There will soon be an Elizabeth line train through the core section of the network every three minutes on Saturdays, as TfL prepares to increase the service.
Currently, there are 16 trains an hour through the core section on Saturdays, but this will increase to 20 trains an hour from Saturday 20th December, the week of the national timetable change which kicks in earlier that week.
The additional services will run between approximately 11am and 8pm each Saturday, with two additional trains per hour from Abbey Wood to Paddington and two per hour from Gidea Park to Paddington. Outside of these hours, the existing timetable of 16 trains per hour is unchanged.
That increases the Gidea Park departures from roughly one train every 8 minutes to one every 6 minutes. Likewise, the Abbey Wood branch increases from a train every 7 minutes to a train every 6 minutes.
For example, 11am to 12pm departures on Saturdays
Gidea Park to Paddington
Currently
From 20th Dec
11:07
11:01
11:14
11:07
11:22
11:13
11:29
11:19
11:37
11:25
11:44
11:31
11:52
11:37
11:43
11:49
11:55
Abbey Wood to Paddington
Currently
From 20th Dec
11:02
11:00
11:09
11:06
11:17
11:12
11:24
11:18
11:32
11:24
11:39
11:30
11:47
11:36
11:54
11:42
11:48
11:52
Note there isn’t an increase on the line west of Paddington, only to the east.
Trish Ashton, Director of Rail at TfL, said: “The Elizabeth line is the UK’s most popular railway service, with around 800,000 journeys made every day. Whether enjoying an afternoon of shopping, or seeing a show in the West End, we’re really pleased that customers travelling on Saturdays will now benefit from more frequent services from the eastern branches into central London. As with all timetable updates, we recommend checking your journey before you set off, on the TfL Go app, or at TfL.gov.uk.”
Since opening in 2022, the Elizabeth line has quickly become the UK’s single busiest railway service, with an average of 800,000 journeys now made on the service each day, and broke the one million passenger journeys on 11th September for the first time.
