Rail enthusiasts can celebrate the opening of the Elizabeth Line by not just sitting on its specially designed moquette covering - but also by wearing it.

The London Transport Museum is selling a host of souvenirs, external made with the unique fabric, including bags, throws and face masks.

BBC London's transport correspondent Tom Edwards has been out and about on the Elizabeth line this morning - and he's been watching the reaction from his fellow passengers.

Thomas Mackintosh
BBC London News

Image source, Reuters

Some fresh figures from Transport for London (TfL) which show 130,000 journeys have been made across the Elizabeth line this morning by 10:00 BST.

Around half of those journeys, 65,000, involved the new central core section between Paddington and Abbey Wood.

In terms of specific stations on the Elizabeth line up until 10:00 BST:

• The new Paddington station has already seen 14,000 entries and exits up

• The new Canary Wharf station has already seen 9,000 entries and exits

• The new Woolwich station has already seen 6,000 entries and exits

BBC News Channel

Railway historian and co-presenter of Secrets of the Underground Tim Dunn has been speaking on the BBC News Channel.

He has been talking about the new Elizabeth line and what it will mean for the other London Underground routes across the capital.

Tim told Anita McVeigh "I have likened some of these stations to great big white spaceships which have landed underground - they are remarkable structures.

"Full of whit as well, designed not only for passengers to enjoy and to move round quickly in huge volumes but they are full of small references to the area that they are actually built in."

More on these hidden gems in a bit...

Thomas Mackintosh
BBC London News

Image source, Siddy Holloway

The London Underground has more than 270 stations dotted across the capital - and many stations have a unique take on the area they are in.

Take Finsbury Park for an example - on the Victoria Line platform there is a mural with crossed pistols referencing the historical popularity of the park for duelling.

London Transport Museum historian Siddy Holloway says the Elizabeth line stations may well be brand new but they also bring their own unique identities to the London Underground network.

“There is so much history in it,” she explains. “A lot of people don’t realise it until you point it out to them and then it becomes this eye opening moment.

“The transport network in London really is a living museum.

“Paddington has got this beautiful gold and bronze work which represents the Great Western Railway and the beautiful and iconic terminus that Paddington is.

“Liverpool Street has a lot of straight lines reflecting the city, almost like pinstripes on suits. Canary Wharf has very clean cut and almost spaceship-like qualities to it.

“Even in Farringdon at one of the entrances it is all cut with diamonds over it because it is so close to the diamond district.”

Andy Byford, TfL's commissioner, has been on BBC Radio London's Eddie Nestor show talking about what impact the line will have.

He says:

• Having the line ready was not without challenges but the team were determined to have it running in the first half of this year
• On Paddington Station being evacuated because of a fire alarm, he says he knew he had a professional team who would put safety first and have everyone back in safely. He says it was a false alarm, most likely due to dust on the sensor.
• The next phase, including opening Bond Street station and having the eastern and western lines link without needing to change, will be finished in the autumn
• The line is not running on Sundays so the team can do the testing needed in order to get the next phase completed by the autumn
• Economically, it will bring in £42bn a year according to the financially modelling they have commissioned

Thomas Mackintosh
BBC London News

Transport YouTuber Geoff Marshall is a well-known advocate of railways and has been lucky enough to document the Crossrail project’s progress over the years.

He tells BBC London the Elizabeth line is a huge moment for London and will take people to new parts of the capital they may never have been to before, while also chopping down gruelling commuting times from the outskirts of London.

“This is something we have been looking forward to for a long time,” Geoff says.

“I am sure there will be some negative press because people will say that it should have opened in 2018. But the fact that a lot of people don’t remember is when they opened up the Jubilee line on the London Underground it was meant to open in 1977, the year of the Queen’s jubilee.

“But it actually opened two years late in 1979. Nowadays people don’t ride around the Jubilee line going 'it was two years late'.

“So I’m sure in time people will forget it should have opened four years ago. I am just very excited, like a kid in a sweet shop that it is opening now in 2022."

Image source, GeoffTech

Geoff describes the new Elizabeth line stations, platforms and trains as “capacious”.

He adds: “The Elizabeth line isn’t an underground line, it is a heavy rail system which just happens to go underground. They are not small Tube trains, they are big mainline trains so they’ve obviously taken that concept and made very big stations.

“The Victorians built our first underground railways back in the 1860s and 1890s, so it is as if they have gone 'let's go bigger' - the platforms are double the width and double the length. The interchange corridors are much bigger.

“When people see it they will be blown away at just how big and bright it is. It is a totally modern, totally up-to-date space age railway which I think will encourage people to want to use it - and it is extremely impressive.”

Kate Scotter
BBC News

The east leg of the Elizabeth line, which goes from Liverpool Street out to Shenfield in Essex, will not connect directly to central London tunnels until later this autumn.

Lauren Kelly, 31, says she and her partner live in Brentwood but drive five minutes to Shenfield station where they park the car before catching a train into the capital.

How much difference will the Elizabeth line make to their commute?

"We always get the fast train anyway, which is about 23 minutes into Liverpool Street," says Lauren.

"I don't know how much faster this one is but it definitely helps us because we run our own business and we have an 18-month-old baby so keeping our commute short each way is important to us."

Lauren says they normally avoid rush-hour and travel at different times of the day.

"We tend to travel at random times around our business so we don't tend to hit rush-hour anyway but I can see how it (more lines and faster trains) would be beneficial to others," she says.

Watch the moment earlier this morning when the first Elizabeth line train pulled into Woolwich station.

Thomas Mackintosh
BBC London News

Image source, EPA

Londoners will be no strangers to the London Underground being an absolute inferno during hot weather.

Temperatures have been known to soar above 30°C in the summer months and in recent years a crammed Tube carriage can be unbearable.

One of the new aspects of the Elizabeth line to have really struck historian Siddy Holloway is just how spacious and air conditioned they are.

“People are really going to notice how comfortable and cool the Elizabeth line will be compared to other parts of the network,” she tells BBC London.

As part of the TV series Secrets of the London Underground, Siddy went to Liverpool Street and to Farringdon stations and says she was taken to one of the ventilation shafts - somewhere the public will not be able to see.

“There are these vast back of house areas,” she explains.

“They are just enormous and just below London. This plant room, the thought which has been put into ventilation and the comfort... I think they have future-proofed this railway for a very, very long time.”

Harry Low
BBC London News

In south east London's Abbey Wood, one of the most deprived parts of England, residents are hoping to reap the benefits of Crossrail's completion.

"It will put Abbey Wood on the map," declares taxi-firm boss Nim Bhadare, the self-styled "Mr Crossrail".

He previously told the BBC he had spent £35,000 upgrading his systems and employing more drivers, ahead of what he hopes will be an increase in punters, only to experience persistent delays.

"I think we've got over this stage of it being late and delays and everything else," the 52-year-old adds, his business having survived despite fears it might go under.

"The impact about four and a half years ago would have been immense. With everything that's happened over the last couple of years with Covid, people working from home, I think it will be a bit challenging.

"Hopefully people won't change their habits, and use us as their transport."

Is he optimistic for the future, in what is an area known for its deprivation, external?

"I think everybody running businesses along the Crossrail route is thinking like I am. The fact that's happening now, you know it's great, and let's just hope that everybody, including the teams that are working on it, embrace it now and move forward."

Read more about Abbey Wood and Crossrail here.

Tom Edwards
Transport Correspondent, BBC London

Image source, PA Media

It's been a busy morning for the Elizabeth line. The new railway has been up and running for a few hours and already seen its first hiccup (the evacuation at Paddington).

Here's a recap with five main things you need to know about the Elizabeth line.

• It is going to initially be open six days a week from 06:30 each morning until 23:00 every night from Monday to Saturday
• In London, fares cost the same as in the Tube zones. Outside London, they are going to match those of the train companies. It takes contactless everywhere and Oyster in the capital. It will be part of the travel capping system
• There are going to be trains every five minutes initially carrying 1,500 people each. They are fast, but the bad news is there are no toilets on the trains
• The Elizabeth line is not yet running end-to-end - which will be from Reading in Berkshire at one end to Shenfield, Essex, at the other. It is really just being run as three railways. You will have to change at Paddington or Liverpool Street in London. Eventually - in 2023 - you will be able to travel from one end to the other
• It has got a budget of £18.8bn - which is double the cost of the 2012 Olympics

Alexandra Fouché
BBC News Live reporter

Valérie, a marketing manager who lives in west London, had been looking forward to her first journey on the line. It was set to cut her travel time by half.

But she was caught up in this morning’s Paddington evacuation and forced to divert on to the existing Tube network.

“Initially I was very excited to use the new line. The journey on the section between Ealing Broadway and Paddington was not different from my normal commute, so I was looking forward to using the next section which was completely new for me.”

She normally travels from South Ealing in west London to Canary Wharf in the east of the capital, which used to take her 1h15 - the new line is set to bring that down to 35-40 minutes.

“Overall, the line is much more comfortable, the seats are more comfortable than on the Tube, everyone was sat down, even though the carriage was full.

"It’s also quieter and there’s more space than on the Tube, I feel good travelling on the line.”

Once at Paddington, she says travellers have to walk from one end of the station to the other to get to the other section of the line.

“It was very busy, I was a bit lost to start with, but it was well signposted, with people in purple to show you the way.”

Unfortunately with this morning’s evacuation, she had to revert to using the old Tube network.

In the end, it took her two hours to get to work.

“It’s a shame, I was not able to see the next section of the new line. People around me were commenting on how it was not a very good start.”

Harry Low
BBC London News

It’s probably the first time during the project that transport bosses have legitimately been able to claim that they have delivered on time - as the first train from Abbey Wood in south-east London rolled into Paddington at 06:58 BST.

Arriving 28 minutes after its departure, that represents a cut in journey time of almost half.

Those arriving at Paddington have been greeted by staff sporting large purple Elizabeth Line fingers while lots of passengers on board were wearing all manner of purple clothing - socks, badges and even hair dyed purple in honour of the line named in honour of the current monarch.

The line isn’t operating from one end to the other yet - but those on board were celebrating the realisation of a long-held ambition for transport bosses: running a new east-west railway with paying customers without any hiccups.

Watch as we walk through an Elizabeth line train carriage. The on-board announcer says: "Welcome aboard the very first Elizabeth line service today".

Thomas Mackintosh
BBC London News

Although the first section of Elizabeth line to open is doing so through the capital, the CEO of business campaigning group London First believes the whole of the country has already benefited from its construction.

John Dickie said the new railway is a project the whole of the United Kingdom can be proud of.

He added:“By connecting airports, offices, homes, shops, and leisure activities more quickly, easily and accessibly, the Elizabeth line will be transformative for Londoners and visitors alike.

“This project is a clear demonstration of what can be achieved when business and all levels of government work together for the good of the national economy.

“With a quarter of carbon emissions coming from transport, and the project’s supply chain contracts awarded up and down the country, it is an investment in both a net zero future and levelling up.”

We were there as the first passengers entered the new station at Woolwich on the Elizabeth line. Some staff were quite excited too.

We have more on what Sadiq Khan has been telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

The line he says "should be a source of pride for all of us."

"I've met this morning people from Hong Kong, from the Netherlands, from Germany, from America, who are looking at us with envy, as we embark upon this recovery, this national recovery. We have this amazing new infrastructure in our capital city."

On the question of the line being over budget and years late, he says it's important the government learns lessons from this.

"There's got to be proper accountability and proper oversight, somebody responsible for the construction," he said.

"Also one of the things we've learned is this is a very complex railway system, there are three separate signalling systems, we need simplicity when it comes to High Speed 2," he says.

It's not the first project that's been delayed across the globe, he adds.

"We need to make sure the institutional knowledge we learned from Crossrail goes into High Speed 2, rather than a delay before the major construction goes further."

Thomas Mackintosh
BBC London News

Image source, BTP

It is not just a big day for Transport for London - the new Elizabeth line means it is another section of the Tube network that the British Transport Police (BTP) will have to patrol.

Supt Chris Casey and his team have had years to prepare for the grand opening and he told BBC London the plans have really intensified in the last six months in order to make sure the Elizabeth line will be a safe and secure railway for passengers to travel on.

He said: “There will be a dedicated policing operation in place as you would expect. It will be very similar to what people would see across the network and main railway stations in London where you would see a BTP officer.

“There will be a range of other assets, including armed officers and police dogs, but it won’t be a no overbearing police operation. We will be visible throughout the network.

“The network can be quite cramped when it is busy, so this is more space for people to move around and not to be crammed together really. The new stations look fantastic, an amazing development for London.

“There will be a mixture of static police resources and on train there will be officers patrolling the route - visible patrols on trains as well as at the station.”

British Transport Police were called to the Elizabeth line at Paddington station following a report of a fire alarm.

The station was evacuated as a precaution. London Fire Brigade attended, it was deemed the alarm was trigged by accident. The station has since re-opened.