[title]
Amid recent news of black cab fare rises (lucky old you if that’s your default mode of carriage) you might be pleased to hear that, like the sound of an approaching train in the tunnel, the rumbles of the impending opening of the Elizabeth line – aka Crossrail – are growing ever louder.
Plans started way back in the ’90s and the first shovel to soil was in 2009, so it’s been a long time and a lot of advanced engineering in the making. We were living in ancient times when the first stories of the East-West part-underground rail initiative first hit the headlines, so you’ll probably need a recap on what the plot was. Essentially a huge (70-mile-plus) rail project linking Shenfield in Essex and Abbey Wood in south-east London to Reading in Berkshire, taking in central London haunts such as Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road, Bond Street and Paddington along the way, it offers the lure of a 30-minute ride from Heathrow to the centre of town, or a short hop from Woolwich to the City with barely time to listen to a ‘Robot or Not’ podcast.
This utopian vision promises more than 20 trains per hour – around one every three minutes – which severely curtails our toe-tapping fun, plus extremely long platforms, stylishly minimalist stations and the added benefit of TfL tube capacity increasing by a tenth. All mouthwateringly exciting, but until now, the point at which we were allowed to taste the fruits of this venture was tantalisingly out of reach.
In recent days, however, news has filtered through of test drives and press junkets, and the imminent opening of ten key stations, with the rest launching next year.
All good news as a Platinum-Jubilee-style treasure hunt was announced last week to celebrate Her Maj’s unprecedented 70 years on the throne. So you can find those WI knitted corgis in comfort, although you’ll probably not be able to do a one-stop-shop to see Little Simz on Friday evening at Reading Festival direct from Newham this year.
There’s a huge new open-air cultural space arriving in Docklands.