On a more serious note, the unreliability of the Elizabeth line is becoming a bit of an issue.

I commute daily using it, from Liverpool Street to Tottenham Court Road so just two stops. When it works it is amazing, frequent service and fast, but the incidence of total suspension of the line is now a real concern. Last night I sat on a train at TCR for 10 mins before we were all told to find alternative routes due to broken down trains at Canary Wharf; Farrngdon and Paddington, according to the announcements! This morning I didn’t even try to use it because the app warned of 100% cancellations due to signal failure at TCR. And this evening there were severe delays on the line again on my way home.

When it is down it is down. It’s not like the tube lines, where faults can mean longer intervals between trains - on the Elizabeth line it means everyone needs to get off. A few weeks ago on my way to work I thought I would sit it out and eventually a platform manager came and told me that it could be SEVERAL HOURS before they resumed any service following a broken down train as the entire timetable had now been thrown out.

Unfortunately it is starting to feel like Elizabeth Line has just imported the problems of the national rail network into central London. I certainly would always check to see if it is working and would advise anyone travelling to LHR on it to leave time for a contingency re-routing.