Hello and welcome to the Independence Daily Travel Podcast, the first of the week with me, Simon Corder.

And I'm back underground, about 100 feet underground, specifically at Paddington Station in central London.

That's because the Elizabeth Line, the new 19 billion pound railway beneath the heart of London,

is nearly a week old. And I've been using it and testing it and I wanted to share with you

what I think the key points are.

So I'm going to join the train for a very quick trip just from here at Paddington to Tottenham Court Road

to explain whether or not you're in London, whether you're just coming to London,

or whether you're simply interested in these magnificent pieces of urban transport, what it means for you.

Yes, so while the Elizabeth line was originally going to run all the way through and extend

to Sheffield in Essex, It's not doing it at the moment.

Compared with the tube, it's actually far better,

much more comfortable,

forward-facing seats which you don't actually see

on any other underground railway in London

apart from some very very very old rolling

stock on the blue line so it's comfortable it's bright it's fairly quiet I mean

quiet in terms of people and as you'll hear it's also certainly compared with the

creaky old tube extremely quiet things are Things are running very, very smoothly as well.

Trains like clockwork every five minutes.

And I know if you're living somewhere outside the Capitol

and you don't have a train for five hours,

let alone five minutes,

...