A Little Help Planning Journey on Tube

The circle line is confusing when you get to the corners.

You need to look for signs for the eastbound platform, platform 3. This is despite the train immediately hooking around and turning west towards Paddington. I get why TfL do it, they consistently use North/South/East/West on their network. And district line trains here do go east. But it is confusing when on the circle line you are going West and taking the Eastbound platform. Anyway.

If you're on the right platform, it will look like this (Paddington is the stop immediately after Edgware Road and not shown, but it is there) https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlie59/44465034971

Make sure you get on a Circle Line train not a district line.

If you end up on the wrong platform and go westbound via Victoria, as you have said you will still end up at Paddington, it will have just taken you an extra 5 minutes or so.

The quickest Circle Line route is via the north, ie destination Hammersmith.

However, there is an alternative which is to go to Whitechapel on the District and then on the Elizabeth line. Time is about the same to Paddington but there is the possibility of catching one directly to Slough as well (destination Maidenhead or Reading), for the shuttle to Windsor.

Although this is slower than the GWR train with extra stops it generally works out much the same time overall as you don't have to make a connection.

Thank you, Olivia for the info & picture! That really helps.

Marco: I will look at that alternative, thank you!

We have 9:30 tickets for Windsor Castle, so I plan for us to get an early start to make sure we're there on time. We can always wander around Windsor if we're too early. :)

Tina

Marco's alternative is what I would have suggested.

Thanks, Nigel! I've been looking at Marco's alternative. Just so that I'm clear, on the Elizabeth Line, there will be some trains that say "Reading" and some that say "Heathrow"? There is not one train that goes to both?

Tina

No, no Elizabeth Line trains go to Heathrow and Reading (it is either/or). But some trains also terminate at Maidenhead (which is after Slough). So you want an Elizabeth Line train to Maidenhead (two trains an hour) or Reading (two trains an hour) -so a combined frequency of 4 trains an hour to Slough.
There are 6 trains an hour to Heathrow Central- 2 of which then go to Terminal 5, and 4 to Terminal 4.

There are also 8 trains an hour which terminate at Paddington.

This is the full printed timetable- https://content.tfl.gov.uk/elizabeth-line-december-2025.pdf

Consider using CityMapper (app or on desktop) to plot routes. I found it very helpful giving specific directions about which tube entrance/exit and platform to use. You can visually confirm using the signage as shown in the link to the photo in the prior post.

isn31c, thanks, exactly what I needed to know!

I like to have a good idea of my routes so that I'm not standing in a tube station trying to figure things out.

Thanks, CL! I used to have the CityMapper app on my phone, but don't seem to have it anymore. I'll re-install & take a look.

Tina