Crossrail

The Story of Crossrail

by Christian Wolmar  · 5 Sep 2018  · 292pp  · 85,381 words

–west artery, which east of Marble Arch encompassed Oxford Street, High Holborn, Cheapside and Poultry, and these failed projects all had certain parallels with Crossrail in terms of their ambition, their importance to the capital and the financial, political and technical difficulties in getting them built. No surface railway could

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case, the promoters, the Electric Traction Company, persuaded the banker and philanthropist Sir Ernest Cassel to fund most of the construction of this nineteenth-century Crossrail, with shareholders eventually chipping in the rest. Inevitably, there were delays and construction did not start until April 1896, when a shaft was sunk

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responsible for the digging, in 1869, of the Tower Subway beneath the Thames, using the shield that bears his name. § Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens. ** Crossrail, in contrast, will benefit from an incredibly sophisticated system of ventilation, which is designed not just to keep the temperature steady but also to divert

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a quango set up in 1963 to disperse office jobs from central London and abolished by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. ‡ The trains selected for Crossrail will follow this pattern and will therefore have no toilets, saving a huge amount on maintenance and servicing, but undoubtedly inconveniencing some passengers. 3.

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at Ilford in East London‡). The boost to London’s self-confidence and international prestige are difficult to quantify, too. Technological innovation, on which the Crossrail team has focused particularly, is another potential – and unquantifiable – gain. Just as the US space programme resulted in numerous practical inventions, so Europe’s

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largest infrastructure project offers the prospect of generating a wealth of new ideas. Crossrail’s innovation programme, which its contractors were required to help fund, offered those involved in the project rewards for pioneering ‘techniques, products and methods’

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did the Treasury’s dirty work for them. They delayed the progress of the bill sufficiently for circumstances to change as the economy deteriorated. Crossrail was in fact caught up in the battles within the Conservative Party between Major and his supporters and the right-wing Eurosceptic fiscally conservative ‘bastards

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in cold storage – or possibly even worse. However, a key decision by London Transport would ensure it lived to fight another day. 5. Crossrail revived Crossrail could have been dead and buried at this point. It had few friends and plenty of enemies, and the recession had pulled the rug from

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the effect of stopping developments that would have jeopardized a future scheme, which some landowners later complained about, but also effectively meant that any revived Crossrail would have to use the same alignment under London. London Transport retained its optimism, which is why my article in the Independent London on

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Overground). This was, in part, a way of buying off Tower Hamlets council and its residents: the connection would ‘significantly broaden the spread of Crossrail benefits as well as serving an area in need of regeneration’.11 More significantly, the promoters had belatedly recognized the importance of Docklands. They envisaged

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that operators on the now privatized railway had fixed contracts to run specified services, offered less choice and flexibility in terms of selecting routes for Crossrail services. Besides this, the whole planning process, with more ‘stakeholders’ involved, was now very much more complicated, as the Business Case warned: ‘previously it

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go to Guildford, Basingstoke, Heathrow (with through trains to Reading) and Northampton, via Milton Keynes. Schabas and his team had succeeded in focusing on Crossrail’s Achilles heel, namely the limited number of stations it serves and the difficulties of finding destinations in the west. Superlink had no official status

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limited because any acquired land would legally have to be for construction rather than for development. Obtaining land from neighbouring landowners would be difficult as Crossrail would not have compulsory purpose powers and therefore any development opportunities would, he reckoned, require cooperation with these neighbours. The uncertainties of the property

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backed up by websites and social media, the first time such a thing had happened in the UK for such a major project. The Crossrail website, www.crossrail.co.uk, contained a vast amount of information and presented all the relevant documents, including the massive Environmental Statement ‘setting out the likely

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of a million visits between being created in 2001 and the start of the parliamentary debates five years later. With the government generally supportive of Crossrail after the Montague Review, the consultation process found that the public, too, with some inevitable exceptions, was in favour. Consequently, in the expectation that

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alignment outside the tunnels, which required considerable difficult negotiation between him, representing British Rail, and London Transport and London Underground. London Transport saw the Crossrail concept as a metro line through London, while British Rail wanted a regional rail service stretching further out into the Home Counties and possibly even

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Common worksite’ and ‘fish rescues were carried out from the docks at Canary Wharf and the Royal Docks at Connaught Tunnel’.21 Another document the Crossrail team had to produce was a Race Equality Impact Statement. There were particular cultural sensitivities attached to this. Tower Hamlets, with its large Bangladeshi

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community, had played a significant role in opposing the passage of the first Crossrail Bill. Their concerns focused principally on the disruption that would be caused by a project from which they would derive no apparent benefit, since the

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when an information centre was opened in Spitalfields, considerable efforts had been made to attract Bengali residents with fliers and banners. The Statement concluded that ‘Crossrail will bring significant benefits to local populations and neighbourhoods through increased mobility for access to employment, health, education, cultural and leisure facilities. These benefits

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trains. That’s where Woolwich comes in. Since the station is relatively near the end of the tunnel under the Thames, the original alignment of Crossrail, which was designed to accommodate freight trains, would have meant Woolwich station being deep underground, making it very expensive to build. Instead, during the

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the UK – hence the regularity with which they are found. ** See Chapter 4, p. 74. The Chairman of the Commons Committee which considered the second Crossrail Bill was Alan Meale (Labour, Mansfield). The other committee members were: Brian Binley (Conservative, Northampton South), Katy Clark (Labour, North Ayrshire and Arran), Philip

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According to the Colin Buchanan & Partners transport consultancy, which provided a renewed business case for the scheme following the passage of the bill through Parliament, Crossrail would bring in £16bn in ‘user benefits’. These were made up of £11bn enjoyed by commuters, tourists and day-trippers and £5bn by business

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cent, then the company would be able to raise £100m through landing charges and they would be set accordingly. § In the words of Crossrail’s website: ‘Crossrail has… sought to integrate art into the project from the start of construction. Through a range of arts projects varying both in scale and

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a pair of mismatched politicians, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and London mayor Boris Johnson. Transport minister Lord Adonis, London’s Transport commissioner Peter Hendy, Crossrail chairman Douglas Oakervee and Canary Wharf Ltd chief executive George Iacobescu were also there to watch the first of the nearly 20 metre-long (65

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once costed – albeit unrealistically – at a mere couple of billion was now heading towards ten times that figure. And there were also attacks on Crossrail from within London government. In February 2010, the London Assembly Transport Committee, which was Tory-dominated but chaired by the Liberal Democrat Caroline Pidgeon, published

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London’s contribution and expressed fears about the potential for huge cost overruns: The Committee recognises that London will benefit substantially from the construction of Crossrail. That said though, it is making arguably an unfair contribution to the project’s costs. This especially appears to be the case when compared

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to specific challenges, short-term problems, and technical issues – whatever it might be.’8 Like Morgan, he emphasized the critical importance of everyone at Crossrail working as a team, with no demarcations between the various contractors involved. This greatly facilitated Transcend’s role of co-ordinating the work of everyone

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the tunnel boring machines and some preliminary work had been undertaken at stations, the letting of these contracts really marked the beginning of the project. Crossrail was by then unstoppable. * A megaproject in Boston, Massachusetts, which entailed the rerouting of Interstate 93, a motorway running through the heart of the

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of restoration. * Projects involving digging underground are required by law to undertake archaeological work if it is likely that historic sites will be disturbed. Crossrail was not only Europe’s biggest construction scheme, but it was tunnelling under a long-inhabited site and consequently required an archaeological operation on a

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grand scale. Crossrail was the biggest dig ever undertaken in the capital and, to ensure nothing was lost, four contracts were established encompassing more than 100 archaeologists

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worked on the construction of Heathrow Express, which involved the construction of lengthy tunnels into the airport and used much of the same technology as Crossrail. He was also the programme director for the construction of Heathrow Terminal 5. A major tunnel collapse during construction of the Heathrow Express which

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lorries making deliveries were contractually required to fit additional safety equipment and that its drivers undergo training to ensure the safety of cyclists and pedestrians. Crossrail lorries were required to travel on specified routes in central London designed to limit the number of left turns, a known hazard for cyclists.

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, pushing up the cost. These factors all pointed towards a conventional funding deal. TfL decided to purchase the trains directly and entrusted the process to Crossrail, acting on behalf of the two sponsors, itself and the Department for Transport. Originally five firms were shortlisted – Hitachi, Alstom, Bombardier, CAF and Siemens –

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attempt to jump a generation and introduce a revolutionary system initially proved unworkable, resulting in several years’ delay before ATO could be introduced. The Crossrail team was determined to avoid similar problems. Although ETCS Level 2 is scheduled to be introduced throughout the Great Western lines, there is no target

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Street control centre and partly from Didcot, which will look after the sections west of Westbourne Park. This arrangement creates interfaces between Network Rail and Crossrail that require constant communication between the two organizations. Another source of complexity is the control of the stations. The operator, MTR, will run five

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directly employed skilled workforce which moves from job to job. Tucker went on to describe how the final fitting-out was handled differently from other Crossrail contracts: ‘There are three different approaches. For the tunnelling, we actually commissioned contractors to come up with detailed designs, to show us precisely how

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that had hitherto hardly seemed significant caused an unexpected ripple elsewhere in the project that had widespread knock-on effects. The trains Bombardier designed for Crossrail were lighter than had originally been envisaged, and occupied a smaller amount of space (the technical term is ‘envelope’) when going through the tunnels.

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understatement being embarrassed by their own achievements, together with the fact that the press, which is routinely hostile towards megaprojects, has made those involved in Crossrail understandably defensive. The City and the economists place great store by the economic benefits of the new railway. Their clever calculations, which I rather

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A National Audit Office (NAO) report published in 2014 found: The Department currently expects that one-third of the private sector funding it negotiated for Crossrail infrastructure will not actually be received. The Department negotiated agreements worth a total of £480 million, although it is not clear how the expected City

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brought back in-house. We hope you enjoyed this book. Plate Section Acknowledgements Notes Index About Christian Wolmar An Invitation from the Publisher Plate Section Crossrail tunnel under the Thames. Before and after: the long-abandoned Connaught Tunnel in east London, built in 1878, has been refurbished in one of

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the tunnel boring machines arrived. The huge concreting train ready to enter the tunnel. The 250m long new passenger tunnel linking Paddington tube station with Crossrail. The crossover between the tunnels underneath Holborn. Installing the track near the Royal Oak portal. Bond Street station. Wallasea Island in Essex which was

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was extremely thorough and deserves special thanks both for answering my (precisely) fifty queries in double quick time, and for organizing countless visits. Others at Crossrail who helped and gave me generously of their time included, and forgive me for any omissions: Simon Bennett, Chris Binns, Julian Robinson, Bill Tucker,

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employment apprenticeships 276–7 central London 38, 40 changing patterns of 268 in the construction industry 260–1 and City deregulation 123 and the Crossrail concept 30 Crossrail and job creation 96, 128–9 in west London 124 English Heritage 116 English Nature 116 Ennis-Hill, Jessica 190 Environmental Statement 117,

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Limehouse Link 58 Limmo Peninsula 189, 190–1 Liverpool and Manchester Railway 4 Liverpool Street 42, 71, 99, 100, 122, 123, 124 Crossrail control centre 250 Crossrail service from 236 Crossrail station 128, 224–6, 271 artwork 221 construction 211 design 216 and the London Rail Study 29, 30 ticket gates 136 ticket

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envelope 262 Tunnicliffe, Denis (now Lord) 64, 89 Twain, Mark 14 twin-bore tunnels 127 Tyburn tollgate 2 United States Embassy officials’ opposition to Crossrail 78–9 megaprojects 157, 269 tax increment financing 115–16 University College London, Omega research team 52, 54 Upper Lea Valley 278 vegetation, environmental impact

Journey to Crossrail

by Stephen Halliday  · 124pp  · 38,034 words

the unrivalled flora that he has cultivated at Pembroke College, where he has worked for fifty-four years. My aim has been to demonstrate that Crossrail is the latest chapter in a story of heroic railway engineering involving imaginative solutions to problems that require a blend of intelligence, imagination, determination and

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of workers, skilled and unskilled, most of them nameless, who realised their dreams. Stephen Halliday, Cambridge INTRODUCTION A LONG TIME COMING For almost ten years Crossrail has been Europe’s biggest and most ambitious construction project, and certainly the one with the longest and most controversial gestation. For the first time

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present about 1.4 billion passengers use the Underground system and it is anticipated that many of the 200 million who are expected to use Crossrail would otherwise have used the heavily congested Underground network in Central London, thus providing much needed relief for services like the Central, Northern and

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lines in central London like the Central and Piccadilly Lines, journey times will be dramatically reduced as shown in the following examples: At present With Crossrail Abbey Wood to Heathrow 93 minutes 52 minutes Paddington to Canary Wharf 34 17 Canary Wharf to Heathrow 55 39 Paddington to Tottenham Court Road

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Commons opposing the plan, largely on environmental grounds. An existing depot at Ilford will be used instead. The line will be operated by MTR Corporation (Crossrail) Ltd on behalf of Transport for London, which is also responsible, under the Mayor of London, for the London Underground, the London bus services,

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streets. Now sponsored by Santander. (Chris Mckenna via Wikimedia Commons CC 4.0) THE TUNNELLING AND UNDERGROUND CONSTRUCTION ACADEMY A most welcome legacy of the Crossrail project is to be found in Ilford, east London, in the form of the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy which was completed in 2012 and

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Transport for London by Prospects College of Advanced Technology which provides training on a nationwide basis for the engineering, aviation, rail and construction industries. The Crossrail Act passed through Parliament in 2008 and eleven years later trains will begin to run. Compare that with the time it takes to decide to

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of 1851 had at first been condemned and later applauded. The techniques, sophisticated at the time, were later used for the conservatory on Canary Wharf Crossrail station, as described in chapter 8. The Parliamentary Select Committee on Metropolitan Communications was impressed by the ingenuity of the schemes but deterred by the

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. Joseph Paxton’s use of prefabricated components for the Crystal Palace made possible the Great Exhibition of 1851 and inspired later designers, including those of Crossrail. His design for a great Victorian way encased in glass was less successful. (The Illustrated London News) The Crystal Palace at its new home

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to treatment works. The system is still in use today. About 10,000 people were employed on the system – the same number as employed on Crossrail. Bazalgette also built many of London’s finest streets including Charing Cross Road, Northumberland Avenue, Garrick Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, as well as bridges

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London’s deep-level tubes, beginning with the City & South London Railway in 1890 (now the Northern Line), and of course, the Channel Tunnel and Crossrail. Son and resident engineer Isambard Brunel greets father and designer, Sir Marc Brunel, at the opening of the Thames tunnel. (Johann Jacob Weber (Hrsg.),

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indistinguishable from one used on main-line trains. Note the first- and third-class carriages, soon to disappear on the Victorian tubes but reintroduced on Crossrail. (Peter Skuce via Wikimedia Commons) A Metropolitan Railway condensing locomotive heading for Baker Street station. Note the condensing pipe leading back to the tank. Unfortunately

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largely unrealised owing to financial constraints. MAIN-LINE TRAINS BENEATH LONDON The idea of main-line trains running through large-diameter tunnels (a precursor of Crossrail) had already been proposed by a railwayman called George Dow in the London evening newspaper The Star on 14 June 1941. Dow proposed four new

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the river to Charing Cross, with further links to the Surrey Docks and Deptford. This plan, in all its ambition, could be described as ‘Crossrail writ large’. Blackfriars railway station and its bridge across the Thames would not have survived if the Abercrombie Report had been realised. The station would

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the bridges would have been replaced by underground links. Having survived, they are now both major features of the Thameslink north–south service, which complements Crossrail’s east–west line. (Sunil060902 via Wikimedia Commons CC SA 3.0) UNDERGROUND IN PLACE OF VIADUCTS Forshaw and Abercrombie’s plan would do away

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in the London Rail Study Report of 1974, prepared by the Department of the Environment (DoE) and the Greater London Council (GLC). It recommended a ‘Crossrail’ tunnel to link Paddington to the British Railways Eastern Region via Liverpool Street with intermediate stations at Marble Arch, Bond Street, Leicester Square and Holborn

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east to west (and vice versa) across London without having to change trains or use the increasingly overburdened London Underground network: in effect, much of Crossrail but forty years early. It was applauded as imaginative and was compared in the report to the Paris RER (Reseau Express Regional) network, though

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was, too, no distinction between first and second class. This became a feature of Underground travel, though it has been abandoned in the case of Crossrail. Electric traction, like single-class travel, remained a feature of the new railway but with new, more powerful American locomotives, whose great weight and

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, showing a little more flair, were given the names of women: Brigitte, Europa, Catherine, Virginie, Pascaline and Séverine. This tradition has been adopted by Crossrail, with the hope that it will make it clear that women are welcome in the engineering profession. Since some of the principal engineers on the

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Rotherhithe Tunnel 1908 1.4km Post Office Railway 1927 10.5km Deep shelters 1942 3.7km Victoria Line 1969 21km Jubilee Line 1979 36.2km Crossrail 2018 42km (For comparison, the Channel Tunnel, 50km long, entered service in 1994, having been constructed in six years, beginning in 1988.) Sir Joseph

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the size of normal Underground stations, and the platforms are 250m in length (compared with 120m for conventional underground stations) to accommodate the nine-car Crossrail trains. CONCRETE TUNNEL SEGMENTS As the TBMs advanced, prefabricated concrete tunnel segments were manoeuvred into place by machinery, a process long used in the construction

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Chatham to the Limmo Peninsula, Canning Town. Tunnel segments, made at Old Oak Common, stored at Willesden and awaiting collection for insertion in the Crossrail tunnels. Each tunnel ring required seven segments and a smaller keystone, these visible just to the right of the centre of this picture. A quarter

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and Joseph Mears, who used it as the stadium for the football club they founded: Chelsea. 8 STATIONS, SIGNALS AND TRAINS The stations served by Crossrail are given below from west to east with branches: Reading • Twyford • Maidenhead • Taplow • Burnham • Slough • Langley • Iver • West Drayton • Hayes & Harlington (branch line to

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being bored, carefully monitoring its behaviour as tunnelling proceeds and using sprayed concrete to seal in place a load-bearing structure. The running tunnels of Crossrail are of uniform shape and size and suitable for the installation of concrete segments, but the NATM is particularly useful in creating the larger, irregularly

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shaped spaces required for the very large stations which Crossrail needs to accommodate its exceptionally long trains. The method also makes it possible to create smoother curves for the stations, which are aesthetically more pleasing

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the central area: Paddington; Bond Street; Tottenham Court Road; Farringdon; Liverpool Street; Whitechapel and Canary Wharf. Seven art galleries, based in London, will work with Crossrail to enhance these stations in what will amount to a public art gallery. The new stations are built according to three models: Mined stations are

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with pedestrian and vehicle traffic and give easy access to main-line trains, four Underground services (District, Circle, Bakerloo and Hammersmith & City) and the new Crossrail services to Reading, Heathrow and central London. It has also had to complement, and even compete with, Brunel’s magnificent structure. The new station is

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Street. Over the Hanover Square entrance an eight-storey building is being constructed of retail, office and residential space. Following the opening of the new Crossrail service a number of bus services along Oxford Street will be withdrawn. Moreover the availability of entrances and ticket offices at each end of Bond

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demolished to make way for the new station. (Ewan Munro, via Wikimedia Commons CC 2.0) Farringdon Mined, 30m below ground, this station, where Crossrail meets Thameslink and the Tube, Farringdon will be one of the busiest in the entire rail network with 140 trains passing through it daily – appropriately

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depicting the movement of people through the station. The entrance to Whitechapel station on Whitechapel Road remains a feature of the much extended Crossrail station. Beyond Whitechapel the Crossrail lines fork, with one service running east to Shenfield, Essex and the other passing beneath the river to Abbey Wood and Kent. (

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the neighbouring Greenwich Council and the Peabody Trust (which provides social housing) to deliver thousands of new homes to be delivered following the opening of Crossrail services. SIGNALLING Within the central area the trains will be run under Automatic Train Operation similar to that introduced on the Victoria Line in 1967

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immediately ahead); yellow (proceed with caution, train two sections ahead); double yellow (train three sections ahead); and green (track ahead clear). The drivers of the Crossrail trains, when they emerge from the automatic control of the central area, will have to cope with these conditions and the system will also have

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News of the World) The House of St Barnabas, Soho Square, was also saved by the technique of compensation grouting when the Tottenham Court Road Crossrail station passed below Soho Square. (AliceMESewell via Wikimedia Commons CC SA 4.0) The technique of compensation grouting was also used at Bond Street, Farringdon

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required more or longer passages and escalators to connect with other underground and main-line railways, lengthening passenger journey times. Bear in mind that every Crossrail station in the central, tunnelled area has more than one connection to existing lines, with Liverpool Street having as many as six. And thirdly,

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highlights of the documentary screened by the BBC on The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway. An engineers’ train approaches the Connaught Tunnel during construction work for Crossrail, to expand and clean the ageing Victorian structure. (Kleon3 via Wikimedia Commons CC SA 4.0) CASUALTIES: LGBT PARTIES AND MARMALADE JARS Some structures

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did not survive the Crossrail tunnellers. Tottenham Court Road Underground station had been built in the nineteenth century to serve the Central Line and, later, the Charing Cross, Euston &

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to call at the station. A major reconstruction of the station was undertaken, with a larger ticket hall and better connections by escalator between the Crossrail, Central and Northern Line platforms. It was also necessary to relocate utilities for electricity, gas and drainage and some casualties were inevitable. The most

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Hira, 1967.217, col.1940.1) A Crosse & Blackwell label showing the factory’s address, 21 Soho Square, above the site of the new Crossrail station. 10 CROSSRAIL ARCHAEOLOGY ‘When the Metropolitan railway was cut in 1890 [anthrax] did emerge and it did kill people.’ LONDON’S LONG HISTORY In about AD

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, is now within the Headquarters of Bloomberg in Queen Victoria Street. (Oxyman via Wikimedia Commons CC SA 2.0) HAPPY ARCHAEOLOGISTS So when the Crossrail engineers proposed to remove 3 million tons of earth from beneath London and rather more than that in building new stations and other essential works

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its removal to south London. It was the site of many skeletons of victims of syphilis, tuberculosis and plague, discovered by archaeologists during excavations of Crossrail sites at Liverpool Street station. (Wellcome Images) The area was marshy during the Middle Ages and froze in winter. The London historian William Fitzstephen described

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the area of the New Churchyard was used for the sites of Broad Street (closed in 1986 and later demolished) and Liverpool Street stations. THE CROSSRAIL SKULLS A more mysterious, and possibly more ominous discovery was also made in the vicinity of Liverpool Street station – more than fifty human skulls

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Moorfields, which lasted well throughout the mediaeval period and was finally drained in 1527. The wet terrain helped to preserve skulls and artefacts which the Crossrail archaeologists later disinterred. More than 100 Roman coins were discovered, dating from the time of Claudius, who conquered Britain in AD 43, to the later

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for certain. MORE PLAGUE VICTIMS On 15 March 2013 – ominously, the Ides of March in the thirteenth year of the millennium – it was announced that Crossrail excavations had unearthed twenty-three skeletons in a burial ground in Farringdon. They were discovered during the sinking of a grouting shaft (see chapter 9

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is now occupied by Stepney City Farm. SHIPS, BRIDGES AND FOOTBALL A short distance north-east of the Connaught tunnel, the line enters the Crossrail tunnel in the Limmo Peninsula in which Elizabeth and Victoria began their journey towards Farringdon in November and December 2012. This was the former site

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more imposing structure which we still have today. A depot and workshops were built nearby, at Westbourne Park, where engines were housed and serviced. The Crossrail excavations revealed a huge engine shed, workshops and turntables for the steam engines. By the end of the nineteenth century, as rail traffic approached its

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stock displayed at the London Transport Museum depot, Acton, prior to its production. (Frankie Roberto via Wikimedia Commons CC 2.0) The first Class 345 Crossrail Line 1 (Elizabeth) train passes by platform 10a at Stratford station, London. Hauled by diesel locomotive 67 013 and with translator carriages at each end

The Tunnel Through Time: A New Route for an Old London Journey

by Gillian Tindall  · 14 Sep 2016  · 322pp  · 100,632 words

Slums 12. From the End of the World to Pickled Onions 13. The Mind’s Eye Notes Select Bibliography Acknowledgements Index Copyright About the Book Crossrail, the ‘Elizabeth’ line, with its spacious, light-filled stations, is simply the latest way of traversing a very old east-west route through what

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Marble Arch and Marylebone districts today London, c. 1550. The significantly built-up area is shown in darker grey London today, with the Crossrail route INTRODUCTION The new Crossrail underground line, which has been built across central London even as I have been writing this account, is, for the greater part, invisible

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this article, of a great, round tunnelling shield attended by workmen with moustaches and pickaxes, depicts essentially the same technology that is being used for Crossrail. It was the development of electric traction which made the Tube as we know it possible. Before that, the trains were steam-powered, so

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air changed all this, and finally severed subterranean trains’ connection with the surface railways. Contrary to various myths and expectations that have attended its construction, Crossrail does not run significantly deeper than the existing tube lines, nor much faster – except in that it will stop at fewer stations. Paddington, Bond

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all its varied busyness. This book makes figurative historical excavations on several of the oldest and most significant sites through which the brand-new Elizabeth–Crossrail is passing. Rather, I should say, under which it is passing, for though the stations break through to the surface the line itself runs

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gradual unfolding of transport, the presence everywhere of dead Londoners or the transformation over hundreds of years of what are now key places along the Crossrail journey. A handful of these places have such long and changeful histories that I have devoted more than one chapter to each. In this

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and criss-crossed by horse-bus routes. In the 1860s the first Underground line, the Metropolitan, had been constructed. The arrival of this Underground, Crossrail’s first and most momentous predecessor, made a huge difference to the lives of ordinary Londoners. Had it been there in John’s boyhood, it

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-regarded stop on the ageing Metropolitan line, has been substantially enlarged and rebuilt. Its finely graded mid-nineteenth-century brick arches now shelter a key Crossrail exchange station, where this newest Underground line, the oldest one, and the overground railway line that now runs from Bedford to Brighton, all meet.

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remain its terminus for long. Within a year or two the line had been extended to Moorgate, and that is the same route that Crossrail is now taking. Crossrail continues on to Liverpool Street station (which did not yet exist when the Metropolitan began rolling), thence across Spitalfields to Whitechapel – the

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revisit these hosts, for they are all about London, in graveyards both known and utterly vanished, under our busy, careless feet. Further west in Crossrail’s trajectory, out in the one-time fields round Paddington, the human occupation is relatively recent. Dig down deep in most streets or gardens there

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the name of the Underground station that opened there in the summer of 1900, and which is, as I write, being transformed into a major Crossrail interchange point with other lines. It is the crossroads at which the Charing Cross Road, running north, becomes the Tottenham Court Road, and Oxford

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time, as too expensive. However, ideas did eventually move on, and in 1990 steps were taken to safeguard what then came to be substantially Crossrail’s route, to prevent any more skyscrapers with their inevitably deep foundations from impeding possible future tunnelling. In the summer of 2000 the Labour government

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grand plan was beginning to roll. After much shuttling to and fro between Select Committees and both Houses of Parliament, the bill to enable Crossrail finally received royal assent in July 2008, in spite of a distinct downturn that year in Britain’s economic situation. Work finally started in

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of that war: Once I came home on leave: and then went west . . . What greater glory could a man desire?7 * * * Let us follow Crossrail in the opposite, eastward direction, and visit Smithfield. Smithfield (today included in the jurisdiction of the City) was for centuries part of the external ward

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in the mind predating reality by many centuries. CHAPTER V ‘No Man may by the Eye discern it’ It is time to continue the Crossrail journey further eastwards from Farringdon and Smithfield. It runs a little to the north of old London Wall, beneath the tracks of the Metropolitan and

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Another hundred years went by, and the place was remembered again but, once again, tucked away. A further generation has passed, and now at last Crossrail has arrived and the forgotten dead have, in a fragmented sense, lived again. It has been their last appearance. CHAPTER VI Going East After Liverpool

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Street, the next Crossrail station is at Whitechapel, partway along the Mile End Road, bypassing Aldgate which lies a little further to the south where London’s wall once

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therefore, the logical next place to explore physically and historically. But in fact we are going to travel fairly rapidly through it. Passing under Bishopsgate, Crossrail curves to the north, skirting the old market of Petticoat Lane (Middlesex Street), tunnelling underneath an eighteenth-century chapel-turned-synagogue in Sandys Row, and

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bones. Typical was a headline in the Evening Standard in May 2009, when preliminary, explorative boreholes were being made before the works themselves started: ‘Crossrail works stopped after human bones found on site’, with the strapline, ‘Remains linked to workhouse are tested for anthrax and plague’. Accompanying it was a

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side of the railway cutting when the Fleet sewer flooded. The whole mess was expensively repaired and walled up again, so naturally no one at Crossrail was particularly surprised in 2009 to find bones still there. Farringdon and Holborn, c. 1550, the built-up area shown in darker grey Farringdon

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and Holborn district today, with Crossrail, and the north–south overground route over the original Metropolitan line Collapse of the Metropolitan works, June 1862 A spokesman remarked that the bones (apparently

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an illness, although in practice deaths from all sorts of other epidemics occurred repetitively throughout the medieval and early modern period. The site for the Crossrail eastern ticket hall at Farringdon, just north-east of Smithfield on the edge of Charterhouse Square, has been a coveted field both for archaeologists

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well under eighty thousand, and many of the dead in plague times continued to be buried in churchyards, both totals are improbable. The recent Crossrail excavations on the site seem to confirm this. The term ‘plague pit’, which has long been used for what was thought to lie beneath

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in spite of occasional sweeping Improvements, till the second half of the twentieth century. CHAPTER IX ‘The Imperious Demands of Public Necessity and Convenience’ Our Crossrail journey so far has brought us circuitously back to the time of John Thomas Pocock, the boy who walked all over London and beyond on

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site in Liverpool Street. In Moorgate, the fifteenth-century way out to the fields, will be sited a west entrance to the immensely long Crossrail platforms. After the Dances’ developments there was an intellectual element in the district which may be said to have had its headquarters in Finsbury Circus

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and annihilates complex street patterns that have taken hundreds of years to evolve. CHAPTER X A Convenient Spot for the Habitation of Mariners So, the Crossrail leaves Liverpool Street, swings in a northern arc under Spitalfields and on to coincide with Whitechapel. Going south-east again it crosses under the

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station, at Stepney or elsewhere, on the long underground run (a good two and a half miles) between Whitechapel and Canary Wharf. Within London, Crossrail is designed to service only key points, and the old East End finds itself today a hinterland between the City and the new business district

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replaced the rubble, the warehouses, the docks, the marsh waters that fed the docks, and the frogs. * * * Stepney Green will not have a Crossrail station, but Crossrail is very much present there in the form of a large access and ventilation shaft sited just before the line divides into two. There

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byword, but it clearly remained, as it had two centuries before, a focus for Nonconformity and piety. Recent archaeological work on the site for Crossrail has revealed a medley of remains as disjointed as the house’s history. Some ancient ones were discernible on excavation – the shape of the moat

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hours. Today, over fifty years later, she would dearly like to have these garrulous old people back, even for one afternoon. Stepney today, with Crossrail She likes the mantlepieces in their front rooms, some of them dressed with the bobbled chenille runners of the previous century, with symmetric china dogs

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great swathe of shunting lines curved down into Smithfield Market, displacing everything in their way, the living and the dead. Today, Farringdon’s new Crossrail and overground station on the south side of Cowcross occupies a space that, before the railway arrived, had for centuries been resonant with life and

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the construction of South Molton Street, which follows its line to this day. Further accommodation with the persistent stream has had its place in the Crossrail workings for Bond Street station. It may be, rather, that there was a general, unspoken recoil from constructing terraces of houses right up to

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Oxford’ through the Tyburn crossroads, c. 1750, the built–up area shown in darker grey Oxford Street, Marble Arch and Marylebone districts today, with Crossrail But although the Horwood map of the beginning of the nineteenth century stops short at including Paddington, it is full of signs of coming change

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, it is both the headquarters of a charity for the homeless and the premises of a successful club which subsidises this. Since the new Crossrail line runs directly under the house, its seventeenth-century foundations and the fine plaster mouldings that were installed by an eighteenth-century resident have been

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proposed at intervals over the years as London reconfigured itself piecemeal, socially and geographically, in ways that the dreamers had not envisaged. The name ‘Crossrail’ first seems to have been used in a study put out by the Greater London Council and the Department of the Environment in 1974, and

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closure of various changing-points on the Tube, nurse the same grumpy misperception to this day. But what exactly was the core purpose of Crossrail thought to be, apart from the obvious one of providing an efficient route through central London? The original detailed route-plan as drawn up

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with impressive numbers of workmen from all over the United Kingdom, and has, by and large, proceeded on time and without mishap. Since then, the Crossrail organisation has been putting out on the Internet regular reports full of facts and figures – length, height, depth, tons of earth removed, methods and progress

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streets, markets, gardens and graveyards that figure in this book will be used to create a wetland bird reserve. In the meantime, the idea that Crossrail is somehow intrinsically connected with international travel has receded, possibly because it has been noticed that Stratford International station has turned out something of a

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Future growth of London may one day cause the original extension to a burgeoning Ebbsfleet to be reinstated. But essentially the concept of passengers on Crossrail travelling from one distant suburb to another destination equally far from the centre of London has been understood to be unrealistic. While some will do

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this, most will use Crossrail as an efficient way of getting from the outskirts to certain main central destinations, and, within London, as an alternative to the existing tube

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lines with their frequent stops. The Crossrail trains, or what is now to be called the Elizabeth line, will be about twice as long as the traditional tube trains, and so,

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Thomas, Sadie Watson and Alison Telfer, all of the Mususem of London archaeology department, known as MOLA. From the start of the active construction of Crossrail, c. 2009, and continually over subsequent years, I have received kindness from a number of its employees and associates, who have been ready to

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sets of maps. Among them have been Tony Bryan (Project Manager), Peter MacLennan and Simon Bennett. But I must especially mention Jay Carver of MOLA, Crossrail’s Lead Archaeologist, who has been extremely supportive of my researches throughout. Gratitude, too, to his colleague David Sankey, who spared the time to

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opened, were taken for me by my husband, Richard Lansdown, who has been consistently useful and supportive, as ever, during my assorted expeditions into Crossrail-land and in the preparation of pictorial material. Select Bibliography It would be difficult to identify all the materials that, in addition to the archival

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articles and a few manuscripts listed below have all made a contribution. So have the regular updates on the progress of construction, posted on the Crossrail website. I have benefited greatly also from the publications of the London Topographical Society, which has, over the years, made available in an accessible

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: A Pauper Community in Victorian London, occasional paper from the Department of Geography, King’s College London, 1986 Hebbert, Michael, ‘Megaproject as Keyhole Surgery: London Crossrail’, from Built Environment, vol. 37, No. 1, 2012 Hill, G. W. and Frere, W. H., Memorials of Stepney Parish [in fact the transcribed Stepney

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of Northumberland’, History Today, vol. 53, March 2003 Sankey, David, Worcester House, Stepney: Medieval Moated Manor House to Stepney City Farm, MOLA publication for Crossrail Archaeology, 2015 Schofield, Nicholas, Holborn, London’s Via Sacra, pamphlet published by the church of St Anselm and St Caecilia with Stephen Osborne, 2012 Index

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mariners and docklands, 198–202; Trinity Almshouses, 201; social status, 18th century, 202–204; post-war, 206–214; Jewish cemetery, 207; plan of (contemporary, with Crossrail), 208 Stepney City Farm, 197, 203, 213 Stepney Green, 2, 36, 100, 118, 188, 191, 200, 211, 212, 213 Stepney Old People’s Welfare Association

The Making of a World City: London 1991 to 2021

by Greg Clark  · 31 Dec 2014

economic uplift, even in the high-growth decade from 1997. London is now preparing for two decades of strong demographic growth. The investment associated with Crossrail 1 has stimulated new zones of activity around stations along the east–west axis, such as Ealing and Ilford, and will begin to ease crowding

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for the first time. The Financial Conduct Authority is moving its headquarters from Canary Wharf to Stratford International Quarter in 2018, citing the arrival of Crossrail as the key enabler (Allen and Schäfer, 2014). Birkbeck and the University of East London are also establishing a permanent presence in central Stratford

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housing densities in the Thames Gateway are clearly necessary for the future of London’s housing affordability and social inclusion agendas. Despite the boost that Crossrail will provide in opening up station areas for wider development, the ambitions for East London can only be achieved with a more focused agenda. Although

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House buildings during the 2000s, the market’s historic and architectural value has been acknowledged and its future protected, with only minor alterations to accommodate Crossrail. Stations Rail stations and sports stadia have provided a distinctive context for regeneration since 1991. They reflect not only the necessities of re-orienting the

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). The study set out a compelling agenda for London to bolster its rail capacity that subsequently set the terms for London’s service expansion. But Crossrail, as the scheme would become known, was not the chosen recipient of the first item of investment. The Jubilee Line Extension to Stratford was finally

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Canary Wharf’s growth in the 2000s. In effect, however, the prioritisation of the JLE to support the Canary Wharf development effectively put back the Crossrail development by over a decade. The 1996 central government transport strategy for London did not make a firm commitment about

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the project was omitted from the New Labour government’s 10-year transport plan published in 2000 (Travers, 2009). The momentum for Crossrail did not pick up properly until 2004, when it appeared plausible that central government would be more amenable to assembling a funding package, to which

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similar model of competition has been utilised by TfL in the awarding of concessions to operate the London Overground and will be used again for Crossrail (TfL, 2013a, 2013b). Express rail services from central London to the major airports are an area of particular success. After privatisation, the Gatwick Express route

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East London. TfL’s financial and lobbying power has also been important in making the case for Crossrail. Despite being subject to the central government spending review London’s evolving infrastructure platform 115 in 2010, Crossrail was finally given the go-ahead subject to £1 billion of savings. The £14.5 billion

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been completed. Remarkably, although the study is a quarter of a century old, its recommendations included the same ‘Chelsea– Hackney Line’ currently being promoted as Crossrail 2 (Department of Transport et al., 1989). Transport progress has been held back partly by economic volatility, but mostly a lack of consistent investment sources

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first conceived in the 1980s but was not operational until 2007; Heathrow’s Terminal 5 took 20 years from planning to completion; the transition from Crossrail’s first proposal to its realisation will be in excess of 30 years by the time the first trains begin their east–west journeys. In

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within the business community, transport is also viewed as the fourth strongest attribute to London’s economy because of improved Tube, rail and commuter reliability. Crossrail will further enhance the speed and efficiency of east–west travel from 2018 (CBI, 2012; The Work Foundation, 2010). London appears to be reaching a

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, for which the Mayor’s Road Task Force has identified projects worth up to £30 billion (Wedderburn and the Centre for London, 2013). Most identify Crossrail 2 and East London river crossings as the next vital projects to support a prospective 10 million population, but their feasibility and financing are still

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years on, London is still home to spatial concentrations of economic inactivity, unemployment, skills deficits and poor 154 16 8 1 1–3 8–10 Crossrail Earl’s Court Royal Albert Dock Ebbsfleet Valley Vauxhall-Nine Elms-Battersea 2026–2031 2025–2035 2022 2016–2032 2018 2016–2029 Investment £1bn of

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of superior connectivity will have ebbed away without further airport infrastructure, threatening links to markets. Intra-city mobility will be boosted by the arrival of Crossrail, but high population growth in the south-west and north of the city indicates there will be soon London in the next decade: Implications of

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approximately £6.3 billion in 2014–2015, two-thirds of which was allocated to TfL. Much of the GLA-held capital investment is linked to Crossrail, the Northern Line extension, housing and regeneration programmes, but this only comprises a quarter (£1.6 billion) of total capital spending, with almost all the

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rest made possible through TfL through a combination of grants, borrowing, Crossrail funding sources and reserves. Because most of London’s internally held financing power is linked to the investment programme at TfL, the city’s investment

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nor the boroughs have overall responsibility or effective control of important financing or investment tools. Some minor tools or investment flows do exist: r The Crossrail Business Rate Supplement currently raises over £120 million towards development. Investment in London: Challenges and solutions 165 r European Structural Funds programmes are received and

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money is allocated from the European Social Fund which focuses on jobs, training and small business competitiveness. r Prudential borrowing raises over £600 million for Crossrail and police service investment. r The central London Congestion Charge and London-wide Low Emission Zone raises approximately £160 million net annually (Mayor of London

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LFC’s proposals for devolution were agreed by central government, London would still not possess the financing capacity to push through major projects such as Crossrail 2. Aside from the lack of autonomy, the current arrangements do not sufficiently incentivise London governments to encourage business investment, because they receive no real

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) Real estate acquisition tax ($0.9bn) Tokyo 172 London today and in the future London’s GLA capital spending has been primarily linked to the Crossrail project, with a further portion allocated to affordable housing and other housing improvement projects. By contrast, New York and Singapore have a capital budget for

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on bids for competitively contested national public finance resource allocations. This has led to a focus on ‘trophy projects’ such as the Olympic Park and Crossrail, rather than seeking less visible investment that might improve system functionality and fill structural gaps. Greater revenue autonomy would encourage job creation in three ways

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past two decades was widely perceived to have been offset by the cost of the bank bail-outs and the funding of the Olympics and Crossrail. There are growing doubts about the compatibility of the capital’s development trajectory with national development and living standards. The impression of an insurmountable interests

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shape its evolution, its contribution to London as a whole, and its role in the UK. It is not yet visible how the Olympic Games, Crossrail, London Gateway and the Greenwich Peninsula developments will stitch together the disparate communities in East London. Finally, London’s media, electorate and governments are often

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for future transport investment, and London may well not be able to secure and sustain its sequence of investment beyond 2018, for items such as Crossrail 2. The context of all of these challenges is one of increased and intense competition towards London from other global cities and smaller players. Many

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use, has outstripped investment in most cases and there is a continuous need for further reinvestment. Although Crossrail is soon to come on-line, such are London’s medium-term growth needs that financing for Crossrail 2 – whether through public funding, business rates, passenger fare hikes or council tax rises – is already

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over the two decades and variously cite the HS1, Heathrow Express, Heathrow Terminal 5, City Airport, or the Jubilee line upgrade as exemplary. Many identify Crossrail as London’s biggest infrastructure success of the past decade, and anticipate its transformational effects (Adonis, 2014). But London constantly seems to be playing catch

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generated in London. From time to time, central government has agreed with London advocates, and at other times it has diverged. Winning the case for Crossrail is a good example. Although it took more than 25 years to get the deal agreed, ultimately the willingness of London businesses to partfinance the

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. There is now a strong perception elsewhere in the UK that London has had more than a decade of preferential funding, attested by the Olympics, Crossrail and significant ongoing investment in the transport system more generally, and that therefore others must now come first. This view is visible in the high

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and development is well under way, after the Olympic Games provided enhanced connectivity, exposure, and amenity for the area. Coupled with wider developments that include Crossrail, Excel expansion, the regeneration of Stratford, and expansion of Canary Wharf, East London is on the move. However, there is a credible consensus which laments

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negotiation. A similar process unfolded with London’s infrastructure. Although attention in London is now focused on some very important large infrastructure projects such as Crossrail 1, Crossrail 2 and High Speed 2, and the debate about how to achieve an expanded international hub airport capacity, most of London’s transport infrastructure

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very effective at identifying and using catalysts. Despite the fact that many of these catalytic projects (Docklands, the Millennium celebrations and Dome, Thames waterfront, Olympics, Crossrail) go through periods of being seen as unpopular, expensive or complicated, in the end almost all of London’s catalytic projects have ‘come good’ and

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www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/ media/newscentre/27193.aspx. Accessed 2013 Mar 12. Transport for London (2013b). TfL launches competition to find operator to run Crossrail services. Press Release. Mar 12. Available at www.tfl.gov.uk/ corporate/media/newscentre/27439.aspx. Accessed 2013 Mar 13. Transport for London (2013c). TfL

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timeline of development 90 cost of living 142 council housing 99 Council Tax 162 Courtauld, Toby 138, 146 Covent Garden 13, 80 Crosland, Anthony 13 Crossrail 111, 112, 114–15, 117–18, 181 culture 7, 27–8, 143–5 cycle hire scheme 115 Dawber, Howard 26 death of distance 142 de

Underground, Overground

by Andrew Martin  · 13 Nov 2012  · 326pp  · 93,522 words

, while the stretches to the west and east became Marylebone Road and Pentonville Road. It ran from Paddington to the City, which may sound familiar. Crossrail, the underground express line that is supposed to be opening in 2017, will also connect those two places. The definitive London commute is from west

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mention of the expansion of both Tottenham Court Road (the new station will be six times bigger than the old one) and Farringdon to accommodate Crossrail, and the redevelopment of King’s Cross St Pancras, where the circulating areas are now wonderfully airy spaces in white and dark blue. The scale

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Big Dig, however (it’s only a matter of time before it’s called that), will be Crossrail: 73 miles from Heathrow and Maidenhead in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. Crossrail, its spokespeople want to make clear, is definitely not ‘a Tube’. They don’t think the

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trains, only 13 of whose 73 miles will be ‘in tunnel’. But those 13 miles go through central London, and where the Underground interchanges with Crossrail, its own stations will be boosted and glamorised, especially at Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road. The tunnelling shields for

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Crossrail will incorporate a canteen and toilets, and there is to be a tunnelling academy at Ilford, to train the thousands of employees in mole-like

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arts. That other half-underground line, Thameslink, is to have a capacity increase; and Crossrail will probably be followed by Crossrail 2 (a tunnel from Chelsea to Hackney), just as High Speed 1, through Kent (which starts and ends in a tunnel), will

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be followed by High Speed 2, heading north (which will also start in a tunnel). Crossrail (Crossrail 1, that is – let’s keep our feet on the ground) will apparently alleviate congestion on the Central, Jubilee, Bakerloo and District Lines by ‘between

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20 and 60 per cent’, which is just as well. The Tube Upgrade, which will be completed about when Crossrail opens in 2018, will provide a 30 per cent increase in capacity to a system that is unfortunately 50 per cent over capacity. And the

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of them myself – feel a sense of alienation from the city in which they live owing to their apparently marginal status. It is said that Crossrail will bring 1.5 million people within a ‘one-hour commute’ of central London, which sounds like no fun at all. Philip Ross is an

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, 131, 143–4, 157–8 Bakerloo Line 126, 130, 143–4, 157–8 armrests 114 baby’s birth 156 Baker Street 38 colour 199 and Crossrail 275 doors 103 Edgware Road 69 extension 147–8, 167–8 floodgates 31 Marylebone 75 Stanmore branch 173, 174, 240, 247 stations 6, 146–7

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Ernest 115–16 Castle, Barbara 239 Castling, Harry 82 celebrities 259 Central Line 4, 9, 113–20 Bank 105, 106, 220, 221 colour 199 and Crossrail 275 Epping 76 Epping-Ongar 201, 208–10 Holborn 263 on map 204 New Works programme 205, 207–8, 233 postcards 117 smell 119 stations

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Cowan, Paul 196–7 Cranley Gardens 206 Creep 137, 249 Cromwell Curve 62–3 Croome, Desmond F. 123, 127, 147, 261 Cross, Mr 257–8 Crossrail 17, 255, 274–5 Crouch End 205, 206 culex molestus 228 Cunningham, Granville C. 97, 119 Curwen, Harold 161 cut-and-cover lines v, 6

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Site’ 45 District Line v, 8–9, 28, 59–62, 134, 158 bomb 69 Brunel tunnel 90 and Circle Line 68 colour 199, 200 and Crossrail 275 and East London Railway 91 Edgware Road 68 electrification 126, 135 expansion 71, 79–81, 179 Gladstone’s funeral train 33 Hammersmith 50 Heathrow

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also New Road Euston Square 36 Evening Standard xv, 238 Extension Railway, The 51, 52 F Fairlop 208, 256 Fares Fair 243–4, 245 Farringdon Crossrail 255 Fleet pipe 29, 30 Metropolitan Railway 1, 10, 22, 26, 34–5, 52 Farringdon Road 21 Feltz, Vanessa 177 Fenchurch Street 13 Fennell Report

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, Edward 160 Johnston Sans 93, 160, 161 Joseph, Stephen 15–16, 242, 243, 244 Jubilee Line 174, 240, 247, 249, 251 Baker Street 38 and Crossrail 275 Extension 6, 60–1, 93, 240, 247, 249–51, 268 name 30 platform edge doors 277, 279 seats 270 trains 137 Just My Type

The Tube: Station to Station on the London Underground

by Oliver Green  · 15 Feb 2012

1940–69: War, Austerity and the Victoria Line 1970–99: To Heathrow in the West and Docklands in the East 2000–19: PPP, Overground and Crossrail TUBE JOURNEYS Inner Circle Pioneer Tubes Bringing Chicago to London: The Yerkes Lines Metro-land Northern Heights Piccadilly Progress Heading East: DLR & JLE Further Reading

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on the Tube map and use the same cashless Oyster card ticketing system. By 2018 new deep tunnels for Crossrail will be carrying mainline services from east to west below London. Technically Crossrail will not be part of the Underground, but all the new stations will have direct interchange with the Tube

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which aspects of that entire history can be glimpsed and explored. Although they are not part of the Underground itself, the DLR, London Overground and Crossrail are all included. Purists will object that we have sometimes used the name ‘Tube’ to refer to the whole system when technically only the deep

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. W. Clark in 1923, which included a parcels office. This and the surviving parts of the 1860s station have just been renovated and a new Crossrail station will open as part of this enlarged central London rail hub in 2018. The London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) was to be self-supporting

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rail service to Paddington – the Heathrow Express, opened in 1998. Twenty years beyond that, another service to Heathrow will become available with the completion of Crossrail in 2018. In design terms the various Tube stations on the Heathrow extension are fairly bland and unexciting with minimal decoration. Hatton Cross (1975), on

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the planned business centre was announced. The present station, with four platforms and an overall roof, was opened in 1991. 2000–19: PPP, OVERGRO AND CROSSRAIL The Labour government elected in 1997 set up a new city-wide authority for London, to be led by an elected Mayor, whose biggest financial

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, these have the quality of the best modern urban design but also make a gesture back to Holden’s classic Tube stations of the 1930s. Crossrail, a far more ambitious project, is a joint venture between TfL and the Department of Transport to build a new railway right under London linking

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Paris RER lines built in the 1970s, which are separate from the city’s Metro but linked to it. Cutaway impression of the multi-level Crossrail station at Canary Wharf, now under construction in a giant concrete coffer dam built within the former West India Docks

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. Crossrail is scheduled to open in 2018. This huge and costly project was first proposed over twenty years ago and, like the Victoria and Jubilee lines,

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of planning, debate and eventual government authorisation to spend public money. Tunnel boring began in 2012 and construction is now due for completion in 2018. Crossrail will be, in effect, London’s next Tube, but on a mainline scale. Transport for London’s wider responsibilities have made it easier to integrate

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architect C. W. Clark with one of his white-glazed tiled street exteriors, has just been renovated and additional station exits added. A new linked Crossrail station will open under the current plaforms in 2018, when Farringdon will become a major hub and interchange. The Metropolitan and Circle line platforms at

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in the centre and beyond left are the lights of the Shard tower at London Bridge, nearing completion as the tallest building in Europe. A Crossrail station will open underneath Farringdon in 2018. Continue east on a Circle line train. Get off at Temple, on the southern side of the Circle

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, where the beast stalks a victim through the run-down station. TCR is now being extensively enlarged and rebuilt in connection with the development of Crossrail, which will open an interchange station with the Tube here in 2018. Some of the Paolozzi mosaics will have to be relocated or recreated in

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King, 2000. Wolmar, Christian. The Subterranean Railway. Atlantic Books, 2004. WEBSITES www.ltmuseum.co.uk www.tfl.gov.uk www.urbandesign.tfl.gov.uk www.crossrail.co.uk www.londonrailways.net Published in Great Britain in 2012 by Shire Publications Ltd, Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford OX2 0PH, United Kingdom

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, 48, 60, 69 (lower), 82 (top), 91, 92, 93, 100, 104, 106, 107 (top), 112, 113. Page 43 is from Getty Images, page 64 from Crossrail and page 72 (lower) from the author’s collection. All other photographs were taken by Oliver Green between 2008 and 2012. © Shire Publications. Access to

The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground Was Built and How It Changed the City Forever

by Christian Wolmar  · 30 Sep 2009  · 447pp  · 126,219 words

uses Marc Brunel’s original tunnel under the Thames, once slated for abandonment. There is lots more to celebrate, too. Construction of the long-delayed Crossrail scheme which is part underground, part conventional railway is underway as I write, and Thameslink, which uses the tracks on the Underground’s second oldest

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the huge number of trains seeking to use this new underground railway. The station has recently been rebuilt and extended, too, in readiness for the Crossrail trains scheduled to arrive at the end of the decade. There is no trace of the fact that Farringdon was the original terminus where the

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years. Of course, even if translated in to 2012 money, making say £80m per mile, that is very cheap compared with the cost of the Crossrail scheme under construction between Paddington and Liverpool Street which is reckoned to cost £15bn for a tunnel of less than four miles (but which also

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has raged ever since, but capturing that increased value through an equitable taxation system has, so far, proved an elusive Holy Grail – though the new Crossrail line between Paddington and Liverpool Street has been partly funded by a special addition too the business rate. THIRTEEN THE PERFECT ORGANIZATION? Even after twenty

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the logic of this methodology and fund such projects, as witnessed by the number of highly beneficial schemes which were decades in gestation, such as Crossrail, the tunnel connection between Liverpool Street and Paddington which was started in 2011. It was only through using the cost–benefit analysis method, now standard

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of twenty-four trains an hour, each with twelve carriages (rather than eight, as before) and passing through the centre of London. Throw in, too, Crossrail which has also been given the go-ahead in the intervening period after years of prevarication and delay. This will be a major addition to

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extra financing problems. By the time a new edition of this book is needed, London’s rail network will have been fully transformed. Hopefully, too, Crossrail 2, the old Chelsea– Hackney line project – though now modified with several possible variants but being promoted strongly by various interested parties – will be underway

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the Circle Line. Now, however, Farringdon is being reborn as a key station in the National Rail Network and, in 2018, when both Thameslink and Crossrail are due to be completed, it will be the crossing point of the north-south Thameslink services, and the east-west

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Crossrail routes, as well as being on the Circle and Metropolitan lines. Trains from Farringdon will, as originally intended, serve destinations in all directions: south to

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enough bears the name, ‘Farringdon and High Holborn’, given it in 1922, though it is some distance from the latter. With the revamped Thameslink and Crossrail, London is effectively getting the equivalent of the much-vaunted Parisian RER, with full-size trains going through tunnels under the centre of London but

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other rail services in a way that harks back to a time when multiple railway companies ran services on the tracks of the Metropolitan Railway. Crossrail will be part of the national rail network but will also have a variety of interfaces and connections with the Underground. The London Overground uses

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the Department for Transport and the train operators, passengers can now use Pay As You Go Oyster cards throughout the London suburban rail network. While Crossrail, too, will be administratively separate from the Underground, passengers will pass seamlessly from its platforms to those of the Tube using their Oyster cards. London

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., p. 18. 10 Quoted in Foxell, p. 32. 11 Indeed, a century later, a similar idea was put forward to build a cheap version of Crossrail, the new underground railway between Paddington and Liverpool, using that same section of line. This was briefly and foolishly considered by the Labour government of

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analysis, ref1 costs per mile, ref1, ref2 costermongers, ref1 council housing, ref1 Courtenay, Irving, ref1 Covent Garden, ref1 Cromwell curve, ref1, ref2 Cross, George, ref1 Crossrail, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Croxley, ref1 Croydon, ref1, ref2, ref3 Crystal Palace, ref1 crystal railways, ref1 Cunningham, Granville, ref1, ref2 Cunningham, James, ref1 Daily

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Limehouse, ref1 Liverpool, ref1 Liverpool & Manchester Railway, ref1, ref2 Liverpool Street, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8 and Central Line extension, ref1 and Crossrail, ref1, ref2, ref3 and wartime, ref1 Livingstone, Ken, ref1, ref2, ref3 Lloyd George, David, ref1, ref2, ref3 locomotives Beyer, Peacock, ref1, ref2 electric multiple units

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, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Oxford Music Hall, ref1 Oxford Street, ref1, ref2 Oyster Cards, ref1 Paddington, ref1, ref2, ref3 and Bakerloo extension, ref1 and Crossrail, ref1, ref2, ref3 and electrification, ref1 and Metropolitan Railway, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14 slum housing

World Cities and Nation States

by Greg Clark and Tim Moonen  · 19 Dec 2016

.a £34bn net fiscal contribution p.a ‘Escalator’ region for British talent and firms Great Britain London Greater South East Region ‘Trophy’ projects; 2012 Olympics, Crossrail Enhanced London Mayor powers Competitive tax rates and immigration rules CONTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT TO WORLD CITY Figure 3.1: Reciprocity between London and the

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has had to ‘bid’ for financial support from central government for large ‘trophy’ projects (for example, the Jubilee Line, Millennium projects, the Olympic Games, Crossrail 1, Crossrail 2). The city’s very success in advocating for this investment has exposed limitations in an arrangement 38 World Cities and Nation States whereby projects

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the city’s Congestion Charge to generate net revenue of over £1 billion. A new funding structure was agreed for the £15 billion cost of Crossrail – one‐third central government grant, 30% from London business rates and an infrastructure levy, and almost all the rest from the city government (GLA) and

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‘value capture financing’ that leverages the value created in surrounding commercial and residential development, rather than relying on central government grants (Rogers and Blight, 2012; Crossrail, 2016; Transport for London, 2016). Revisions to the GLA’s powers in 2007 and 2011 have given more powers to the Mayor of London on

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and house prices, transport infrastructure and, above all, airport policy need urgent attention. On key political issues such as the role of the Mayor, the Crossrail development schemes, housing supply and the addition of airport capacity in the region, business interest groups engage directly and successfully in the policy development process

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government, often working in tandem with the city government. It urges the national tier to be bold and decisive on major infrastructure projects (for example, Crossrail 2 and airport expansion) and to ensure that the business climate is kept attractive even during more t­ urbulent periods for the economy. London has

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are making special provision to help their world city improve its transport system and how it is governed. In London, the east–west Elizabeth Line (Crossrail 1) was part‐funded by the national department of transport (a £4.7 billion grant from a total package of £15 billion) and in 2016

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the Chancellor has given the north–south Crossrail 2 project priority status, with a view to being up and running by the early 2030s. Moscow’s own enormous subway expansion which aims to

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the regeneration of its Docklands in the 1980s, and continues until more recently with projects 216 World Cities and Nation States such as Crossrail, the 2012 Olympics and Crossrail 2. The advantages of one‐ off disbursements for prestigious developments tend to be offset by uncertain time‐frames and the constraints on preparing

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urban priorities. Limited but growing partnership in smart cities and ‘living lab’ agendas. London First has channels of communication with central government and advocates on Crossrail 2, airport expansion, China visas, housing supply; national arts and cultural institutions make economic case for funding support. Business elites have sponsored key projects such

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.htm. Accessed 2016 Feb 10. Communities and Local Government Committee (2016). Devolution: The next five years and beyond. London: House of Commons. Crossrail (2016). Funding. Available at http://www.crossrail.co.uk/about‐us/funding. Accessed 2016 Feb 11. EIU (2012). Hot Spots: Benchmarking Global City Competitiveness. London: The Economist. Available at

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Wharf, 39 Channel Tunnel Rail Link, 40 city leadership, 220 Index City of London, 38, 40, 42 city‐state, 27 collaboration with other cities, 236 Crossrail, 1, 2, 37, 51, 205, 216, 221 Davies Commission, 50 de‐industrialisation, 39 density, 13 diversity, 227 Docklands regeneration, 40, 216 economic sector output, 25

Commuter City: How the Railways Shaped London

by David Wragg  · 14 Apr 2010  · 369pp  · 120,636 words

include ticket machine manufacturers such as Almex and many bus and railway operators such as First Group, Arriva and Stagecoach. Across London east and west - Crossrail Thameslink used a disused railway line to revive long-lost connections across London and extended these beyond the suburbs. No such route existed running east

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direct was needed, especially with the example of Parisian RER regional expresses putting London’s railways at a disadvantage. The new project became known as ‘Crossrail’, and it has become a matter of controversy concerning both the route and even the question of whether the money spent on the Channel Tunnel

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Rail Link would have been better spent and benefitted more travellers if it had been devoted to Crossrail. As a new railway, it required parliamentary approval and the Crossrail Act was passed on 22 July 2008. The plan is for the line to be completed by 2017, with 200

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contrast with the early railways, which landowners and others viewed with concern, if not outright fear, many have viewed their community being left off the Crossrail map as a disaster. Early plans considered routes such as Paddington to Richmond and Kingston-upon-Thames, or to Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Watford, or

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that the original plan anticipated generous contributions being made by property developers who would see the value of their investment rise with the completion of Crossrail. The economic problems which first became apparent in 2008 have placed such contributions in doubt. In 2009, work began at Tottenham Court Road station, a

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services of the mainline companies. The first RER route opened in 1969. The only British equivalent is Thameslink, which sets no records for speed, while Crossrail waits some time in the future. It should be ready in the next decade, but major British projects have a habit of running late, so

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to Paris and Brussels by the Channel Tunnel Rail Link does not justify the cost and that the money would have been better spent on Crossrail. The CTRL has also made life much less convenient for passengers to the East Midlands using St Pancras, who now have a longer walk to

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to use steps to reach the lower or upper saloon. So, what is the future for the railways in London? For the next twenty years, Crossrail will be the big step forward, and for much of the rest, what is running today will still be running. The most obvious change will

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journey! There has for long been a proposal for a line between Chelsea and Hackney, which some believe could be completed by 2025, but with Crossrail and the mounting deficit in the public finances, this is a project that may remain a dream for many more years. Within the next twenty

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reconstruction, was largely eliminated due to North Sea oil revenues, but now we are a net importer of oil, gas and coal. One problem with Crossrail is that a contribution was expected from business, but the recession has made this unlikely, and as for HS2, the estimated cost today is £34

Down the Tube: The Battle for London's Underground

by Christian Wolmar  · 1 Jan 2002  · 723pp  · 98,951 words

a way of getting traffic off its overcrowded roads, an argument that has resonance today since the City Corporation is strongly supportive of the proposed Crossrail project which, coincidentally, is also intended to link Paddington with the City. The way the enterprise was funded bears some resemblance to the PPP structure

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. Thanks to the dithering over the Victoria Line, followed by equally damaging delays over the Jubilee Line Extension, Thameslink 2000, the East London Line and Crossrail, London is effectively two lines behind what would be a sensible rate of growth on economic grounds, based on increasing population and prosperity, as well

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stemming the decline into coping with the massive upsurge in the number of passengers and produced a strategic plan for the future, including the two Crossrails.’* Moreover, Ridley had done better than his predecessors, managing, for example, to introduce a successful ticketing system with gates at most stations, which considerably boosted

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in the 1980s, another report into London’s rail needs, the Central London Rail Study, again a joint effort,* was published. The study found that Crossrail, the scheme to link Paddington and Liverpool Street stations with a tunnel large enough to accommodate main-line trains which would then continue both eastwards

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1992. As one senior insider put it, ‘the Reichmanns were very influential and eventually we were told to develop the railway’.* So instead of getting Crossrail or the Chelsea-Hackney tube that would have regenerated a much more populated and arguably even more deprived area of the capital, Londoners got the

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world, London would have a series of continuous projects to improve its railway network – the JLE should have been followed by Crossrail and then Chelsea-Hackney, which has now been dubbed Crossrail 2, and so on. According to Tunnicliffe, such a rolling programme would cut costs to the public sector of these

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whole UK economy, of such lines, there is no prospect of any new addition to London’s rail system for at least a decade. The Crossrail project – which has received £154m in October 200l for a preliminary study after being abandoned in l996 when a similar sum had already been spent

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trains would be able to use the section of the Metropolitan and Circle lines between Paddington and Liverpool Street to provide a cheap alternative to Crossrail, the scheme for a new tunnel linking the rail networks of east and west London. That always seemed a fanciful idea because this section is

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line in terms of the number of people it can carry per hour. The higher the capability, the lower the average journey time can be. CROSSRAIL: A proposed new main-line railway linking east and west London with a new tunnel between Paddington and Liverpool Street stations. No funding is yet

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available, although £154m has been allocated for preparatory work. The proposed Chelsea to Hackney line is now known as Crossrail 2. CTRL: The Channel Tunnel Rail Link, a new 62-mile railway linking the mouth of the Channel tunnel with St Pancras. DEEP TUBE LINES

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