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 an opening day,
you would've done.
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, doubled 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.
(train humming)
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 you by the number three,
cause we are in zone three
and it's brought you by the letters M, A, N, O, and R,
and the word "park" is over there.
I just like the fact
that the bike rack spells out the name of the station.
(light traffic noise)
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 OSI's,
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 OSI's.
Our two favourites being,
the one that Canary Wharf to Poplar on the DLR
and then at Bond street to Oxford Circus
on the 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.
(train door beeping)
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.
(elevator door beeping)
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 up platform level at Farringdon,
it actually sets up here,
tube roundel, national rail symbol, "that way."
And although it mentions Barbican here,
there is no tube roundel, 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 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 ground.
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 camera man 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 bench is 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 one 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 gonna 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, holding,
and then move to one side,
you can see that it's mirrored up
with the advertising holding on that side.
Again, I don't know if that's been done on purpose,
but if it is and you are the person that designed that,
that's amazing.
Next up to Tottenham Court Road,
to find that TfL had up to their usual sneaky trick
of misleading passenger signage.
All right,
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.
In here, when you come off the Dean Street escalators,
there's a big sign here saying Elizabeth Line that way.
But if you are heading for an eastbound train,
the fastest way to go is to walk
just 10 seconds over there in that direction.
But you if follow that sign,
it will take you at least two minutes
to walk around to the platform.
During which time you might have missed a train.
The quickest way is just to go down here.
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 named roundels
on the mezzanine level,
which definitely isn't on the platform.
(train door beeping)
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 3, 4, 5 cross rail 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 one to three 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.
(train doors beeping)
We're heading out west now past Paddington
and it's well publicised that Liz Line trains
don't have toilets,
but TfL say that almost all the stations do,
but to find, to 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,
where at Hayes and Harlington
and that is heading for Heathrow.
And as per the tube,
did you know that you can ride cross route,
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 got a 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,
"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 of 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 stood 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.
(train humming and doors beeping)