Secrets of the Elizabeth Line

Good morning. The purple shirt is on, which finally means only one thing. Yes, I've come out to the eastern end of the Purple Train to start Secrets of the Elizabeth Line. So we're going to explore the network from east to west, stopping at some of its 41 stations along the way to see some things that you may not have known about or have missed whilst on your travels. Starting at Abbey Wood, most of you will be familiar with the main entrance that's up top, but did you realise, actually, if you were here on opening day, you would have done, that there's a sneaky side entrance down here, by the lifts, by the steps, and a whole separate gate line, like a secret gate line, to get to the Elizabeth Line. Now several Elizabeth Line stations have got some fantastic artwork with local connections, but here's one that I think you may have missed. At Woolwich, look out for the Next of Kin Memorial plaque, a tribute from the First World War, where on the outside of Woolwich station, the walls are made of perforated aluminium with the design from the pennies from the plaque being replicated in stunning detail. It's a great tribute and lovely to see. A quick consult of our tube map is in order, even though the Elizabeth Line isn't part of the tube, as we make our way out through stations on the eastern branch of the line, until we get to a point with a fabulous station building. That's Harold Wood. And it was built in the 1860s by the Great Eastern Railway, the GER. However, in the 1930s, the LNER, the London and North Eastern Railway, came through double the tracks and they upgraded the station building, and the original sign is still there, just above the entrance, which is lovely. And our next stop is Ilford. So many of the Elizabeth Line stations have had a lot of improvement work done to them and have got new station entrances and lifts for step-free access. That's definitely the case here at Ilford. Yes, there's a shiny new entrance, main entrance, out on the main road, but there's one also on Ilford Hill, and there's this little cute side one. It's not too dissimilar to the building we just saw at Howard Wood, and it seems like that the York Road entrance is like this little secret entrance that not many people use. And as I sit and wait for my train, let us take a moment to appreciate that the designers here have decided to add a little bit of purple to the bench. A nice touch. And one stop further west, it's all gone a little bit Sesame Street. Today's video is brought to you by the number three, because we're in zone three, and it's brought to you by the letters M, A, N, O and R. And the word parks over there. I just like the fact that the bike rack spells out the name of the station. Now we like a lot of these old stations out on the eastern branch that have all been heavily upgraded to purple standards and at Forest Gate we're reminded of one of our favourite OSIs, that's an out of station interchange. From here it's only a moment's walk down the road to the Overground station at Wanstead Park. But when the new core section was built it also brought in a few other OSIs, our two favourites being the one at Canary Wharf to Poplar on the DLR and then at Bond Street to Oxford Circus on the Tube. That one is dead handy considering there's no actual Elizabeth Line station at Oxford Circus. Now, it feels like this wouldn't be a Secrets video without timing a journey between two stations. And we can confirm that at 870 metres, Maryland to Stratford is the shortest distance between two stations and takes just 87 seconds to complete the journey between them. Hello, we're into the core section. I'm sat on a bench, which leads me to do another bench observation. Bench observation number two is that they all have the TfL roundel on the end, just there. And for our next Elizabeth Line secret, we take you to a tube station, the one that's called... Barbican. For a secret, that's sort of not so much of a secret because lots of people have mentioned this now, but I can't not mention it and put it in this video. From the tube platforms here, there is a secret lift that takes you down to the Elizabeth Line. It doesn't even show as a connector blob on the tube map. That's very sneaky. And that brings you out here, bottom of the escalators, and these escalators to take you down to the platforms. Because of the signage at platform level at Farringdon, it actually says up here, Tube Roundall, National Rail symbol that way. And although it mentions Barbican here, there is no Tube Roundall. TfL, it's a secret, don't want you changing to the tube station using that lift. Oh, and by the way, back up on the tube platforms right by that lift, Don't forget to peer down into the distance and see these now disused tunnels from a time when Thameslink trains used to call at Barbican and Moorgate. Time for a little escalator and inclinator fun now, as we can confirm that Elizabeth Line escalators do indeed run at an angle of 30 degrees. That is the same as those on the underground. Some people had suggested that the Liz Line ones seemed steeper, but they're not. Time for some incline lift fun. Did you know if you get the escalator and I get the incline lift, That the incline lift travels at the same speed as the escalators, so if you're with someone, a friend or a colleague, they can match you at the exact speed side by side and you can wave. I'm waving at Matt, my cameraman here. Wave back Matt, he's not waving, he can't hear me. And bench observation number three, I really hope that this is by design, I really hope it is that the silver and black of the benches here in the core section match the silver and black of the grab handles on the trains. Staying at Farringdon, something that you've literally walked past loads of times but not realised yet, is... In the wide corridors of the core sections, you have what are known as totems, these large poles here with signage on them. To the side, you have the adverts. Notice how the adverts are lit up around the outside. I'm going to drop to a cutaway here for the most amazing thing that should make your jaw drop, because if you stand in just the right place, and you angle yourself so that you're looking into here at the reflection... ...of the edge of that advertising hoarding and then move to one side, you can see that it's mirrored up with the advertising hoarding on that side. Again, I don't know if that's been done on purpose, but if it is and you're the person that designed that, that's amazing. Next up, to Tottenham Court Road, to find that TfL have been up to their usual sneaky trick of misleading passenger signage. Alright, we made it to Tottenham Court Road on the Elizabeth Line, which is a devil for misleading signage. Now, TfL have a reputation for doing this, particularly at Kings Cross Station, where they tell you to go the wrong way. And here, when you come off the Dean Street escalators, there's a big sign here saying Elizabeth Line that way. But if you're heading for an eastbound train, the fastest way to go is to walk... Just 10 seconds over there in that direction. But if you follow that sign, it'll take you at least two minutes to walk round to the platform, during which time you might have missed the train. The quickest way is just to go down here. Yeah. Tottenham Court Road is also unusual for being one of two stations to have additional roundels that aren't on the platforms. Here, for some reason that we can't figure out why, they're displayed in the corridors that connect up to the Northern Line. It's a similar situation down at Canary Wharf too, where there are station name roundels on the mezzanine level, which definitely isn't on the platform. Ah, the beep of those doors remind me to tell you about the secret numbering system on the platform screen doors. I want to point out this, there are nine carriages on a class 345 Crossrail train, three doors each, and they line up perfectly with the platform screen doors. Did you know that all the platform screen doors are numbered, so we're at the back here of the nine car train, number 27, so it goes from 1, 2, 3, all the way through to 27. What that means is that if you have a preferred point that you've worked out as your exit, you can get on at the same number door where you get on the train to be in the correct position. For when you get off the trains, it's a really handy numbering system for knowing where the best door is for the exit that you want. We're heading out west now past Paddington and it's well publicised that Elizabeth Line trains don't have toilets, but TfL say that almost all the stations do, but are fine. So allow me to do this as a public service to you and show you that they're tucked under the stairs towards the back of the eastbound platform. You're welcome. We went sign spotting next. An obvious case is the gorgeous Hanwell Station with its original and Elthorne sign still in place. And then it's great to see that even with the Elizabeth Line purple refresh, Southall Station has kept its bilingual signage too. And that then takes us to Hayes and Harlington. There goes the train, all nine car purpleness of it. We're at Hazen-Harlington and that is heading for Heathrow. And as per the Tube, did you know that you can ride Crossrail Elizabeth line for free down at Heathrow? Heathrow allows passengers to connect between its train services, so you can travel between any of the terminal stations without paying a penny on your Oyster or bank contactless card. Or you could actually do it without tapping in at all, just by collecting one of these free tickets from the machines available at all Heathrow stations. We've made it out West to West Drayton, a great example actually of how TfL have really like rejuvenated and done up a lot of the stations out on this Western part of the Elizabeth line. All the stations have got new ticket halls and new over bridges and new lifts, it's excellent. But the interesting thing here is that this is the limit of Oyster as that sign says back here, you can't go any further beyond West Drayton on your Oyster card. If you want to go further, you have to use a contactless if you just want to touch and pay. But whilst we're talking about ticketing, did you know this is the great secret because GWR also run their services out here they have a long-standing rover ticket called a Thames Branches day rover and that allows unlimited travel off peak up and down the line including now all of the Elizabeth lines if you want to ride the Elizabeth line out west from Paddington out west and all the stations to Reading and in fact a little bit beyond just buy one of those And to the last stop for us in this video as we ended our day at Slough. Which is where we'll end our journey today and end the video. Yes, I know the line does go further out west to Reading, but I just want to end on this, something which you may have never seen at Slough Station, is Station Jim, a stuffed dog from the 1890s, was known as a canine collector, used to collect money, and there's still a coin slot there today for the Great Western Widows and Orphans Fund, a charity collecting dog. Great to see. That is the end, that is the end of the video. We're here at Slough where purple meets green. GWR meets the Elizabeth line. Hope you've learned a thing or two about the new line. Press subscribe, press like. Thanks for watching.