London’s Elizabeth Line is set to open on May 24, it was announced, with the long-delayed central part of the £ 19bn Crossrail tunnel ready for passengers.
Transport for London (TfL) said the line would be opened, subject to final safety approvals, a week before the Queen’s anniversary.
The line will significantly increase transport capacity in London and the South East of England, reducing travel time, as well as a number of new stations and much longer, more spacious trains.
The Elizabeth Line will initially operate as three separate railways, with overhead services already operating as TfL Rail to the west and east, scheduled to join the center directly this autumn. The new underground section will start operating with 12 trains per hour between Paddington and Abbey Wood from Monday to Saturday, between 6.30am and 11pm.
Engineering work will continue overnight and on Sunday, with software testing and updates to allow for more intensive services. Later this year, it is planned to run 22 trains per hour at peak hours in central London.
TfL Commissioner Andy Byford, who pledged his reputation for completing the line before the June 30 deadline, which he inherited after the delays in the construction of Crossrail multiplied, said: “We are using these last few weeks to continue to build the reliability of the railway line and get Elizabeth line ready to meet customers.
“The opening day will be a truly historic moment for the capital and the United Kingdom, and we look forward to showing just a stunning addition to our network.”
Map of the central part of the Elizabeth line
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the opening of the Elizabeth Line would help build “a safer, fairer, greener and more prosperous city for all Londoners”.
He said: “This is the most significant addition to our transport network in decades and will revolutionize travel in the capital and south-east – as well as provide a £ 42 billion boost to the UK economy and hundreds of thousands of new homes and jobs.
“Green public transport is the future and the opening of the Elizabeth Line is a landmark moment for our capital and our country, especially in this special platinum anniversary year.”
The Elizabeth Line was originally scheduled to open below central London in December 2018, before then-Crossrail executives acknowledged that the project was well behind schedule, just months before its official opening. The scheme, which includes 10 new stations and 26 miles of new tunnels, escalated in the budget from £ 14.8 billion to £ 18.9 billion.
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Part of the delay and cost is due to the complex Crossrail signaling, which integrates three different systems. Trains will run automatically in the central tunnels, but will have to switch to different signaling systems on the east side of the railway line to Shenfield and on the lines to Reading and Heathrow in the west.
Until this system is fully operational, passengers traveling on existing TfL Rail branches will have to change at Paddington or Liverpool Street stations. Trains from the east and west will cross the central section directly later this year, and the services, which run all the way, are expected to start next year.
More purple signs on the Elizabeth line will be revealed in the coming weeks, as well as an updated map of the pipes showing connections to the rest of the TfL network. Bus services will also be changed to East London to connect to the new stations.
Bond Street, a Crossrail site affected by construction problems, will not be open to Elizabeth Line services when they begin, but TfL said it is “making good progress” and is expected to be used by the end of 2022. .
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