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Crossrail is a project to build a new east-west railway connection under central London, with one connection to the west and two to the east. It would be built to heavy rail standards and might connect to existing main lines. Services would consist of a high frequency metro style service, complementing the existing north-south Thameslink route. It is intended that Crossrail ticketing would be integrated with the other London transport systems, with Travelcards being valid within Greater London. Crossrail has often been compared to Paris's RER system due to the length of the central tunnel, although its scope is rather more limited.
Crossrail Line 1Crossrail's first stage is to be an electrified east-west line running under central London, connecting southeastern suburbs of London and southern Essex to parts of west London and the Thames Valley. The western limit of services will be located at Maidenhead in Berkshire. Crossrail trains will call at all of the Thames Valley line stations between there and Paddington station. At Paddington, the line will enter a new tunnel under central London with new stations at Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street and Whitechapel. These will offer interchange opportunities with the existing Tube lines and Thameslink. The line will then fork east of Whitechapel. The northern branch will run from Stratford to Shenfield. The southern branch will call at a new station at the Isle of Dogs and another near Custom House before crossing under the River Thames to terminate at Abbey Wood. Dartford and Northfleet now seem unlikely to enjoy direct services before 2020, if ever. A service to all Heathrow Airport passenger termini via the existing BAA funded Heathrow Express line is also planned. A route from Paddington to Kingston upon Thames via Richmond upon Thames was examined but subsequently dropped, due to a combination of local opposition, uncertainty over the route, cost and an insufficient return on the envisaged investment. This would conceivably have run either overland or via a tunnel to the existing track through Gunnersbury and Kew (which would no longer be used by the District Line), and thence to Richmond and Kingston on existing mainline track. This east–west route was previously proposed in the early 1990s but was rejected by Parliament in 1994. A number of alternative routes on the west side were considered, including regional services to Amersham and Watford in the north-west, Reading in the west. All have now been dropped in favour of the core proposal. The central section of the line, plus the first few miles of the eastern branches, will be tunneled for a total distance of about 10 miles. This will be a difficult and expensive piece of engineering, due to London's geology, and the very extensive tunnelling that already exists in central London. Its twin circular tunnels will have an internal diameter of 6 m (18 ft), compared with the 3.8m (14.5 ft) diameter of existing deep Tube lines. Unlike the Tube or the existing Thames Valley or North Kent lines, Crossrail trains will use neither third rail nor diesel-electric power, but will use conventional overhead power supplies (catenary in the open air and a fixed overhead bar contact system in the tunnels). Current statusCrossrail Line 1 has been backed by the Government, which will introduce a hybrid bill for the scheme. The route is currently the subject of a public consultation. It is envisaged that the line will be open by 2013. Although Crossrail has long had support from London's politicians and business community, it has been held up for a long time due to wrangling over finance. It is currently proposed that the £10 billion cost of the scheme will be met through a combination of public and (mostly) private finance, with London businesses contributing much of the funding. Crossrail Line 2Crossrail line 2 would include a new tunnel from Victoria station to Kings Cross railway station via Tottenham Court Road. This route was previously safeguarded for the proposed tube-gauge "Chelsea-Hackney Line" (later renamed "Merton-Hackney" route) and might take over the eastern arm of the Central Line east of Leytonstone. Current statusMany details of Line 2, including the route, stations and especially the finance, are as yet unclear. It is envisaged that it could begin operating by 2016, although this looks somewhat optimistic given the difficulties already encountered with Line 1. Management aspectsCross London Rail Links Ltd is the company responsible for creating Crossrail. It is publicly owned as a joint venture of Transport for London and the Strategic Rail Authority, and has £154 million of public funding, but the structure for funding the lines themselves (on the order of £10 billion) has not been finalised. It is hoped that services will begin on line 1 by 2012 and on line 2 in around 2016. Part of the large expense is due to incorporate a high (and extremely expensive) quality of architecture as specified previously on the Jubilee Line extension. In addition, costs are added to by a reluctance to re-use either the Farringdon to Moorgate section of Thameslink or the disused Moorgate to Liverpool Street mainline station link, thus requiring tunnelling costs for the same route. This is in addition to the extra infrastructure that sub-surface stations require (escalators at each end of the platform leading to separate exits (because they are so far apart, due to the added distance caused by the escalators, etc.), new station buildings to cope with the escalators (which might also require demolition of some listed buildings located at the likely station entrance locations). Journalists covering the construction often comment that had it been designed to the same standards as the Victoria Line, it would not only be built and operational already, but would have cost no-more than the public funding it already has. StationsWest of Paddington
Heathrow Branch
Central section (tunneled)
East of WhitechapelRomford Branch
Abbey Wood Branch
See alsoExternal links
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