Crossrail

Crossrail is a major new railway, 118 km in length, under construction in South East England. It will link Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, via Greater London, to Essex and Kent. It is currently planned to open in 2018. Ten-car trains will run at frequencies of up to 24 trains per hour (tph) in each direction through the central tunnel section.

It is the first of two routes that are the responsibility of Crossrail Ltd, the other being the proposed Chelsea–Hackney line. It is based on new main-line gauge east-west tunnels from Paddington in the west to beyond Whitechapel in the east. Cross London Rail Links (CLRL) (now Crossrail Ltd) was formed in 2001 to deliver the scheme. The project was approved in October 2007, and the Crossrail Act received Royal Assent in July 2008.

The original plan was that the first trains would run in 2017. In 2010 a Spending Review saving over £1 billion of the £15.9 billion projected cost meant that the first trains are now planned to run on the central section in 2018. It has become Europe's biggest construction project.