[HN Gopher] Riding London's unexpectedly fantastic Elizabeth line
___________________________________________________________________
Riding London's unexpectedly fantastic Elizabeth line
Author : bryanrasmussen
Score : 102 points
Date : 2022-06-05 13:20 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| Biologist123 wrote:
| Looking at the Wikipedia page for the project, I was interested
| to see that proposals for the project were drawn up between
| 1941-48.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail
| gumby wrote:
| Check out the second ave subway in NYC which was planned in
| 1920. The first phase opened in 2017; the second phase
| construction.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway
| Biologist123 wrote:
| Fascinating. (Aaarrghhhhh).
| dmurray wrote:
| > ran from Paddington, where the great railways entered London
| from the west, to Farringdon, on the edge of the city
|
| The _New Yorker_ sub-editors are notoriously anal about their
| house style, but you 'd think the one who dealt with this article
| could have left it as "the edge of the City" rather than
| completely changing the meaning.
| cja wrote:
| Thank you. I don't know much about London geography and this
| really confused me. I could believe neither that the
| underground line went outwards from Paddington nor that
| Paddington was outside the city at that time.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Farringdon, the edge of "The City of London", certainly not
| the city named London.
| samwillis wrote:
| What will be of interest to HN readers is the reason for, well
| one of, the delay.
|
| The Elizabeth line (it was called Cross Rail during development)
| is the first train line that combines both the national rail
| infrastructure and the London Underground. Combining the
| signalling systems has be an incredible complex problem. There is
| quite a bit online to read about it:
|
| https://www.wired.co.uk/article/crossrail-delay-logistics
|
| https://www.crossrail.co.uk/project/our-plan-to-complete-the...
| tomalpha wrote:
| It's possible I understand this differently to the way you
| meant it, but other sections of the Underground have National
| Rail trains running on them, and visa versa. For example, the
| Wimbledon Branch of the District Line :
| https://districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/30753/wimbledon-bran...
|
| (I know it's a forum post but that old website is a wealth of
| information about the District Line).
| [deleted]
| Arbortheus wrote:
| This video also explains the problems:
| https://youtu.be/rtE0nlOrwGQ. In fact, it's not just the
| problem of combining the national rail and underground
| signalling systems, but there's even a third signalling system
| used by the Heathrow Express.
|
| So the trains will need to seamlessly transition between TPWS
| on the national railway lines, then CBTC in the London
| underground, and ETCS when going to Heathrow airport.
|
| I think this is what they call integration hell, and is
| responsible for delays of several years. When you consider the
| complexity, but also the safety-critical nature of these train
| signalling systems, it's no wonder it has overrun.
| steve_gh wrote:
| Here's the basic problem. Network Rail (the UK's national
| rail track authority) runs a timetabled service. So they have
| planned where every train should be at any moment. The
| underground is a metro service. They are not trying to
| maintain an absolute timetable, but a constant interval
| between trains - for example if they have a problem with a
| train they will delay trains ahead to try and smooth the
| intervals between trains and stop platforms becoming
| dangerously crowded.
|
| So the "integration hell" is trying to integrate between
| services with completely different service strategies.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| These are not completely different service strategies.
|
| Both have planned where every trains should be at any
| moment. The difference is the amount of leeway you have to
| fix operational issues.
|
| You can think of the metro as a "timetabled" system where
| the density is so high you have no margin. When something
| happen you have to shift and cancel. Train lines start
| having exactly the same issues when they operate near
| capacity.
|
| Both systems have the same constraints. Trains can't
| overtake. You can only have one per block. The integration
| difficulty is that they don't manage blocks in the same way
| and use different signalling. You see the same issue on
| lines which are shared between SNCF and RATP in Paris. The
| A line used to require a driver change at the junction.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Right. Metro service is a _passenger feature_ but it isn
| 't how the service is actually delivered. As a passenger
| your experience during core hours of operation, and
| especially in the inner city, is that you descend into
| the system and you just take the next train, because
| there will be a next train. Don't run for a departing
| train, just wait for the next one.
|
| There actually _is_ a timetable for all of London
| Underground, it 's needed to roster drivers. But the only
| services ordinary passengers actually care about are the
| first ones and the last ones, Amersham to Baker Street
| last train is 23:22, if you're out of the city too late
| for that, you're not getting a tube home. When/ where
| there is Night Tube you probably don't care, as most
| people taking Night Tube aren't exactly on a tight
| schedule.
|
| However, the Underground is _not_ run at capacity as you
| imply. There is deliberately wiggle room for "recovery"
| from events even at 30tph. This is one reason why the
| Circle Line isn't a circle any more, it makes it possible
| to recover more easily on that line.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > However, the Underground is not run at capacity as you
| imply. There is deliberately wiggle room for "recovery"
| from events even at 30tph.
|
| Part of the underground is definitely run so close to
| that you can think of it as run at capacity. There is
| some wiggle room especially where it's manually driven
| and during the slowest hours but nothing comparable to a
| typical train service. I am admittedly a lot more
| familiar with the French situation - I worked for the
| French national infrastructure manager on modernising
| traffic management and for TGV on their planning system -
| but some lines in Paris the block sec is so low even the
| slightest delay in doors closing will lead to
| cancellation and trains can't be controlled manually.
| [deleted]
| samstave wrote:
| Its really interesting to think of things in terms of
| "Volume of Human Bodies" for planning for infra...
|
| EDIT: I guess this is the literal definition of "Civil
| Engineer"
| 7952 wrote:
| Crossrail is not part of the the London Underground and uses
| its own tunnels. The trains will be longer, fatter and use
| overhead electrification instead of the third rail used on
| the underground. Although the same signalling system is being
| installed on some of the London Underground. Outside of the
| central section it runs on existing mainline tracks on the
| Great Western and Great Eastern which both had different
| legacy systems.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I guess they must have solved the underground/Heathrow in the
| past for the Piccadilly line which has multiple Heathrow
| stops, so I wonder how much of however that works they could
| re-use.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| No - the Piccadilly Line is just plain vanilla Underground,
| whereas the Heathrow Express line (which the Elizabeth Line
| is using) is a branch off the Great Western Main Line
| railway.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Ah of course, Heathrow Express is another line - makes
| sense!
| iggldiggl wrote:
| > The Elizabeth line (it was called Cross Rail during
| development) is the first train line that combines both the
| national rail infrastructure and the London Underground.
| Combining the signalling systems has be an incredible complex
| problem.
|
| No, it isn't. Historically the boundary between the Underground
| and the rest of the "mainline" railway network used to be even
| fuzzier with lots of through-running, but even today a few
| stretches of lines served by both Underground and mainline
| trains remain (the Metropolitan Line north of Harrow-on-the-
| Hill, the outer ends of the District Line to both Richmond and
| Wimbledon, the Bakerloo Line north of Queen's Park).
|
| What's true though is that due to its capacity requirements,
| Crossrail is using a different signalling system than the rest
| of the railway network, which means lovely interface issues at
| the transition points...
| United857 wrote:
| Bit of trivia: the Elizabeth Line is actually run by a subsidary
| of Hong Kong's MTR, arguably one of the best transit systems in
| the world.
|
| https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3179455/londo...
| hgomersall wrote:
| This highlights something that's amused me for a while about
| our "privatised" rail system - the private companies are mostly
| owned by foreign state transport companies.
| karencarits wrote:
| This is also true in Norway, SJ - previously called the
| Swedish State Railways - is now managing trains several
| places after the privatisation of the rail system
| mhh__ wrote:
| The thing is that British (mainly Tory) politicians who
| believe in privatisation do not care about basically anything
| other than tax bills or giving contracts to conveniently
| nepotistic ventures.
|
| Sometimes there is nothing wrong with this, but equally we
| have lost vast amounts of skills within our borders basically
| because privatisation is aimed at the wrong kind of
| efficiency.
| qgin wrote:
| Over budget or not, this kind of project seems literally
| impossible in the United States.
| rowanajmarshall wrote:
| I took the Elizabeth Line last week for the first time, to get to
| Comic-Con. It was great, same vibe as the DLR only underground.
| cpncrunch wrote:
| Presumably faster than the DLR!
| nicoburns wrote:
| I feel like it's not at all unexpected that the Elizabeth Line is
| fantastic (although this is probably a little over exuberant by
| British standards of praise). Over budget but well implemented
| seems to have been the pattern for public infrastructure projects
| in the UK for some time now.
| samwillis wrote:
| I think your right, however they don't always pick the right
| projects to do. HS2 for example isn't exactly thought of as the
| right place to spend a few 10s billion pounds.
| Arbortheus wrote:
| Perhaps unpopular opinion but I think HS2 is the correct
| option. Firstly, more capacity is needed on the rail network
| and this is a key arterial route that is already running
| at/over capacity. Secondly, it'll allow freight to be added
| to the existing slower lines, which is key for
| decarbonisation. Finally, if you're going to build new
| railway lines, you might as well build something that isn't
| immediately obsolete. The alternative is to build something
| that is fast-but-not-quite-high-speed, which means not using
| what is essentially industry standard for new rail lines. It
| would be a bizarre choice.
| pharmakom wrote:
| I support HS2 but as an alternative to more road building.
| Unfortunately the government seems to have chosen _both_!
| scrlk wrote:
| >Firstly, more capacity is needed on the rail network and
| this is a key arterial route that is already running
| at/over capacity.
|
| I always found it bizarre that most of the press around HS2
| never really mentions the capacity issues of the West Coast
| Main Line.
|
| Most people will ask "why spend PS100 bn to shave 30 mins
| off London - Birmingham, can't you just upgrade the
| existing lines?", which IMO is a fair question to ask. They
| need to do a better job of explaining why it's not
| practical to upgrade the WCML & why building a new line is
| the better long term solution.
| 7952 wrote:
| Or the slow speeds on some of the other "mainlines" into
| London. Bournemouth is less than 100 miles and takes
| 2hrs+.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I use the WCML a lot and it's pretty rickety. Parts of it
| are like a rollercoaster. I'm not sure you can go any
| faster on it and I guess it can't be straightened and
| levelled as (like most of the UK) the terrain is
| congested.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, which parts are these? I've used it up
| to Preston several times and didn't notice much out of
| the ordinary (compared to trains in Switzerland, for
| instance).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| There's definitely twenty minutes south of Crewe where I
| have to put my laptop away or I'll feel sick, and can't
| have a full cup of tea on the table without a lid.
| scrlk wrote:
| There were plans under British Rail [0] and Railtrack [1]
| to push running above 125 mph via realignments &
| resignalling. Virgin Trains proposed running at 135 mph
| via the Tilt Authorisation and Speed Supervision system
| [2].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterCity_250#Project_scope
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Main_Line#Mo
| dernist...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Main_Line#In
| creased...
| tialaramex wrote:
| A major problem you run into is that you really want in-
| cab signalling at these speeds and you might well do
| speed signalling when you take a big upgrade like that. A
| lineside position lamp arrangement which indicates
| "Caution: The next signal is at: Caution: The next signal
| is at: Caution: The next signal is at: DANGER" blurring
| past at 140mph is too much for humans to reliably
| appreciate their import and react to it in an efficient
| fashion.
|
| Trains on HS1 have TVM or equivalent, in-cab signalling.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Voie-
| Machine#Cab_... - you can see at a glance that the
| computer says you're going 269kph, the limit here is
| still 270kph, but the signals indicate the limit ahead
| will be 220kph so you should be braking.
| was_a_dev wrote:
| The inevitable happened with HS2. They scraped it heading
| further north. Now it is _just_ a project to get to
| London quicker
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I live in the North and I'd love to be able to get across
| the Pennines more quickly, and to be able to get to
| places like Leeds and Newcastle quickly.
|
| But being realistic.... 90% of business, social, and
| civic activity is in London so that's where I need to get
| quickly.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > 90% of business, social, and civic activity is in
| London
|
| And that imbalance is what we really should be trying to
| fix. Will HS2 make any difference? I don't know...
|
| [edit to add: speaking as one who lives less than 60
| miles from central London.]
| brigandish wrote:
| That's at least partly because London already has the
| best transport infrastructure. If other places had better
| infrastructure then they should attract more business and
| more of your attention.
| kitd wrote:
| "Over budget" gets forgotten about in a few years. "Well
| implemented" lasts its lifetime.
| mrec wrote:
| > _fantastic [...] is probably a little over exuberant by
| British standards of praise_
|
| Indeed. "Quite good" is usually considered the absolute
| pinnacle of fawning adulation.
| not2b wrote:
| If a Brit says that my presentation was "quite good", I know
| I am in trouble.
| nprateem wrote:
| Just one notch above the almost exceptional "not bad"
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| Please. "Not bad at all, really."
| Naga wrote:
| I'd take that. The Canadian pattern is over budget poorly
| implemented.
| [deleted]
| nbevans wrote:
| Indeed - the expectations were very high for Crossrail before
| and during development. All that has happened is they have
| delivered the product exactly as described, albeit 4 years
| later and over budget.
|
| It should be noted that 4 years ago the BBC were running
| documentaries about how successful the Crossrail project had
| been after the tunnels were finished and most of the stations
| were almost done. It seems that nobody expected the software
| and signalling to take an additional 4 years of time. Somebody
| somewhere really messed up that part of the project. Everything
| else - the main civil engineering project - did go extremely
| smoothly and was even ahead of schedule at times.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > It seems that nobody expected the software and signalling
| to take an additional 4 years of time. Somebody somewhere
| really messed up that part of the project. Everything else -
| the main civil engineering project - did go extremely
| smoothly and was even ahead of schedule at times.
|
| I understand software and signaling took extra time, but
| those drove the costs too? Compared to the rest, they don't
| seem expensive.
| basisword wrote:
| It's not like software engineers to underestimate how long
| something will take :)
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| How do we fix it though? I empathise with the developers
| involved - there's an inclination to look at what they had
| to do as just engineer some software to manage some
| signals, some diagnostics and some trains. And to some
| extent that's true but it overlooks the other part of their
| process which is more akin to painting a great artwork -
| when will you be done with that?
|
| I frequently see one answer fail - we just need to plan it
| more thoroughly, don't just estimate, go through exactly
| what you'll need, identify dependencies now not during
| coding. These efforts always fall for the same reason, when
| it comes time to implement, the plan is hopelessly out of
| date, incomplete and just plain naive.
|
| It's easy to deliver software on time up to around 10kLOC
| (i.e. single developer short project). Beyond that, the
| variables cascade and avalanche exponentially. The problem
| with this is all the interesting problems need >1dev and
| certainly more than 10kLoc!
|
| On balance I'm more persuaded by XP than by Royce but
| honestly i don't think either approach makes or breaks,
| both can work well.
| basisword wrote:
| I disagree with the artwork analogy. I think it's quite
| easy to decide when a software project is "done" if you
| set the requirements in detail at the beginning.
|
| I think the issue plaguing estimation of projects is that
| a lot of software development involves running into
| problems and trying to solve them. Sometimes figuring out
| solutions to these issues is difficult and solutions
| appear as if by magic (in this was the art analogy makes
| sense in terms of inspiration). I'm not sure how we can
| ever estimate large projects accurately while we often
| need these moments of inspiration in order to solve
| problems.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| >> if you set the requirements in detail at the beginning
|
| How do you do that though? If we're only talking about
| nailing down requirements (so lets ignore the problem of
| dependencies for now), then a 300 page BRD buys you
| enough spec to gainfully employ 4 devs for maybe a month-
| ish? I'm going off fin reg style work, i have no idea how
| that might translate to civil engineering so my numbers
| might be well off?
|
| The BRD wasn't free to produce, it contains 3-9 errors
| (assuming human rate of error is 1 to 3 in 100), and it's
| being updated to v2 as you're working.
|
| How is this getting us all to the overall goal with
| predictable timing?
| trebligdivad wrote:
| Oh I bet plenty of engineers knew the estimates weren't
| right. I've seen cases where people don't point this out
| to management because they expect if they do management
| would just put htem under more pressure rather than
| getting the timeline right.
| solar-ice wrote:
| My understanding is that the train software got built,
| more-or-less, according to the spec given, in a synthetic
| environment.
|
| The problem is that in real-world testing, conditions
| around the changeover points produced behaviour that was
| not addressed by the spec. It turns out that dealing with
| radio-based systems in the middle of a busy rail network in
| the middle of a city is really hard. Many of the problems
| were caused by radio interference in the area. It's
| definitely the sort of problem practically nobody on this
| forum works on.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| It didn't help that about 4 years ago, just before it was
| due, they were declaring it was going to be one of the few
| projects that was going to be delivered on time and under
| budget, and only caved at the last minute.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| We wish we had decent rail lines in the US.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| We do, we just use it to move astonishing amounts of cargo
| instead of humans.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Who said you can't do both.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Anyone who has ridden Amtrak and had to pull over and
| weight for a freight train to pass.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Avoiding that situation has to be Scheduling 101.
| kortilla wrote:
| The rails are owned by freight. Scheduling 101 is to
| optimize their freight throughput.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Also, the sidings can't accomodate 100-car freight
| trains, so Amtrak trains are forced to wait in the siding
| for the slow freight train to pass.
| blibble wrote:
| isn't it by design, given the freight companies own the
| railways?
|
| in the UK it's the opposite, freight trains get pushed
| into sidings so passenger trains can overtake
|
| (but then they don't get charged for causing delays)
| stetrain wrote:
| Amtrak is legally supposed to get priority but I think
| they can't directly sue the freight railroads for failing
| to meet this requirement.
| ghaff wrote:
| My understanding is that Amtrak is supposed to get
| priority if the Amtrak train is on schedule. That is
| often not the case.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I don't understand how a train may not be on schedule.
| There's two rails on which the train runs in completely
| deterministic matter, unlike air or car traffic.
| ghaff wrote:
| Because trains get delayed by other trains even though
| they're not supposed to be, crew are late, there are
| mechanical issues of some sort, person on the tracks...
| Most air delays don't have to do with weather or other
| things in the air. They have to do with things that
| happen with getting into the air.
|
| I take commuter rail every now and then which mostly
| doesn't compete a lot with freight and delays are, if not
| super-common, not rare.
|
| Amtrak is very possibly worse than other systems in this
| regard but it's not hard to see how multi-day train trips
| could accumulate delays when sharing tracks with miles-
| long freight trains traveling at sometimes very slow
| speeds.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I imagine that locomotives have redundancy of some sort
| so a single mechanical failure should not cause
| paralysis.
|
| Other than that, having some padding and a schedule
| should get you two nines.
|
| I imagine you have to strech the schedule or skip
| maintenance to get that sort of cascading failures.
| stetrain wrote:
| Yeah at like 15mph through old track in urban areas.
|
| We do have a huge freight network that moves a lot of
| tonnage, but I wouldn't call it modern or world-class in
| track infrastructure, speeds, signaling, train control
| automation, or electrification.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| The US only has like 500 miles of modern rail track - between
| Boston and Washington.
| gumby wrote:
| I wouldn't call that "modern": the "high speed" train has a
| top speed of 86 mph and in my experience only attains that
| for 15 minutes between Boston and NYC.
|
| On the NYC DC stretch, scheduled "high speed" service is
| only 20-30 minutes shorter than the much cheaper regular
| service that stops at every station.
| danans wrote:
| > has a top speed of 86 mph and in my experience only
| attains that for 15 minutes between Boston and NYC.
|
| 135 to 150mph. There are plenty of YouTube videos of
| people independently verifying the speed either from the
| train using a phone speedometer app) or using a speed
| measurement device from alongside the track.
|
| Here is one (go to timestamp 6:13):
|
| https://youtu.be/KHF8ajhAZa8
| gumby wrote:
| The conductor sometimes announces it and I've never heard
| it exceed mid 80s. I also have a phone and can look how
| fast I'm traveling myself. I've never personally
| experienced the speeds claimed by that video on Acela.
|
| The Acela schedules for nyc-dc last week were pretty
| damning. Shaving 30 minutes (at best!) from a 3 hour
| makes-every-stop trip clearly doesn't mean significant
| high speed travel.
|
| At earlier stages of my life I was a regular traveler on
| tgv/Thales/Eurostar, ICE, and Shinkansen. I know what a
| high speed train feels like.
| therealcamino wrote:
| I don't think "It didn't feel that fast to me" is a basis
| for claiming the published speeds are a lie. You can get
| real time train information at
| https://www.amtrak.com/services/maps.trainlocation.html .
| The first two trains I clicked on in MD and NJ were at
| 104mph and 124mph.
| ghaff wrote:
| For Boston to NYC, the Acela only hits peakish speed for
| a relatively short part of its journey. It is faster than
| the regular regional train but not by all that much--
| maybe by 30 minutes or a bit more. (The biggest benefit
| to the introduction of Acela was that it required the
| electrification of the tracks north of New Haven which
| eliminated what could be a fairly long engine switch on
| the regular regional train.) If I'm paying out of my own
| pocket I usually just take the regional.
| therealcamino wrote:
| North of NYC is definitely slower than south of NYC (and
| nobody misses changing locomotives in New Haven.) It
| sounded to me like the poster was claiming a top speed of
| 86 for the entire Boston to Washington route, which is
| what I was responding to.
| gumby wrote:
| I didn't use the word "lie" just related my experience,
| including using a gps speed app. It's fine if other
| people have a different experience. I like trains which
| is why I use such an app on my phone.
|
| In my experience the Acela is rather absurd. Comfy, sure;
| I do take it on the BOS-NYC route but in my experience
| it's not worth the price for NY-DC. Lookimg right now at
| Amtrak app nyc-was, we have the regional 57 Vermonter
| taking 3:27 and the Acela 2259 3:04. I don't think that's
| worth paying extra for.
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > "high speed" train has a top speed of 86 mph
|
| Wikipedia says 150, but I guess if you live there you
| probably know better.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela
| gumby wrote:
| yes, that's my experience, though there is a thread
| parallel to your comment that disputes it.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| was_a_dev wrote:
| I wish we had decent rail lines outside of London
| secondcoming wrote:
| Scotland's rail system seems fine
| pmyteh wrote:
| We do; just not everywhere. I've moved to Liverpool, and the
| rail system here is great (as far as it goes - it could
| always use more lines). Fifteen minute interval suburban
| service from the south suburbs under the city all the way to
| Southport, fast and frequent service to places in the Wirral
| etc. It's great - Merseyrail is an unusual example of a
| forward-looking rail system done in the 70s. The trains are
| old now (new ones on the way) but it just works.
|
| Leeds? Not so much. Daventry? Nothing. Whitby? One slow train
| every two hours.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Oh hello I live on the Wirral. I wish the line on the south
| of the peninsula was more used.
| merrvk wrote:
| We used to until Dr Beeching
| LightG wrote:
| We wish we had decent rail lines in London.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Have you ever been anywhere other than London? What a
| distorted perspective!
| blitzar wrote:
| Ever been to a big city in asia?
|
| There is a reason its the MTR (of Hong Kong) Crossrail
| Line...
| foldr wrote:
| I often think that the British love of whining and
| complaining must give people elsewhere in the world a very
| distorted impression of the country. London has a very good
| rail system. It's striking that the only specific complaint
| that you've made about it in these comments is that some
| sections of some lines are a bit noisy. Oh dear!
| iqkznnft wrote:
| Why is it unexpected that it's fantastic? What a stupid thing to
| say.
| ksec wrote:
| Well first thing is that the Elizebeth line, even on the World
| Stage is absolutely top class ( I know that doesn't sound very
| British XD ). And It is building on top or next to the oldest
| underground / railroad system. There are plenty of new
| infrastructures that aren't better than similar ones in Japan
| or South Korea.
|
| The second this is coming from Newyorker.
| [deleted]
| LightG wrote:
| I'm sure others will disagree but, as a Londoner, I wish they'd
| spent the money on the rest of the system.
|
| There's a cohort of us that have to put our fingers in our ears
| on the approach to some stations as the grinding of wheels
| against tracks reaches an incredible volume. Pretty sure it must
| be illegal on some checklist somewhere.
|
| Not to mention the raggedy state of most of the other lines. I'll
| stop before this becomes a full blown rant.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Bendy track will result in screeches. I used live near Clapham
| Junction and you'd hear it there. The only solution is maglev.
| jleahy wrote:
| Ahhh the northern line.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I'll always remember that extremely hot summer when someone
| tweeted at the Central Line support twitter account about how
| bad it was, and got a cheery response that it'll be sorted in
| "early 2030" when they get new trains with air conditioning.
| lostlogin wrote:
| It'll be interesting to see how it fares in 2030. The ground
| around the tubes is heating up, slowly and steadily from
| something like 14 degrees centigrade when the tube systems
| was built, to over 20 degrees now.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_cooling
| blibble wrote:
| it's a difficult problem to solve as air conditioning doesn't
| produce cold, it only moves the heat elsewhere (producing
| more heat in the process)
|
| on a tube train there's nowhere to expel the heat other than
| the tunnel, which doesn't really solve the problem
|
| (plus the trains are small enough as it is, without large AC
| units)
| blitzar wrote:
| Not sure what you mean ...
|
| Northern line had a much needed extension along to battersea
|
| Picadilly line stations have been seeing a lot of elevator and
| escalator replacements.
|
| Circle and district line new trains are magnificent.
|
| Add in the tfl rail connections, the outer circle line of sorts
| that creates
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Its going to get worse, as the present government is making
| sure that TFL (the organisation incharge of running transport
| in london) cannot raise enough money to cover costs.
| xedarius wrote:
| It is great and should be celebrated. For me the big win is no
| longer having to hand over high-way robbery amounts of money for
| the Heathrow express. Having a better and cheaper service to
| Heathrow terminals is brilliant. Byeeeee Heathrow express!
| orev wrote:
| Heathrow Express is likely used mostly by business travelers,
| who expense everything to their company. So the price doesn't
| matter.
| mFixman wrote:
| Don't forget confused tourists.
|
| There are ads and ticket sellers points of the Heathrow
| Express all over Heathrow's terminals. It's easy to
| accidentally pay for an overpriced train if you don't know
| there is an alternative that costs half the money and arrived
| in almost the same amount of time.
|
| The last time I was in Heathrow I befriended a poor couple of
| Italians who bought a PS25 Heathrow Express ticket because
| they thought they needed it to ride the PS2.50 Picadilly
| Line.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| But given that many of those business travellers will be
| going to/from the City (Liverpool Street) or Canary Wharf,
| the Elizabeth Line is going to be a much more attractive
| proposition even disregarding the price difference.
|
| I expect Heathrow Express to be quietly abandoned in a few
| years' time. Network Rail and GWR would quite like the trains
| off the GWML fast lines.
| likpok wrote:
| Yeah, I've traveled to London a lot and the new office is a
| short walk from the Elizabeth line. It's an even shorter
| walk than the tube! The new line would have to be quite bad
| for me to stick with heathrow express (once the Elizabeth
| line finally shows up at heathrow...)
| ghaff wrote:
| That's always been my expectation. It can make sense on your
| own to just pony up if you're leaving from near Paddington
| anyway, especially if you have luggage. But I usually stay
| near Trafalgar Square and just take the Piccadilly Line.
| joshvm wrote:
| Yes, I'm also curious what will happen there. The Express is
| still faster (20 vs 30 mins), but costs twice as much. And you
| have to get it from Paddington. It sits in a weird niche where
| the alternative rail routes weren't _that_ much longer, but if
| you really had to get to the airport in a hurry (especially
| connecting from the West Country) it was a nice emergency
| option.
|
| Now you also have the option of doing Reading > Hayes >
| Heathrow entirely on the Elizabeth Line.
|
| My biggest gripe is that despite the high price, you spend the
| entire journey being force-fed live news on the TV and PR fluff
| about how it's the best rated line in the UK (no surprise, it
| goes between two stations).
| cannam wrote:
| Heathrow Express has long been a bit lost. The original idea
| was that you would check in for your flight - including
| baggage drop - at Paddington before taking the Express. When
| the "lawn" area at Paddington was opened in 1999, the back
| wall (now a row of shops, from Boots to Fat Face) was a row
| of check-in desks with baggage facilities.
|
| I never used these and I kind of wish I had, because after
| 9/11 they closed and never reopened.
|
| [edit: Wikipedia tells me the check-in service ran until 2003
| and "was withdrawn due to low usage and high cost of
| operation", nothing to do with 9/11. My mind must have filled
| in the more dramatic memory]
|
| Then a few years later the Heathrow Connect service opened, a
| slightly slower, much cheaper alternative to the Express (it
| changed names a few times but I believe is the same service
| as now constitutes the Elizabeth Line on that stretch) - so
| nobody who was coming from Paddington, planning ahead, and
| paying their own fare had much reason to take the Express any
| more.
| likpok wrote:
| You can take the tube to heathrow today, and it's not too bad
| an experience. Going to soho it's only 20 minutes longer than
| heathrow express (and no train change!).
|
| It is a bit annoying to take from terminal 3 -- they really
| push you to the express. But easy enough and I've done it a
| couple times when traveling on my own dime.
|
| Total price ends up around PS4-5.
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