Crossrail is the new railway service serving Greater London and surrounding counties.
Due for completion in 2018, this 73-mile railway will provide a high-frequency service that will link central London with parts of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Essex.
Crossrail will have 26 miles of new tunnels. The main tunnels will run from near Paddington Station to Stratford via central London and Liverpool Street Station.
Services will run from Reading to Shenfield, and from Abbey Wood. The new service will share some lines with existing services.
There will up to 24 9-car trains per hour running in each direction.
Crossrail will be operated by MTR Corporation Ltd in a similar manner to the London Overground.
Services should begin in May 2015 between Liverpool Street and Shenfield and will be extended to other parts of the route by 2018.
It is hoped that this new line will relieve some of the pressure on certain Underground lines and also the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly line.
This project is the largest infrastructure project in Europe, and also has the unusual claim of being the largest archaeological site in Britain. The route inadvertently travels through a plague pit, a Roman road, a madhouse cemetery, a Mesolithic “tool-making factory”.
In a city that is projected to have a population of 10 million by 2030, a modern, efficient transport system is vital.
Find out more about Crossrail
