By Lynda Myer
Involving full services across the entire route introduced by May 2023, the Elizabeth line in London is due to open on the 24th of May 2022.
Crossrail Ltd is responsible for delivering this new railway, which will stretch for over 100km while 42km of those are new and in tunnels through central London from Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east to Reading and Heathrow in the west. The Elizabeth line has a total of 41 stations including 10 major new stations.
Raising central London’s rail capacity by 10%, the new railway is going to carry more than 200 million passengers per year. Additionally, it is the first-time national rail lines to the east and west of London have been linked through an underground metro system.
The newly built central section among Paddington and Abbey Wood, and the east and west surface sections, are the subsets of the Elizabeth line. Part of the complexity of the Elizabeth line, and the reason that testing and systems integration is a very important part of the process is that each of the three sections has a different signaling system. All three signaling systems need to successfully work together, including smoothly transitioning from one to another whilst trains are moving across London.
Since the autumn of the current year, the Elizabeth line is due to initially operate as three separate railways, with services from Reading, Heathrow, and Shenfield connecting with the central tunnels.
For more details on this project please click here, here and here.
