the Paddington end. So while the theory sounds great, can it be actually done practically.

    • Nick says:

      21 May21 May 10:46

      They’d have enough trains for 2 extra today, but possibly not 4. There’s enough slack for 100% of the current paddington terminators to extend to old oak common if/when that ever gets built, so with a timetable recast that collective slack is enough to extend a couple to Heathrow. Would need new trainsets to be built in future though, and IIRC they’ve since destroyed the moulds so that will be expensive.

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

        21 May21 May 10:54

        There aren’t 2 extra trains today though. it’s still the same 6 Lizzie service to LHR it’s just the origination point of the 2 T5 services has changed.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      21 May21 May 10:49

      There are 6 Lizzie line train an hour to LHR – 2 to T5 and 4 to T4. All six trains stop at T2/T3.

      But unless HAL ends HEX operations of its own volition or doesn’t have it’s concession renewed in 2028 there can’t be any additional Lizzie services to LHR as there aren’t the train paths for anymore than the existing 10 trains an hour,

      And without a major timetable and then a software rewrite and more train paths releases Lizzie can’t operate any more than 10 trains an hour (the 6 + 4) anyway.

      And it would also require more Lizzie train sets.

      No idea how many passengers a HEX can carry but it’s unlikely to be anywhere near the 1,500 passengers a lizzie line train can carry.

    • martin says:

      22 May22 May 13:25

      the London Reconnections blog has done a bit of a deep dive into the future business case for the HEx: https://www.londonreconnections.com/2023/the-slow-death-of-heathrow-express/

  • MIchael Jennings says:

    21 May21 May 12:25

    TfL is presently “investigating the possibility” of adding another two Elizabeth Line T5 services an hour without the need to get rid of the Heathrow Express. There are twin tracks to T5 meaning that in theory it should be possible to turn around 8 trains an hour there. There is only single track to T4, meaning that only 4 can be turned around there.

    Although this present set of changes is being announced as the “final timetable”, this means that they have achieved all the objectives that they originally promised. They will continue tweaking things and improving things where it is possible.

    And yes, I am also for getting rid of the Heathrow Express. That would potentially give a total of 12 Elizabeth Line trains an hour to Heathrow, and would mean that 18 peak hour trains out of 24 going west would continue to somewhere else after reaching Paddington.

• Pb says:

  21 May21 May 08:19

  Must be time for a strike ….

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