Crossrail

Crossrail is a project to build new underground railways running through central London. Unlike the existing London Underground, they would not be local mass-transit services; instead they would connect to existing mainlines to bring regional services into and across the city centre.

Two lines are currently proposed, one from west to east, the other from south-west to north-east. Crossrail line 1 would be a new tunnel from just west of Paddington station to east of Liverpool Street station. It would have underground stations connected to existing mainline and tube stations at Paddington, Bond Street[?], Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon[?] where it would connect with the north-south Thameslink line, Liverpool Street and Whitechapel[?]. It could carry regional services from Reading and Heathrow Airport in the west and Amersham and Watford[?] in the north-west to Shenfield[?] in Essex or Ebbsfleet[?] in Kent at the eastern end. This east-west route was previously proposed in the early 1990s but was rejected by Parliament in 1994.

Crossrail line 2 would involve a new tunnel from Victoria station[?] to Kings Cross station via Tottenham Court Road. This route was previously safeguarded for the proposed tube-gauge "Chelsea-Hackney Line".

Cross 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 hopes that services will begin on line 1 by 2012 and on line 2 in around 2016.

See also: British railway system

External Link

• Crossrail (http://www.crossrail.co.uk/) - official homepage
• Transport Plans for the London Area (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7069/tpftla_CrossRail) - detailed history of Crossrail proposals