2 trains overnight from Paddington between 0030 and 0530. With that frequency I guess you could operate it on a single track through the tunnel section.
With the first departure from Heathrow around 6am, it would be nice to have trains running earlier than the current HEx start time of 5:10
First HEc to depart London is 4:42 which departs Heathrow is 5:23 from T4, which is just over an hour from the 3:34 GWR departure to Reading.
Problem is the east side where the first to depart Shenfield is 4:44, before the TfL takeover, it reached Stratford at 5:10, now it don't reach there till 5:19. They are going to have to do some serious reworking to even try to link them up.
24hrs is almost certain, hopefully 6 nights a week. With 24hr (very badly publicised) GWML services already, plus Thameslink & Night Tube, can't see it not happening between Reading/Heathrow to Shenfield at least.
Night operation - CLR-00-152842
Thank you for your email on the 30th of March 2016,
At present Crossrail is not due to run a 24 hour service when fully operational. In addition no timetable has been finalised for the service yet. It is worth highlighting that TfL will be responsible for the running and timetabling of Crossrail. It could be worth your while getting in touch with TfL to receive updates of when new timetable information is released.
Operating a diesel service would mean that the electrification would not need to be live during the night and should cost less than operating a Crossrail electric train (and a 4-car GWR electric service would also cost less)...
I can't think of any precedent for turning mainline electrification off overnight as an economy measure. Neither DC or AC ever go off, except for during engineering possessions.
Considering the Night Tube won't serve anywhere near Eailing (big catchment area), I suppose running Crossrail to serve Eailing Broadway during the night is a logical stance.
I thought that it would allow some of the power system to worked on without closing the line.
I can't think of any precedent for turning mainline electrification off overnight as an economy measure. Neither DC or AC ever go off, except for during engineering possessions.
The cost saving which I was referring to was the costs required to run a 2-4 car train compared to a Crossrail train.
But if it's a diesel it probably costs as much to run as an EMU of twice the length anyway, so the cost saving is not great especially if the diesel has to make an extra journey from somewhere else. The cheapest option would probably be one of GWR's future 4-car EMU fleet.
Cant CR run into liverpool street and paddingtin mainline anyway.
I will be very disappointed if gwr's overnight service is cancelled because of crossrail.
Hopefully not. The overnight services are almost like staff trains at times, so there is an operational advantage to running these.
Yes, although Liverpool Street can't take the full-length trains until some remodelling is done, so the first Crossrail trains will have a couple of coaches removed.