The Elizabeth line is swiftly becoming the Mesut Özil of public transportation. When it's on, one marvels at the skill, speed and precision delivery. When it isn't, one ends up stuck in a dark, freezing train carriage somewhere outside Old Oak Common with fellow passengers urinating on the seats.
As our City Hall and Transport Editor Ross Lydall reports, seven trains – including four Elizabeth line, two Heathrow Express and a Great Western Railway (GWR) intercity service – were stranded after the GWR train crashed into broken power lines near Ladbroke Grove at about 6.30pm last night.
The GWR train was eventually able to reverse – using its diesel engines – back into Paddington. The Elizabeth line's Class 345 Aventra rolling stock is, on the other hand, fully electric. Poor passengers, including the Standard's very own Anna van Praagh, were stuck for hours.
The issue was neither unforeseeable nor unforeseen. As Ross notes, its origins date back to the electrification of the line for the Heathrow Express two decades ago.
The overhead wire installation was "done cheaply" and at Ladbroke Grove the wires span all six tracks. Consequently, like Christmas lights attached in series, if one wire breaks, the whole lot goes down with it, impacting all lines in and out of Paddington. As one insider observed: “Bloody economies always come back to haunt you”.
Network Rail says it has plans to renew the overhead wires, but that this is subject to securing funding approval from the Office of Rail and Road. Work is not due to begin until 2024 at the earliest, and would last the rest of the decade.
We all love the Elizabeth line. It's quiet, rapid and, once they power wash the urine-soaked seats, clean. But let's not pretend it's perfect. While it soon became the busiest train line in the country, it has also suffered from performance issues.
The line has seen the largest rise in train cancellations in the whole of Britain, as nearly 5,000 trains failed to run between July and September – that is 5.2 per cent of all services. It also suffered a 4.5 point annual drop in punctuality, with 82.8 per cent of trains arriving on time or within five minutes of timetable.
Though, to give it its proper context, this still made it the second-best performing rail firm and also coincided with plans to boost the number of trains by 15 per cent and the 'through running' of services from one end of the line to the other.
There is sometimes a reticence to criticise the Elizabeth line because we're all still kind of amazed it exists at all. In the same way that my pet theory is there's less complaining about airlines than they deserve because we all secretly think flying in a plane is something of a miracle. We ought to be grateful but not too grateful.
They built it and we came. After taking the scenic route to completion, the Elizabeth line now sees 4.3 million passenger journeys each week contributing to 270 million since it was first opened.
George Osborne, formerly of this parish, likes to remind folks that Treasury officials advised him to cancel Crossrail in 2010, but he refused. And now we have a massively popular and transformative line. The real travesty isn't last night's four-hour delays, but that the wait for Crossrail 2, the Bakerloo line extension and so on could be measured in decades.
In the comment pages, Anne McElvoy says don't bank on a May poll – but Rishi Sunak might see it as a safer bet. George Chesterton calls not wearing headphones on the Tube a sign of the apocalypse. While Paul Flynn celebrates that 'Rizz' – the word of the year – is all about cheerful, carnal appeal.
And finally, join the Standard's chief restaurant critic, Jimi Famurewa, for lunch with Ruth Rogers, founder of the River Café.
Have a lovely weekend.
