One of the final public Crossrail tests today sees full 24 tph running
Crossrail are conducting one of the last tests with mass passengers in advance of setting an opening date.
Today’s test involves seeing how the system works with a full 24 trains per hour network recovering from disruption, and again sees volunteer passengers using Woolwich station.
Crossrail, sorry, Elizabeth Line trains will from Paddington to Woolwich and back again, seeing how the station copes with trains arriving every 2.5 minutes during disruption.
This is one of the final tests using volunteers, with the next stage waiting for final sign off from regulators before passenger services begin.
It’s pretty much already a functioning railway, with trains running day after day and stations operational with destination boards functioning. It’s just lacking paying punters.
Optimistic notions of a 6th March opening earlier this year have not come to pass, and now some indications suggest late April. Of course it may even be as late as June according to the window TfL have stated, which will be annoying as I have a handful of trips already lined up before then which would be greatly improved by it opening.
In fact, there are hundreds if not thousands of trips I’ve made since around 2006 – when I started taking an interest – that would have been sped up and made far easier.
The opening cannot come soon enough.
I hope all the final test go ahead with out any incidents. So the Crossrail (Elizabeth Line) will open to fare paying passengers in the near future. Hopefully the Elizabeth Line will be open in time for the Queen’s platinum Jubilee this summer.
It will be good to see this long delayed and massively over budget project finally begin service even if only partially operational.
It is hard to see how the central section from Abbey Wood to Paddington could not be ready. It is a brand new line, running brand new trains, on a brand new track, through through brand new tunnels, with a brand new signalling system, serving brand new stations. It never should have suffered from the problems associated with integrating different signalling systems that is holding up the rollout of the full east-west service. And they have been testing it to death for months now. It’s clearly safe. Time to just get on with it and let the public use it.
The only hold-up now is being caused by risk-averse civil servants covering their own backs in case there is a minor error on day 1 that causes a mildly embarrassing headline
Bond Street station will not come into use when the line officially opens as there are still teething problems there. I’ve seen opening dates come and go and am sanguine about this new proposed opening. I would prefer a safe system rather than rushing to meet some arbitrary opening date.