A Day Visiting the Elizabeth Line

[class17]

We are coming to London for the day on Sunday. The prime purpose is to travel along the Elizabethan line, stopping off to admire the stations. We arrive into Euston at midday, what should be on our list of must visits?

We intend to purchase a London zone 1 to 6 Travelcard, as I understand it, it will cost £15.20. But I am unsure where to purchase it. Is it possible to purchase it at any railway station before arriving into Euston?

 

[KT550]

Any ticket office should be able to sell it.

They're also available to be purchased online and collected from a ticket machine in advance or on the day if you prefer.

Use "London Travelcard Zones 1-6" as the destination or a named station in zone 6 and you should be offered a travel card by most retailers.

example here:

Booking Engine

ticket.southernrailway.com

 

[DerekC]

We are coming to London for the day on Sunday. The prime purpose is to travel along the Elizabethan line, stopping off to admire the stations. We arrive into Euston at midday, what should be on our list of must visits?

By "must visits" are you talking just about Elizabeth Line stations, or wider railway-related points of interest, or just good general stuff to see?

 

[Taunton]

Canary Wharf is an interesting station structure, best viewed from the outside, in particular from the DLR passing behind and around it. It has a notable top floor with a mini-Eden Project (and a pleasant restaurant).

Hanwell has a heritage style honouring the old GWR (the proper one) structure. Ruined after completion in part by a TfL zealot plonking purple signs in it inappropriately, but still something to look at.

The site for the forthcoming Old Oak Common interchange is works to see when passing through from Paddington westwards, and with the Liz main train depot alongside, though a bit beyond photography range.

The Core station styles are surprisingly similar, with a central passage between the platforms, reminiscent of the Moscow Metro (and TfL Gants Hill; same architect).

 

[alholmes]

A few notable Elizabeth Line stations:
- Canary Wharf, built beneath a dock, with a roof garden above the station
- Farringdon (Barbican / Smithfield exit), for the lifts that are at an angle to run beside the escalators. There’s also one to the street exit at Liverpool Street.
- Farringdon also has the interchange directly onto the Metropolitan / Circle line westbound platform at Barbican station, from where you can catch a train back to Farringdon underground station!
- Hanwell, for some old GWR architecture
- At the central stations, while the platforms may look the same, the escalators and ticket halls all have distinct themes, so worth looking at them even if you don’t leave the stations.

Remember a zone 1-6 ticket isn’t valid beyond West Drayton or Harold Wood.

 

[class17]

By "must visits" are you talking just about Elizabeth Line stations, or wider railway-related points of interest, or just good general stuff to see?

Mainly Elizabeth Line stations, we spent our youth going to London and doing all the main line stations. I remember going in and out of Broad Street to get from one side of London to another on a ALR.

So its mainly to see the new bits.

Any ticket office should be able to sell it.

They're also available to be purchased online and collected from a ticket machine in advance or on the day if you prefer.

Use "London Travelcard Zones 1-6" as the destination or a named station in zone 6 and you should be offered a travel card by most retailers.

example here:

Booking Engine

ticket.southernrailway.com

I did try our local national rail station, but was told they don't sell it.

 

[AlterEgo]

I did try our local national rail station, but was told they don't sell it.

They do, they either didn't understand what you wanted or just couldn't be bothered.

 

[class17]

A few notable Elizabeth Line stations:
- Canary Wharf, built beneath a dock, with a roof garden above the station
- Farringdon (Barbican / Smithfield exit), for the lifts that are at an angle to run beside the escalators. There’s also one to the street exit at Liverpool Street.
- Farringdon also has the interchange directly onto the Metropolitan / Circle line westbound platform at Barbican station, from where you can catch a train back to Farringdon underground station!
- Hanwell, for some old GWR architecture
- At the central stations, while the platforms may look the same, the escalators and ticket halls all have distinct themes, so worth looking at them even if you don’t leave the stations.

Remember a zone 1-6 ticket isn’t valid beyond West Drayton or Harold Wood.

Thanks everyone for the replies, really looking forward to it. Its been ages since I last went down to London, and more so since we just went for railway travelling.

 

[ScotGG]

Some not mentioned -

Custom House isn't too far from the Cable Car for great views. Station isn't the most exciting.

Woolwich station is near the Thames and a nice walk along the river. Town is stuffed full of history too. Lovely details on the station building inside and out.

Abbey Wood station has Lesnes Abbey ruins a short distance away in lovely parkland with good views towards central London and ancient woodland walks alongside. Station design quite different to others and well worth a look.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Paddington at platform level is very impressive ......

 

[Ian79]

We are coming to London for the day on Sunday. The prime purpose is to travel along the Elizabethan line, stopping off to admire the stations. We arrive into Euston at midday, what should be on our list of must visits?

We intend to purchase a London zone 1 to 6 Travelcard, as I understand it, it will cost £15.20. But I am unsure where to purchase it. Is it possible to purchase it at any railway station before arriving into Euston?

You don't need to purchase a physical travelcard - just use a contactless bank card on the ticket gates each time you go through. Depending on how many journeys you make it will either hit the daily price cap (the same or slightly less than the travelcard cost) and then charge no more, or the total cost will be less. The only limitation is that you must not spend too long inside the gates making a journey (it's a 2 hour limit I think) otherwise you'll be charged for an incomplete journey which costs more.

 

[Meerkat]

That garden on top of Canary Wharf station was a big surprise - I was expecting it to be mainly grass like a park, not like a walk through a jungle!
The wayfinding is terrible though, trying to find the right entrance for the lifts that go where you want.
The stained glass tunnel bridge to the station is remarkable too.
I went to all the core stations, and for the central ones went out of one entrance and walked to the other (which wasn't nearly as easy as I thought as Google Maps shows one entrance clearly but not the other)
Has anyone done a 'best routes' actually to the street, as it must be a bit warped by which entrance you want, and the Lizzie not necessarily being quicker as it is soooooo far underground with some long old escalators (and a fair walk if you are at the wrong end of the train). Very different if you are used to the tube.

 

[Hadders]

I did try our local national rail station, but was told they don't sell it.

The station ticket office was wrong. Any ticket office can sell a travelcard.

Where is your local station? Do you have any tickets for your journey to London?

 

[Mojo]

You don't need to purchase a physical travelcard - just use a contactless bank card on the ticket gates each time you go through. Depending on how many journeys you make it will either hit the daily price cap (the same or slightly less than the travelcard cost) and then charge no more, or the total cost will be less. The only limitation is that you must not spend too long inside the gates making a journey (it's a 2 hour limit I think) otherwise you'll be charged for an incomplete journey which costs more.

Contactless or Oyster really isn’t suitable for this type of trip. You can try as hard as you like to avoid hitting the maximum journey time [it isn’t two hours BTW, it depends on the individual journey and time/day you are making it; see here], but it’s very easy to trigger an OSI, of which Crossrail has a lot, and whilst you think you may have touched out within the maximum journey time, the system will end up linking two or more journeys together, meaning you end up going over the maximum journey time.

 

[class17]

The station ticket office was wrong. Any ticket office can sell a travelcard.

Where is your local station? Do you have any tickets for your journey to London?

Thanks, because of your reply, I tried another local railway station and they issued it me without any problems.

I did try buying it on the forum website, entering blank on the to station or repeating the ticket name, but neither worked. When I originally bought the tickets, could I have purchased it in one transaction, from station my station and to station 'London Travelcard Zones U1-6'? If so, I will try and remember this if I do it again.

Thanks everyone, looking forward to the trip tomorrow.

 

[Purple Train]

The Core station styles are surprisingly similar, with a central passage between the platforms, reminiscent of the Moscow Metro (and TfL Gants Hill; same architect).

Minor point of pedantry, but Charles Holden was not actually directly responsible for any Moscow Metro stations - Gants Hill is simply based on a typical Moscow Metro design, though I'm not quite sure how the decision was taken as I can never remember which countries Holden visited with Frank Pick!

The core stations are indeed fairly repetitive beyond the ticket halls, but the architecture on the Abbey Wood branch is more interesting, especially given it's all very new (far from the Elizabethan Line ) Canary Wharf is a good shout given the other two Canary Wharf stations that also deserve to be admired!

There's also a nice little green square outside Woolwich station if that's more your thing, although I wouldn't recommend spending too long in Woolwich if you're sightseeing as Woolwich isn't exactly a tourist's paradise!

 

[Taunton]

Minor point of pedantry, but Charles Holden was not actually directly responsible for any Moscow Metro stations - Gants Hill is simply based on a typical Moscow Metro design, though I'm not quite sure how the decision was taken as I can never remember which countries Holden visited with Frank Pick!

The core stations are indeed fairly repetitive beyond the ticket halls

It was actually an abbreviated reference to Frank Pick, 1930s head of London Transport. He appointed the architects like Holden for the various major extensions done, and actually visited Moscow and advised on the construction of the Metro there, to the extent of receiving the Soviet Badge of Merit for this from Stalin. Some write that Pick turned down any formal honours from the UK government; others of us suspect that following the Soviet interlude they were not even offered.

The shared station style for key stations is to have a broad island platform layout, with a third longitudinal central passage between them for passenger circulation, combined with multiple entries from street level above and links to the platforms either side, avoiding crush points.

Notes on Pick here; they come from the Design Museum and mention his Moscow interlude. Notably the London Transport Museum has even more extensive coverage of him - but somehow seems to omit any such reference:

Frank Pick / Designing Modern Britain - Design Museum : Design Patron (1878-1941) - Design/Designer Information

As head of the London Underground in the 1910s and 1920s and of the newly merged London Transport in the 1930s, FRANK PICK (1878-1941) was instrumental in establishing the world’s most progressive public transport system and an exemplar of design management.

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