Opening in 2022, the Elizabeth Line has been popular with the capital’s travellers ever since, seeing numbers steadily increase.
Stretching all the way from Reading, Berkshire, to Abbey Wood and Shenfield in Essex, Transport for London claims that London’s newest railway is ‘one of the most complex digital railways in the world.’
London’s transport provider also claims the line adds approximately 10% more capacity to the central London rail network, worth an estimated £42bn to the UK economy, with each train able to carry an astonishing 1,500 people.
Some changes will come to the line next month as the service continues to be improved.
Howard Smith, TfL’s Director of the Elizabeth line, said: ‘This Elizabeth line timetable change is delivering in the original plans for the service, providing a number of benefits to customers and improving connections to Heathrow Airport and across London.’
As such, here are all the changes coming up in May.
What changes are happening to Elizabeth Line in May 2023?
TfL has released a new timetable for the Elizabeth Line that will come into effect on May 21, 2023.
One of the biggest takeaways from the new timetable is that the amount of peak-time services will increase, with 24 trains an hour now running rather than 22 and a temporary pause in service for travellers heading to Paddington will also no longer be in place.
Departures from Abbey Wood and Paddington will go from every six minutes to every 5 minutes.
Elizabeth Line travellers will soon be able to go from Shenfield to Heathrow Airport uninterrupted for the first time, with two services an hour not needing to change at Paddington – hopefully saving between four to five minutes.
The first westbound train from Paddington will also leave six minutes earlier at 4.36am, bound for Heathrow Terminal 5, and arriving ten minutes earlier at 4.42am, cutting the journey time to the airport for anyone getting an early morning flight.
From Shenfield and Stratford, services will also speed up by around two minutes until Paddington.
TfL’s Elizabeth Line Director has also said, ‘As well as increasing peak time services between Paddington and Whitechapel to mean a train roughly every 2.5 minutes in both directions, there will also be direct services from Shenfield in Essex to Heathrow Airport for the first time, with more trains serving the airport each hour.
‘The new timetable will also remove any significant dwell times for trains between Paddington and Acton Main Line, which were in place temporarily ahead of this new timetable.
‘This timetable sees the completion of the Crossrail project, but we will continue to review the Elizabeth line timetables and changes can be made twice each year in line with National Rail timetable changes to add capacity where possible and provide the best service for customers.’
More details on the changes and latest updates on the Elizabeth Line are available on the TfL website.
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