Elizabeth line
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The Elizabeth line is a National Rail line run by Transport for London which runs between Abbey Wood and Shenfield to Heathrow and Reading in the west. Although the oldest section from Taplow to Paddington opened on 4th June 1836, the Elizabeth line did not open in full until 24th May 2022, making it one of the newest additions to the Tube map.
Route description
Routes will be listed in chronological order of when they were built.
Great Western Main Line
The Great Western Main Line (GWML) section of the Elizabeth line is the oldest section of it. It originally ran from Taplow to London Paddington starting in 1836, although not all stations were built yet (for instance, Hanwell and Ealing Broadway opened on 12th June 1838).
Prior to the Elizabeth line (then known as TfL Rail) taking over the stopping services from London Paddington to Reading, Great Western Railway (GWR) used to run them. TfL Rail took over services between Paddington and Reading from GWR on 15th December 2019, however they had already been running services to Heathrow (taken over from Heathrow Connect) since December 2018. The first service from the CCOS (Crossrail Core Operating Section) to enter the GWML was on 6th November 2022 with headcode 9T28.
The current stations are as follows:
- London Paddington
- Acton Main Line
- Ealing Broadway
- West Ealing
- Hanwell
- Southall
- Hayes and Harlington (See Heathrow branch for the branch line from Heathrow Junction)
- West Drayton
- Iver
- Langley
- Slough
- Burnham
- Taplow
- Maidenhead
- Twyford
- Reading
Note that most trains terminating at Maidenhead or Reading do not call at the following stations:
- Acton Main Line
- West Ealing
- Hanwell
- Taplow
Acton Main Line and West Ealing are served by all trains that terminate at a Heathrow Terminal. Hanwell and Taplow are served by all trains that terminate at Maidenhead.
The service on this section of the line is as follows (correct as of Phase 5b in January 2023):
- Heathrow T5
- Reading
- Heathrow T4
- Maidenhead
This repeats every 30 minutes, giving each of the places above a 2tph frequency. However, this may be different at the starts and ends of every day, since Heathrow services are shorter than Reading or Maidenhead services they can be started earlier and finished later, meaning that the Reading and Maidenhead services are cut off from the termini above for anywhere between 1-2 hours depending on the day of week.
References
1. https://www.davros.org/rail/culg/elizabeth.html#rolling Archive A: https://web.archive.org/web/20230128210224/https://www.davros.org/rail/culg/elizabeth.html Archive B: https://archive.ph/44NVQ