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The Elizabeth line is a high-frequency hybrid urban
suburban rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are co ...
service in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and its suburbs. It runs services on dedicated infrastructure in central London from the
Great Western Main Line The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the o ...
west of
Paddington Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Padd ...
to and via Whitechapel to the
Great Eastern Main Line The Great Eastern Main Line (GEML, sometimes referred to as the East Anglia Main Line) is a major railway line on the British railway system which connects Liverpool Street station in central London with destinations in east London and the ...
near ; along the Great Western Main Line from
London Paddington Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by the Great We ...
to and
Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...
in the west; and along the Great Eastern Main Line between Stratford and in the east. The service is named after
Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
, who officially opened the line on 17 May 2022 during her Platinum Jubilee year; passenger services started on 24 May 2022. Under the project name of Crossrail, the system was approved in 2007, and construction began in 2009. Originally planned to open in 2018, the project was repeatedly delayed, including for several months as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. In May 2015, existing commuter services on a section of one of the eastern branches, between and Shenfield, were transferred to TfL Rail; this precursor service also took control of
Heathrow Connect Heathrow Connect was a train service in London provided jointly by Heathrow Express and Great Western Railway (GWR), between Paddington station and Heathrow Airport. The service followed the same route as the non-stop Heathrow Express serv ...
in May 2018, and some local services on the Paddington to Reading line in December 2019. These services were augmented by a new central section in May 2022, and rebranded as the Elizabeth line. The outer services were connected to the central section in November 2022. By May 2023, the central section will have up to 24 nine-carriage Class 345 trains per hour in each direction.


History

In 2001, Cross London Rail Links (CLRL), a 50/50 joint-venture between Transport for London (TfL) and the
Department for Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved. The ...
(DfT), was formed to develop and promote the Crossrail scheme, and also a Wimbledon–Hackney scheme,
Crossrail 2 Crossrail 2 is a proposed hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit route in South East England, running from nine stations in Surrey to three in Hertfordshire, providing a new North–South rail link across Greater London. It would connect the ...
. In 2003 and 2004, over 50days of exhibitions were held to explain the proposals at over 30 different locations.


2005 route development

In 2005, ahead of Crossrail's hybrid bill submission, a number of feeder routes were considered by CLRL west of Paddington and east of Liverpool Street. It was viewed, given the 24 trains-per-hour (tph) core frequency, that two feeder routes, each of 12tph, could be taken forward. In the west, a route to Maidenhead (later extended to Reading) and Heathrow Airport was selected. In the east, routes to Abbey Wood (curtailed from Ebbsfleet to avoid conflicts with the North Kent lines) and Shenfield were selected.


Approval

The Crossrail Act 2008 authorising the construction project received
royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...
on 22 July 2008. In December 2008, TfL and the DfT announced that they had signed the "Crossrail Sponsors' Agreement". This committed them to financing the project, then projected to cost £15.9billion, with further contributions from
Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's len ...
, BAA and the City of London.


Construction

Work began on 15 May 2009 when piling works started at the future Canary Wharf station. Boring of the railway tunnels was officially completed in June 2015. Installation of the track was completed in September 2017. The ETCS signalling was scheduled to be tested in the Heathrow tunnels over the winter of 2017–2018. At the end of August 2018, four months before the scheduled opening of the core section of the line, it was announced that completion was delayed and that the line would not open before autumn 2019. After multiple delays, in August 2020 Crossrail announced that the central section would be ready to open "in the first half of 2022". In May 2021, trial running commenced. On 17 May 2022, the line was officially opened by the Queen in honour of her Platinum Jubilee. She was not scheduled to attend the event, but decided to attend with her son, Prince Edward, to unveil the plaque commemorating the official opening.


Timeline

Though the main tunnels under central London had not yet been opened, passenger operations on the outer branches of the future Elizabeth line were transferred to TfL for inclusion in the concession – this took place over several stages beginning May 2015. During this initial phase of operation, services were operated by MTR under the ''TfL Rail'' brand. Following the practice adopted during the transfer of former Silverlink services to
London Overground London Overground (also known simply as the Overground) is a suburban rail network serving London and its environs. Established in 2007 to take over Silverlink Metro routes, (via archive.org). it now serves a large part of Greater London as w ...
in 2007, TfL carried out a deep clean of stations and trains on the future Elizabeth line route, installed new ticket machines and barriers, introduced Oyster card and contactless payment, and ensured all stations were staffed. Existing rolling stock was rebranded with the TfL Rail identity.


Route

The Elizabeth line runs on an east-west axis across the London region, with branches terminating at Abbey Wood and Shenfield in the east, and at Heathrow Terminal 4, Heathrow Terminal 5 and Reading in the west. There are 41 stations. In the central section, there are interchanges with London Underground, National Rail and Docklands Light Railway lines.


Design and infrastructure


Name and identity

''Crossrail'' is the name of the construction project and of the
limited company In a limited company, the liability of members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by shares or by guarantee. In a company limited by shares, the li ...
, wholly owned by TfL, that was formed to carry out construction works. The ''Elizabeth line'' is the name of the new service that is on signage throughout the stations. It is named in honour of
Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
. The Elizabeth line logo features a Transport for London roundel with a purple ring and blue bar with white text. Unlike lines of the London Underground, the roundels contain the word "line". '' TfL Rail'' was an intermediate brand name which was introduced in May 2015 and discontinued in May 2022. It was used by TfL on services between Paddington and Heathrow Terminal 5 and Reading, as well as trains between Liverpool Street and Shenfield.


Stations

Ten new stations have been built in the central and south east sections of the line, and thirty-one existing stations were upgraded and refurbished. Nine of the ten new built stations were fully opened on 24 May 2022 with Bond Street as the exception which, , still needed further final finishing prior to testing and commissioning, but opened on 24 October 2022. All stations are equipped with CCTV and because of the length of trains, central stations have train indicators above the platform-edge doors. All 41 stations are step-free, with 13 of these (the central and Heathrow stations) having level access between trains and platforms. Although the trains are long, platforms at the new stations in the central core are built to enable trains in case of possible future need. In the eastern section, and have not had platform extensions, so trains use
selective door opening Selective door operation (SDO), also known as selective door opening, is a mechanism employed primarily on trains (although buses with multiple doors also generally have this feature) that allows the driver or conductor/guard to open the doors of ...
instead. At Maryland this is because of the prohibitive cost of extensions and the poor business case, and at Manor Park it is due to the presence of a freight loop that would otherwise be cut off. A mock-up of the new stations was built in Bedfordshire in 2011 to ensure that their architectural integrity would last for a century. It was planned to bring at least one mock-up to London for the public to view the design and give feedback before final construction commenced.


Future stations


Rolling stock

The Elizabeth line route exclusively uses nine-car Class 345 trains for the services on the routes. The requirement was for 65 trains, each long and carrying up to 1,500 passengers. The trains are accessible, including dedicated areas for
wheelchair A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries ( paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), ce ...
s, with audio and visual announcements,
CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly ...
and speaker-phones connected to the driver in case of emergency. They will run at up to on certain parts of the route. In March 2011, Crossrail announced that five bidders had been shortlisted for the contract to build the Class 345 and its associated depot. One of the bidders,
Alstom Alstom SA is a French multinational corporation, multinational rolling stock manufacturer operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the A ...
, withdrew from the process in July 2011. In February 2012, Crossrail issued an invitation to negotiate to CAF,
Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''E ...
,
Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Nissan ''zaibatsu'' and later DKB Group and Fuyo G ...
and Bombardier, with tenders expected to be submitted by mid-2012. In 2013, Siemens also withdrew from the bid, but will provide signalling and control systems for Crossrail. In December 2013, the
European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the EU Member States. It is one of the largest supranational lenders in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt solution ...
(EIB) agreed to provide loans to Transport for London for the rolling stock of up to £500M. On 6 February 2014, it was announced that Canada's Bombardier had been awarded a £1bn contract to supply 66 trains, with an option for 18 more. Bombardier Transportation would later be acquired by withdrawing bidder Alstom on 29 January 2021. The first train entered service on 22 June 2017 on the TfL Rail route between London Liverpool Street and Shenfield as a seven-carriage unit, since, before the platforms were lengthened, the complete nine-car sets could not be accommodated at Liverpool Street station. In July 2017 an option for five more units was exercised taking the order to 70 units. Eight Class 315 trains, which were built in 1980–1981, are still needed to run on the Liverpool Street-Shenfield via Stratford section of the Elizabeth line. They will cover Elizabeth line services during weekday peak hours for an initial few months until there are enough Class 345 trains to run the service, as some are out of service temporarily whilst extra carriages are added to them.


Electrification and train protection

The Elizabeth line uses 25kV, 50Hz AC
overhead lines An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as: * Overhead catenary * Overhead contact system (OCS) * Overhead equipment ...
, already in use on the Great Eastern and Great Western Main Lines. The Heathrow branch started using the European Train Control System (ETCS) in 2020. The Automatic Warning (AWS) and Train Protection & Warning (TPWS) systems are used on the Great Western and Great Eastern Main Lines, with possible later upgrades to ETCS. Communications-based train control (CBTC) is installed in the central section and the Abbey Wood branch.


Depots

The Elizabeth line has depots in west London at Old Oak Common TMD, in south-east London at Plumstead Depot, and in east London at Ilford EMU Depot.


Service pattern


Initial service

Upon opening, the line ran as three physically separate services: between Reading or Heathrow airport and London Paddington in the west; from Paddington via Liverpool Street to Abbey Wood in the centre; and between London Liverpool Street and Shenfield in the east. To connect between services, a walk between the separate stations at Paddington or Liverpool Street was required.


Current service

As of 6 November 2022, when through-running began, there are two main service groups, overlapping through the core section: from Reading or Heathrow Airport to Abbey Wood; and from Paddington to Shenfield. The off-peak weekday service is as follows: Some early morning and late night services run into
London Paddington Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by the Great We ...
main line terminus instead of going across central London. Likewise, some early, peak-direction, and late trains run between
London Liverpool Street Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It is the t ...
main line terminus and Gidea Park, bypassing Whitechapel.


Planned service

In May 2023, it is planned to allow trains to run from both eastern branches to west of Paddington. This will allow both more flexible, and higher frequency, services: 24tph peak, 20tph off-peak, and direct services between Shenfield and Heathrow. In the longer term, when opens, all trains will serve , with those not serving the Reading or Heathrow branches reversing there.


Journey times


Ticketing

Ticketing is integrated with the other London transport systems, but Oyster pay as you go is not accepted on the western section between
West Drayton West Drayton is a suburban town in the London Borough of Hillingdon. It was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex and from 1929 was part of the Yiewsley and West Drayton Urban District, which became part of Greater London in 1965. Th ...
(the limit of TfL's Zone 6) and Reading, with only contactless cards valid there. Travelcards and concessionary passes are valid within Greater London. The Elizabeth line is integrated with the London Underground, the wider Transport for London network and the National Rail networks; it is also included on the standard Tube map. Journeys to or from Heathrow Airport are priced at a premium due to using the rail tunnel between the airport and Hayes & Harlington. That stretch of line is not part of the
Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's len ...
system but owned by Heathrow Airport Holdings, who charge TfL an additional fee for each train that uses it. Heathrow is nevertheless included within travelcards and daily/weekly fare capping as a Zone 6 station.


Passenger numbers

Before the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, the Elizabeth line was predicted to carry over 200 million passengers annually immediately after opening; this was expected to relieve pressure on London Underground's lines, especially the Central line. is expected to become one of the busiest stations in the UK, due to it being the key interchange station with
Thameslink Thameslink is a 24-hour main-line route in the British railway system, running from , , , and via central London to Sutton, , , Rainham, , , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying ...
services. In a business plan for the line published in January 2020, Transport for London predicted total annual revenues from the line of nearly £500million per year in 2022/23 (its first full year of operation) and over £1billion per year in 2024/25. By the time the line opened, TfL had reduced their passenger forecasts because passenger travelling habits changed during the pandemic; the estimate was between 130 and 170 million passengers by 2026.


Further proposals

New stations have been proposed to serve
London City Airport London City Airport is a regional airport in London, England. It is located in the Royal Docks in the Borough of Newham, approximately east of the City of London and east of Canary Wharf. These are the twin centres of London's financial ...
, and extensions have been put forward to Ebbsfleet in the south east,
Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...
in the north west, Staines in the south west, and Southend Airport in the east.


See also

*
Crossrail 2 Crossrail 2 is a proposed hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit route in South East England, running from nine stations in Surrey to three in Hertfordshire, providing a new North–South rail link across Greater London. It would connect the ...
– second proposed Crossrail route providing a new north–south rail link across
Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness Greatness is a concept of a state of superiority affecting a person or object in a particular place or area. Greatness can also be attributed to individuals who possess a natural ability to be better than al ...
* '' The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway'', a documentary about the Elizabeth line's construction and commissioning *
Transport in London London has an extensive and developed transport network which includes both private and public services. Journeys made by public transport systems account for 37% of London's journeys while private services accounted for 36% of journeys, walkin ...


References


Bibliography

* * ** * * * * * * * * , - , - {{Authority control Transport at Heathrow Airport London Rail Regional rail in the United Kingdom Railway operators in London Underground commuter rail Railway services introduced in 2022 2022 establishments in England Monuments and memorials to Queen Elizabeth II