The Core Section of Crossrail (branded the Elizabeth Line) shall open to the public on 24th May.
Crossrail was built to provide a high frequency passenger service crossing the capital from east to west by taking over suburban services on two major railway lines terminating in London, the Great Eastern Main Line (as far as Shenfield) and the Great Western Main Line (as far as Reading) and connecting the two via underground tunnels in central London between Paddington and Whitechapel with stations at Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon and Liverpool Street.
At each end of the core, the line shall split. In the east, after Whitechapel, trains can go to either Shenfield of along a new section of railway to Abbey Wood and in the west trains can go to either Reading or Heathrow Airport.
As this is a National Rail line run on behalf of Transport for London in the same way the London Overground works, when fully integrated in autumn, the main benefits of the railway are that not only are journey times between east and west London vastly cut, it means that pressure can be taken off the Victorian built London Underground network which, before the Covid-19 pandemic, was struggling to cope with passenger numbers.
