For the last few years London's new railway 'Crossrail' has been creating massive construction sites across London and the home counties, not least in some prime Zone 1 land around Paddington, Tottenham Court Road and Liverpool Street, but ranging from the reconstruction of Reading junction, marking the northern extension of the Canary Wharf complex, to forcing the relocation of Pudding Mill Lane station on the Docklands Light Railway and reshaping the landscape along East Silvertown. Underground, eight ladies have been digging away for the last four years creating the tunnels that will eventually house the cross-London metro service. Sunday 31 May 2015 marks another significant step in the delivery of the Crossrail service: whilst the full service between Shenfield/Abbey Wood and Reading will not be operational until 2019, the first of the constituent parts passed to Transport for London control and it's chosen concessionaire, MTR Corporation (Crossrail) Ltd. The first section of line operated by MTR Crossrail is the all stations service between London Liverpool Street and Shenfield, the latter just in Essex, previously under the control of the Abellio Greater Anglia franchise. I went to see what was happening on day one......
So what isn't in my photographs?
1) There was absolutely no new signage bearing TfL branding or standards at any station (this will be relevant if I ever write a blog on the second half of my day);
2) There are lots of new station staff, who were visibly still finding their feet with the services and the locality of the stations. This meets TfL's objective of staffing stations from first train to last, whereas previous franchisees often left customers to fend for themselves;
3) All station staff were wearing new style TfL uniforms. A new uniform is being rolled out across all TfL modes' front line staff, with different coloured branding for different operations. Underground is red, Overground is orange, TfL Rail is a light blue. Not only are they very smart, the staff seemed quite pleased with them too [btw I do not take pictures of people as the main subject except in extremis so no evidence of this!];
4) MTR Crossrail management. Everywhere! All discovering the delights of Gidea Park or working a gate line at Ilford, and all identifiable with purple MTR Crossrail lanyards. Good luck to them all as they've got the beginnings of an awesome new train set to play with!
 |
| Works continues apace building Crossrail. This is Farringdon on Sunday 31 May: unlike people who dig up roads, the railways keep working and pouring cement seven days a week. |
 |
| Construction continues apace, this is the eastern tunnel portal just west of Stratford station, as viewed from the eastbound Docklands Light Railway platform at Pudding Mill Lane. |
 |
| Initially the Crossrail concessionaire will operate services branded as TfL Rail. Some limited signage bearing this brand is in place adjacent to the high numbered platforms at Liverpool Street, where the Shenfield services depart from. |
 |
| Departures information at Liverpool Street correctly listed the services to Gidea Park or Shenfield as TfL Rail. Now I don't like to praise Network Rail but...... |
 |
| The National Rail timetable change date was two weeks ago, Sunday 17 May 2015. On this day temporary timetables were produced which do not bear any operator branding. The TfL Rail Shenfield line booklet also contains the timetable for the Romford to Upminster service, which has passed to London Overground but is remote from any other Overground operations. (And yes I have tried putting it the right way round but Blogger insists on importing it sideways) |
 |
| Most of the MTR Crossrail/TfL Rail fleet of Class 315s is in this base white livery with red doors, carrying no fleetnames. |
 | ||||
| Some of the MTR Crossrail fleet of Class 315s have been outshopped in this base white livery with blue doors and lower bodyside. This is akin to the basic colours carried by some of TfLs other rail operations: Underground, Overground and Tramlink. I assume that over the next few months the rest of the MTR Crossrail fleet will be modified with this livery, and roundels added to the bodysides. Immediately after taking this photograph a member of MTR Crossrail staff approached me and told me I was not allowed to take photographs at the station! I thought I'd let her know that in the new world of TfL there is a general approach of being nice to people and that I hoped Crossrail would be like the Underground, with both awesome staff and no petty, made up, rules on photography, |
 | |
| At least one member of the MTR Crossrail fleet of Class 315s remains in this off-blue livery of National Express One. |
 | ||||
| MTR Crossrail were operating a four trains per hour service, but on slightly uneven headways, due to meshing with other longer distance services still operated by Abellio Greater Anglia, as the fast lines were closed for track replacement work between Ilford and Seven Kings. To illustrate 'other services' eponymous Class 321 '321 321' passes Ilford on a Liverpool Street to Southend Victoria train. As referenced above within five minutes the Samaritans poster visible at the platform end had gone! |
 |
| Many generations of signage are visible along the Shenfield line. This shows the BR totem bearing the colours of original franchisee First Great Eastern, and the station frontage in the style of National Express One. There are elements of Network Southeast also visible, along with a few later bits added by Abellio Greater Anglia. Whilst signage comes behind a reliable train service and a safe travelling environment, there is a lot to be done to generally tidy up the presentation of the line. A bit of hot soapy water and some elbow grease wouldn't go amiss in many places too! |
 |
| Another signage mess at Romford. Petty instructions abound, although it is clear that the new management have started attacking this. Literally. Station assistants are removing the ever-present Samaritans posters at platform ends, and I'm told MTR Crossrail managers were removing inaccurate or inappropriate signage themselves as they went! |
 |
| Transport for London has committed to making every Crossrail station step free, which I recall followed some issues at West Ealing station, which was originally intended to remain as is (tiny ticket hall, no facilities). Ilford station has two stairlifts between ticket hall and platforms 2/3 (Down Fast/Up Slow, the latter being the platform for Crossrail services to Liverpool Street). I wonder if these stairlifts actually work, and when they were last used, and if any of the new wave of station staff have been trained in their use? I assume the greater Crossrail project will replace a lot of the ageing and substandard infrastructure with a proper new station and step free scheme..... |
 |
| What did surprise me about the Shenfield line is the amount of decent quality, secure cycle storage that is provided. Kudos to whichever of the previous incumbent TOCs did this: it certainly adds to TfL's wider objectives around the promotion of sustainable modes, and hopefully stops people feeling the need to take their bike for a train ride! |
So what isn't in my photographs?
1) There was absolutely no new signage bearing TfL branding or standards at any station (this will be relevant if I ever write a blog on the second half of my day);
2) There are lots of new station staff, who were visibly still finding their feet with the services and the locality of the stations. This meets TfL's objective of staffing stations from first train to last, whereas previous franchisees often left customers to fend for themselves;
3) All station staff were wearing new style TfL uniforms. A new uniform is being rolled out across all TfL modes' front line staff, with different coloured branding for different operations. Underground is red, Overground is orange, TfL Rail is a light blue. Not only are they very smart, the staff seemed quite pleased with them too [btw I do not take pictures of people as the main subject except in extremis so no evidence of this!];
4) MTR Crossrail management. Everywhere! All discovering the delights of Gidea Park or working a gate line at Ilford, and all identifiable with purple MTR Crossrail lanyards. Good luck to them all as they've got the beginnings of an awesome new train set to play with!