Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
Why Elizabeth line trains are set to be faster at the weekends from November
THE long-awaited introduction of through services on the Elizabeth line from its outer branches (Reading, Shenfield, Heathrow Airport) from November 6 means a new timetable has been drawn up in order to accommodate the extra train journeys.
As well as introducing a Sunday service, 16 off-peak and 22 peak trains per hour will now run through most of the new central section under Zone 1 between Paddington and Whitechapel stations. Piecing together such a timetable isn’t easy though.
At present, most of the Elizabeth line runs self-contained. There are no other trains on the central section between Paddington and Abbey Wood and very few other trains between Liverpool Street and Shenfield on the slow lines it uses (c2c at weekends).
However the western branch (Paddington-Heathrow/Reading) is a real jigsaw. On the slow lines which are used by Elizabeth line trains, a number of GWR and freight trains also have to run.
To make matters even more complicated, the GWR trains are faster than the Elizabeth line ones (can run at up to 110mph, although speed limit is 90mph for majority of route), but the freight trains are much slower so it takes different amounts of time for each train to run from one point on the line to the next, meaning trains need to be spaced properly and overtake others when possible to avoid passengers on a faster service being stuck behind a slower one or a freight train.
As the timetable from November 6 will mean more Elizabeth line trains will run on the western branch, timetable planners have been creative to find a solution, even if a little unusual.
They have written a timetable which will see Elizabeth line trains run faster on weekends than on weekdays.
For example, Heathrow-Canary Wharf will be six minutes quicker on Saturdays and Sundays than Monday-Friday in the next timetable (45 weekends, 51 weekdays).
The reason for this is that on weekdays there’s a higher number of slow freight trains running on the western branch, which requires planners to put in ‘pathing time’ (extra runtime) to get Elizabeth line trains around them.
There are less at weekends, so planners are able to speed the journeys up and make them more ‘standard’.
This won’t be obvious to most passengers when onboard the train, as what will usually happen is that trains will be held near Paddington for a short time (an announcement will play when this happens to keep passengers informed) or trains will simply run slower than usual (given extra time than usually necessary) in between stations.
It means at some stations, trains may not be equally spaced to give a clockface timetable pattern.
This is an established practice across the railway, with some trains on the new London Overground extension to Barking Riverside falling outside of the usual 15 minute service pattern.
Transport for London (TfL) has advised that this extra pathing time and the weekday/weekend discrepancy will be resolved in future timetable changes.