PurpleTrains Now Serving Heathrow Airport
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- Опубліковано 19 сер 2020
- At the end of July, it went almost unnoticed that the Class 345 'Purple Trains' are now running all the way from Paddington down to Heathrow, instead of terminating at Hayes & Harlington. They're also now running as full length 9-car trains, instead of 7-car. It was time to go and take a trip on what will one day be the #ElizabethLine
The must-read London Reconnections article: www.londonreconnections.com/2...
The Crossrail UA-cam video about the signalling systems: • Signalling Software an...
My PurpleTrain frequency map: geofftech.co.uk/downloads.html
*announcement plays*
Geoff: "That's correct."
Geoff knows the train route better than the train itself
Lolololololololol
Geoff is very tolerant of whoever decided the stop is announced as Heathrow Two Three! 😂
Geoff: *surprised at wrong destination signage*
NYC subway users: bruh
This is so true 😭😭😭
What’s the joke? That the signs on the NYC subways are wrong? 😂
@@mahammad yep. Older ones had roll signs which people could move themselves with some effort. Newer trains would have computer based displays but those can be wrong too.
You did very well on finding a seat Geoff
Mavluda Fokine what the actual *fawk*
He dosent have to sit you know
😂
4:13 well done Geoff on calling TFL out on the audio pollution 👏👏👍
Always love hearing the announcements at Paddington - after seeing episodes of Paddington Station 24/7 we all know who the voices are!
Counting up to 9 with Geoff.
Would watch again.
Also, glorious shot of the train leaving the platform at the end, no people and it's like the train never ends, it's so long.
Good stuff, Geoff. Compared to NYC and Kennedy, this is paradise, and we still complain!
Keep safe and well.
Good to see that the project is slowly making its way to completion.
I’ve been on a Southern train today from VIC and, for the whole journey, the info boards said “This is East Croydon”. Eventual it said this is HHE but then reverted at WIV.
I visited London a couple of years ago and stayed at that hotel right next to Hayes & Harlington. At that time I commuted frequently on either the purple train or GWR from Hayes & Harlington to London Paddington. This video brought back a lot of great memories of that trip.
Stayed there as well, it's a very useful location isn't it.
Congratulations on 190k subscribers Geoff! Almost at 200k! 😁 I really enjoy your videos. 🙂
I've been using this both from Ealing Broadway to LHR and to Paddington. Loving these trains.
Great filming Geoff. Loved the shots at T5. But then again these trains are really eye catching. It doesn't help the announcements are so loud but maybe they were expecting far more passengers and their noise to get over. When there is only a hand full of people well it is just so stark.
Yep, I've been on trains where the only passengers where me and a mate with two others down the opposite end and it's just so jarring. Even with headphones on its still pretty evident the voice is there lol
Thanks for sharing. You have no idea how much watching the under ground means to me. As we have nothing like this in South Africa.
Thank you for sharing your amazing trips.
I’ll never get over how spacious the purple carriages are
I wished that the whole Elizabeth Line was open now but they keep delaying it. It would be easier to get around London if the entire thing was open.
For me, to get from North Kent (Queenborough or Sittingbourne) to say Swindon, which I have done a few times in the past, I have to get the High Speed to St Pancras before joining the Circle or Hammersmith Line to Paddington.
If there was any disruption on the High Speed or Underground Engineering Works, I could get the Elisabeth Line if it was open, I could get a Thameslink service from Rainham or Gravesend to Abbey Wood and then get a train directly to Paddington or Reading before joining a GWR service to Swindon. It may be just as quick doing it that way as well.
Obviously, with Covid-19, I am not travelling anywhere near as much on the train at all (twice since lockdown on local services through necessity).
@@richmayes8451 I've always been curious as to why Southeastern call them 'High Speed' services when the only high-speed line in the UK is HS1.
@@CityWhisperer between St Pancras International and Ashford International, the Southeastern High Speed trains can use the line at a maximum of 225kph or 140mph. Once it comes off HS1, it can run on various Main Line and Metro lines, having to go slow from there on. From Sittingbourne, it takes roughly 1 hour to get to St Pancras International, but is only on HS1 for 17 minutes, picking it up from Ebbsfleet International. If travelling between St Pancras International and Ashford International, it runs for 37 minutes on HS1 before going on the slow lines. There is one section where the speed limit drops to 15mph (24kph) just outside Strood, and once it joins the Southeastern Main Line, it has a few miles at 30mph (48kph) until somewhere between Chatham and Gillingham where it can reach up to 90mph (145kph).
running the danger that airport BER will be open first 😂😂😂😂😂
The health and safety aspects of getting all those signalling systems to talk to the train are critical.
We had the Ladbrook Road crash on the very line between Paddington and Hayes and Harlington. They have made improvements and safety isn't just about a train driver looking at upside-down traffic lights any more. They have computers that talk to trains.
Crossrail is so big, that it has to talk to several different signalling computers.
Now, if the British government funded a mainland-wide program of signalling renewal, we could have had a national system with just one computer to talk to.
But Crossrail trains have to be able to hand over from one signalling computer to a totally different signalling computer. The train *has* to be safe at all times and you don't want the safety system to have no signalling computer to talk to and have it slam on the breaks and flat out refuse to move.
So the plan for Crossrail was *always* for it to open in stages.
The bit west of London and the bit east of London have been working for a while. So the software programmers have nailed those bits.
And, the Heathrow branch means the programmers have nailed the handover between two different systems.
Trail running in the middle bit is next. (But they need to make a gap for the engineering works in the middle section to get caught up, so they are blocking the test trains so the station programmers can mess around and get the stations connected to London Underground sorted out.
And then they need to work on the other handovers, so that people don't get stuck on stubbon trains that can't see a different signalling computer and get forced to walk down the tunnels.
In 100 years, nobody is going to care about the delays. Nobody cares that the Jubilee Line wasn't open in the year of the Silver Jubilee. ;-)
Love this video Geoff! Keep them up!
I know what you mean about constantly being interrupted by tannoy announcements - that's what I was increasingly coming to hate about working in Sainsbury's!
Clothing colleague to checkout 9 please. Clothing colleague to checkout 9 please.
@@caw25sha Unexpected item in the bagging area!
@@caw25sha It was more the fact that some of them seemed to ramble on for ages, such as the advertising ones - if you want to highlight a particular offer or product then you can just put signs up about it! Some might ask how much notice people take of signs, but then how much notice do they take of tannoy announcements? After all, they seemed to give up making announcements asking people not to let kids ride in the trolleys, presumably because no one took any notice!
This is called pollution? Bugger off, Singapore's trains announce in FOUR languages every THIRTY seconds. You guys have it good!
@@Pasonia Relative privation fallacy - just because something else is worse, doesn't mean the first thing isn't bad!
Great video, it was very respectful to delay the upload.
I was due to watch the All The Stations section that covered Stonehaven that day - I have been rewatching them this summer - I stopped and still haven't restarted watching them - I might now watch it.
Which episode number is that stretch at Stonehaven?
@@2themoon863 The "I am not a puffer nutter" episode Inverness to Carnoustie stretch
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder Geoff. I haven't. J
8:52
Loving the blue/purple lit platforms
The Crossrail trains are so beautiful. I'm jealous.
It would've been better if they had more transverse seats. But I guess they're gonna get crowded
Love crossrail, love seeing me ends of london!! I do miss it!
Hi Geoff I love public transport like you do as well I'm using public transport more often now I first went back to using public transport on the 19th of July I love both the buses and trains and trams and the underground
its absolutely fantastic and beautiful engineering is crossrail,amazing to think of the hard work they have done,just amazing.
Man it's so cool to watch your videos. I literally work on writing the software and I don't know as much as you do!
Hi Geoff, your point about the empty trains is by no means unique. Scot Rail have been adding extra carriages where possible throughout the lockdown to help with social distancing, and on our first train ride last month my friend and I enjoyed an entire coach to ourselves all the way from Edinburgh to Dunblane - in both directions! Normally, half of Falkirk gets on at Falkirk Grahamston, heading for Stirling (as most of their shops have now shut down), but there weren't any on the way out and only a handful returning; while just 15 people alighted at Stirling and 12 at Dunblane - a total of 27 people with an 8-car Class 385 EMU all to themselves, on a Saturday afternoon! [Sadly the fight between railway and canal last week, in which the canal won, means there are now no trains heading that way at all...]
4:32 Apparently, lots of people who speak Punjabi live near Southall. Wallsend has Latin signage due to its location near the Roman Hadrian's Wall, while stations with "International" in the title are in French
None of the international stations on HS1 are in French. I am not sure about any others
My topic in class is about the Roman's:)
@@glasgowandwestdunbartonshi8934 The Romans set up a great railway network for us..... I think some of their trains are still in use today
@@thetelephoneprankster4254 Ashford is littered with bilingual signs, especially on the Eurostar platforms (that’s perhaps expected, though 😜)
@@toranine09 Yes, that is true. Especially the exit sign is in French. Shame the same could never be said for Stratford International 😛
Finally someone else has noticed the horrible noise pollution of continual loud announcements throughout so many train journeys these days. Thankyou!
Liking the look of those trains.
I took one of the new trains from Ealing Broadway to Paddington. They are so nice! We decided to take that instead of the Central Line into the city because the new trains have excellent A/C. The Central line can be pretty miserable in the summer.
When the Heathrow Express first opened I understand if flying BA you could check in at Paddington and get rid of your check in luggage. Something I did often in Hong Kong at Central Station. That was great way to travel with having to struggle with your bags.
Though I did enjoy and also took visitors on the double decker bus bus service into town, great start to the sightseeing tour.
Must check out CrossRail map for my next visit home to the UK.
Another very helpful video thanks again and stay safe.
ANOTHER BANGING VIDEO GEOFF!!!!
Crossrail? It's obviously the CrossElizPurp line
#PurpleTrain
You’d be cross too
CrossPurpEliz sounds much smoother!
Purp Fiction
by MTR corporation which is the main train service running in HK
Earlier this week (as of writing) I went to London and when I went back home to Slough, I got a TfL Rail service, but the train went fast to Slough.
It skipped Acton Main Line, stopped at Ealing Broadway, skipped Hanwell, stopped at Southall, then skipped Hayes and Harlington, West Drayton, Iver, and Langley then stopped at Slough. The service went as normal to Reading I believe.
Great videography, Geoff
Great and informative video! Thanks!
Good video Geoff, things are happening.
I think it’s great that it has so many announcements. Especially for tourists.
I find my tinitus is less annoying than the constant moronic announcements.
I feel like, with this change, the service frequency finally lives up to the airport - there's little more annoying than than having a long flight and then sitting at the airport for an hour waiting for a train
It was worth the wait.
You’ll find the new class 387 Heathrow express stock at West Ealing sidings as that’s their new depot and in the sidings at Reading TCD. Drivers are currently going through driver training for the 387s so you’ll often find a 4 car GWR 387 not in service at certain times of the day at Paddington, these are the driver training units
So - The train doesn't bounce around, like the northern line then ? Looks very smooth !!
Don't all the lines do this, I've never been in the northern line
@@dressrosacr7 No !! This is so smooth, its like gliding along... The Northern line is like sitting on a wild horse, in comparison !! lol
@@dressrosacr7 same
@@dressrosacr7 the northern line is so bad, on the Edgware branch cause that's where I lived... don't leave home without headphones because the screeching noise is SO loud.
Hamish, I think it’s good. MY OPINION.
So great seeing it edge close to completion, so 3 different services to London from heathrow now - I can think of another major city on other side of pond still without a single service right into the airport. Kinda sad seeing the airport so quiet
There have been 3 services for years, Heathrow Express, Heathrow Connect & the Piccadilly tube line. The Heathrow Connect service was renamed TfL rail until the full Crossrail aka The Elizabeth line service comes into full service (2022 now!)
Dang plague. Seems to wrong for such a beautiful train to be so empty.
Lovely video, the GWR Services in the future will be new-ish trains but they just using Class 387 and they have been modified for use on the Heathrow Express services. they will be in a different livery and not in the green and honestly it was very respectful to delay the video.
If you lost in UK and met Geoff..
You met the best person for directions
That article shows exactly why Crossrail has taken so long to open. Its a bunch of different bits of railway (both existing and new) all linked together and all those lines have a number of different signaling systems which has made it hard to produce software on the trains that can work in all the different environments. (especially when a fair chunk of that track is shared with other train services using all sorts of trains.
Brilliant video! I really enjoyed this, very interesting :)
Haha, we have _almost_ the same profile picture!
Great video very interesting well done
I love your new profile picture its better than the last
That is so Good to see The Crossrail Trains From Paddington to Heathrow. Maybe One Day. I Will Go on one.
Now we need to open up and to be able to travel. Nice option from the Pic
Yes I saw a long Crossrail video about how complicated the signalling systems were to make work together ... and if they had been perhaps digging a borehole and come across some particularly tough rock that took extra time to breakthrough then fine ... but all these systems were pre-existing. No bonus marks for making a video about it. It will be interesting to see what lengths HS2 goes to to avoid interacting with any existing infrastructure.
These videos are absolutely peak UA-cam
Hello Geoff, I am a big fan of yours from Canada’s capital, Ottawa!
I thought it was Toronto 😳
@@tescotrain lmao where do u get that from
Mømentous Ottawa is the capital
Mømentous It originally was supposed to be Toronto (which used to be called York), but they lost out to Ottawa... probably (like Canberra) since it was between the 2 major cities of Canada at that time (Canada was a lot smaller then).
@@joermnyc Not just two largest cities, but the figurative capitals of French and English Canada. Also next to no one lived in Ottawa at the time so the threat of an angry rioting mob burning down parliament was greatly reduced.
Award-winning videography showing us the inside of the train by pointing the camera at yourself all the time.
I live near Shenfield and will look forward to the time when I can get all the way over to Heathrow on a direct train.
What height are the platforms at Heathrow? Are they different than those in the core?
Edit: And height are the surface level platforms in the west and east?
If I’m recalling right, the Heathrow platforms are entirely step free between the trains (can’t remember the exact height) and the Core platforms match that height to be step free too. The other West/East platforms aren’t(/weren’t) step free but can’t remember what their heights were either...
Does this mean a Zone 1-6 travelcard is now valid on the Purple trains to Heathrow?
Geoff is now excited by station signs.
What will be next? Dot matrix / LCD displays? Door open/close signals? Announcements? Something else? We won't know until we see it.
he was actually excited by the purple custom house roundels and the travelators at bank
He's missing the bin bags blowing in the wind.
I am old enough to remember the destination boards when they the station names that 'cascaded' down the list to build the whole route. Hypnotic to watch.
@@philipsarell2467 Or the destination boards that a porter would slip into the slot on the platform with the destination of the next train painted on it.
Laser display boards. On second thoughts, that won't be next because ... ua-cam.com/video/xmjjQlSZnp4/v-deo.html
At least it’s easier to social distance on trains in London with more carriages per train compared to outside the capital. The biggest train we’ll see in Leeds is the LNER Azumas, after that you’ll occasionally get a few coupled Class 222’s or 185/Novas for XC/TP services.
I love the Heathrow Express trains.
Cool!!!
Very impressive
Great video
Don't know if it is just me, but I once got a train from Central London into Heathrow and it was possibly the most confusing place to visit on a train ever, it was like a Anika Rice challenge.
Awesome... (I am a County Bumkin from Dorset who thinks the Tube is fascinating).
I use this train everyday to Hayes & Harlington great train service
100k views very well deserved. Yes indeed way too many announcements on the purple trains.
There will be 4 trains to T4, not 3 as you heard from platform host, and they will be "Heathrow Connect" and extended "Hayes" trains stopping as per now. In addition to this there will be 2 trains to T5 which will be semi-fast trains stopping only in Ealing Broadway, Southall and Hayes (plus T2&3 and T5 of course). HEX will run as always with 4 trains per hour.
That comes up to 10 trains per hour through T2&3 in each direction, so 20 trains per hour through the station.
0:25 You frighten me there! The way you approach the camera...
Love the dual language signs at Southall, is that a first in Johnston I wonder? Special design?..
I don’t like how the 345s do not have a ‘close door’ button, like their predecessors on the Shenfield-Liverpool Street branch. Highly appreciated in the winter.
You were storming the tsw2 chat yesterday!!
i really liked this video :)
That is a good looking train
As a reading local I feel offended. I see these every week!
4:34 glad to see they kept the gurmukhi on the signs lol
Geoff, it looks like there’s purple lights under the platform at Heathrow - this so? Is this a feature of other stops on the ERL (Liz rail line!)?
SO thoughtful of you not to post on that day. Any idea what the blue lights were for at Heathrow, under the platform illuminating the train?
On 21st Aug the 345 I travelled on had an Elizabeth Line roundel on the side instead of TFL Rail.
You love to see it. #PurpleTrain
Love being new upgraded trains
Was there selective door operation at Acton Main Line? curious
Nice new profile pic. Your happy. Thats good.
nice video
Nice to see that Southall Station has signage in Hindi!
Its in Punjabi :)
In The Netherlands we had a problem with the program to.
They wanted a part to let Cargo train's and Metro on a little part of the rail near Hoek van Holland.
Only it toke some time to make a software where Cargo train's and metro can communicate and signals.
Nice
Did you get the number of the Freight Liner 66? ;-)
Nothing beats a rail service to/from an airport
Can't wait for Melbourne International Airport to finally be serviced by rail!
I reckon you'll be waiting a long time. Honestly I quite like the Sky Bus, the view from the top deck is nice.
@@bikerpaul68 By the time they spend millions on planning a blueprint, the HyperLoop will be redundant
Hey Geoff. Total respect for you not putting the video up after the incident. Quick question. Are tfl planning to do a 24 hour service like they have done with the night tube as well as the night overground serive. I just think it would give people a better alternative then having to get night buses plus it would also help to boost the airport economy with it being one of the major airports in the UK
Heathrow doesn't operate 24 hours a day anyway only 06:00 - 23:00 for regularly scheduled flights so it would be a bit redundant but now the full line is open it does make a lot of sense more generally for 24 hour service
Hopefully this could really relieve the Piccadilly Line
You so reminded me of BGT Tapeface!! Lol
Does anyone know when we will be able to us the Crossrail service straight from Liverpool Street to Heathrow?
So would this be a good alternative to the Heathrow Express if you're not in a rush?
Don’t forget Geoff, these trains also run to Reading!
Geoff has not forgotten as he made a video from Reading recently
@@androandrejevic3002 I think C-S was referring to Geoff’s statement early in the video saying Class 345 trains, until recently, ran only as far as Hayes and Harlington. We all know what he meant but could be confusing for someone unfamiliar with the service. Great video as usual, Geoff. Thank you. I'm hopeful my next visit to London will include a Class 345 direct from Heathrow T2&3 to Canary Wharf.
@@LeafyGooner Not if you're planning to come to London in the next couple of years!
Norbiton Flyer. Yes looks like, at minimum, another 2 year delay. I was fortunate enough to ride the 345’s on my last visit in 2018 from Liverpool street. It will be a great addition to the Rail network whenever it is completed.
@@LeafyGooner Ooops me bad sorry lol