Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder, just boarding an Elizabeth line train.

Now, I know that I've talked to you about these trains before because, of course, it's the latest new service,

but I'm actually, I was hoping to bring you some good news and talk about all the

happy people who are sarkling the Elizabeth line for the first time that's proving a problem

because unfortunately on the day that the London underground is on strike we're seeing enormous

crowds as a result of the failure of the Elizabeth line.

So let me tell you what is happening. The Elizabeth line is supposed to be running normally on a strike day.

They were expecting large crowds. There's supposed to be trains on the bit between Abbey Wood in Southeast London

and central London every seven minutes.

I've been waiting about 20 minutes to get on this one.

Some people were waiting longer, and it's absolutely rammed.

It's like the middle of the rush hour instead of the middle of the day.

And things were going to be busy anyway. I'm just looking up here. All the underground lines

suspended. Why you might be thinking isn't the Elizabeth line suspended and that's because it's run under different

agreements it's not part of the London underground system it's sort of its own thing so it was doing

some really good work earlier keeping London going but it's not at the moment because, well, frankly, operational difficulties.

I was boarding at Custom House Station in East London. We had the spectacle of four trains running

to Abbey Wood where nobody wanted to go, and this is the first one that is actually going in the right direction

and we're still quite a way out of central London

going to be stopping in Canary Wharf

now depending on how many other people need a seat

it's possible that some people will be hopping off here and I might try and sit down

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