May 24th - The Elizabeth Line begins service
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2022
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After years of delays, spiralling costs and a name change, Crossrail, now the Elizabeth Line has finally begun service today and I'm one the first train to take passengers this morning. The Elizabeth Line promises to make travel across the capital far quicker and much more simple for passengers, joining Reading out in the west of London to Shenfield, out in Essex. Though the line is open now, there are still works ongoing to deliver what's been promised to tube passengers, but those behind the project are for now enjoying the moment of finally opening.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast slightly earlier than usual, |
| 0:06.0 | but that's because it is 626 and I am at Paddington Station in London. |
| 0:12.0 | Not the beautiful Brunel designed building, but beneath the streets of this part of central London ready for the opening of the Elizabeth line. |
| 0:26.5 | The first train to run and carry passengers through the capital has just arrived. |
| 0:33.6 | We're waiting for the doors to open. |
| 0:35.4 | Just looking across at the London mayor, Sadie Khan. He just told me before the opening. |
| 0:39.3 | Guys, please ask you keep moving right down the platform. I know you all want to be in the first car, but these trains are very long. |
| 0:45.3 | Platforms are very long. Please move right down the platform. |
| 0:50.3 | As you can tell, there's, I guess, a thousand people or so. I got here at 5.30 an hour before the first train. |
| 0:57.1 | I mean, so, it's a slight direction of my part. The train currently on Platform A is not in service. Your next train will be the first train to Abbeywood, departing at 0.633. Thank you very much. |
| 1:11.6 | Right. Okay. Right, okay. |
| 1:12.8 | Well, things are getting quite exciting here. |
| 1:16.5 | A thousand or so people, mostly railway enthusiasts. |
| 1:20.0 | Move right down the platform, please. |
| 1:21.5 | Move right down the platform. |
| 1:23.7 | The train has just left, but there will be another one along in, well, three minutes, they say. |
| 1:29.6 | There's going to be trains running every five minutes. |
| 1:31.7 | Now, the crossrail project, which is three and a half years behind schedule, and four billion pounds over budget, |
| 1:38.9 | its cost a total of 19 billion pounds so far, is effectively designed to link the west of London so |
| 1:47.9 | the town of Reading with and Heathrow with the East Schemfield in Essex and |
| 1:55.4 | Ebbingwood in south east London but the crucial stretch which is the one that we're about to travel on, |
| 2:03.1 | is a high-capacity railway running fast and frequently beneath the streets of London. |
... |
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