Thursday 29 April 2010

Back in the Thames Tunnel

Last time I made a blog-worthy journey through the Thames Tunnel, I was walking; not much chance of that any more, as the East London Line has now reopened. Yesterday was the first full day of operation (the opening on Tuesday was covered by IanVisits, Londonist, Diamond Geezer and, with exemplary brevity, London Reconnections). I may not have had the music and Bollywood dancing of the official opening, but the generous number of staff on hand at every station made it obvious that we're still in the honeymoon period for this shiny, rebranded, revamped and extended service.

It's great to have the line running again: my commute is now much shorter. So what are the new trains like?


They have their own London Overground livery; the lighter colour marks a priority seat. Those are more important than ever now that seating has been cut back in favour of lots of standing space. It may not bode well for a comfortable rush hour journey...


There were plenty of seats for my journey, though, and it was very fast and comfortable: there's even air conditioning. Inside, no division between carriages means one bright and open space - especially bright on the above-ground sections of the line, of course. The new northern section is particularly useful for the Geffrye Museum: enjoy a rather good view of it from the platform at Hoxton! Everyone on board seemed excited by the new service: a lovely change from the usual silent, gloomy commute.

2 comments:

Alex Carter said...

Hi, thank you for that! What colour would you say the lighter seats are? We are trying to answer a competition question set by Overground- would you say light brown or beige overall compared to the brown of the non priority seats? I think the different colour is light blue, my husband says grey, and the question asks for the seat colour (overall) which is all rather confusing...

CarolineLD said...

I suppose overall they're light brown, but the bluish-grey and orange do make it tricky!