Delivering a world-class railway for London and the south-east
Crossrail is the biggest engineering project in Europe and forms a major part of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy. When it opens in 2018, Crossrail will connect 37 stations, including Heathrow airport and Maidenhead in the west with Canary Wharf, Abbey Wood and Shenfield in the east.
Using the Crossrail service will make travelling in the region easier and quicker, and help to reduce crowding on London's transport network.
37 stations, 8 new sub-surface stations - a new railway for the 21st century
- 28 existing Network Rail stations from Maidenhead in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east will be connected to 21km of twin bore tunnels under central London
- New Crossrail stations will be built along the central route of the line at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street, Whitechapel and Canary Wharf
- The new stations will be on a scale not seen since the Jubilee Line Extension opened in 1999
21 kms of new twin-bore tunnels under central London
- New twin-bore tunnels measuring 21km in length will be built under central London with tunnelling starting in spring 2012
- Over the coming year, Crossrail’s tunnel boring machines (TBMs) will be delivered after which digging of the tunnels under London will begin
- The TBMs will weave their way between existing underground lines, sewers, utilities and building foundations at depths of up to 40 metres to create the tunnels required to deliver the new railway
New train services, reduced journey times
- Crossrail will deliver new train services and reduced journey times with up to 24 trains per hour between Paddington and Whitechapel during peak times
- Each Crossrail train will be around 200 metres long and be able to accommodate up to 1,500 passengers
- Around 200 million passengers will travel on Crossrail each year
Substantial economic benefits
- Crossrail will deliver substantial economic benefits in London, the South-East and across the UK
- Over the past year Crossrail has let some of the largest value contracts in recent UK construction history – providing a much needed boost to the UK construction industry as well as creating major employment opportunities
- The estimated benefit of Crossrail to the UK economy is at least £42 billion
Download Crossrail Project Bulletin 24
Video: Construction progress at Canary Wharf Crossrail station
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Progress
Construction of Crossrail began in 2009 at the Canary Wharf station site. Since then almost 100 million litres of water, the equivalent of 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools, have been drained from the site to enable station construction to descend three storeys below the dock bed. The station’s ticket hall and platform levels are nearing structural completion, with the last of the excavation and concreting underway at the bottom of the station.
Construction has also begun at all of our central London sites with demolitions nearing completion and enabling works to prepare the sites for main construction in full swing.
Construction activity for the tunnel portals is underway and work on Royal Oak portal, the first of five new portals to be constructed for Crossrail, was completed in September 2011. Timely completions of the portals are key to the Crossrail programme as they are the entry point for the tunnel boring machines which will create the railway’s running tunnels.
Main construction of the new Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy in east London is now complete. The purpose-built training facility should be fully operational by autumn 2011 and aims to address the shortage of people with the necessary skills to work on Crossrail and other tunnelling projects across the UK.
Royal Assent was given to the Crossrail Act in July 2008 giving Crossrail Ltd the authority to build the railway. Preliminary works commenced during 2009, with main construction works having commenced throughout the central section since 2010.
