Still No Date for Full Local Crossrail Opening
Central section of the Elizabeth line will be operating this month
Passengers will still need to change at Paddington station. Picture: TfL
A date has now been confirmed for the opening of the central section of Crossrail, four years behind schedule.
However, the western section of the line, which includes stations such as Ealing Broadway, Acton Mainline, West Ealing, Hanwell and Southall and will eventually see the addition of the Old Oak Common interchange station, will not be fully linked to the rest of the line.
Passengers will continue to have to change trains at Paddington with the latest predicted date for linking the two sections being this autumn. When this happens passengers will be able to travel the entire length of the line without the need to tap in or out at Liverpool Street or Paddington to change trains.
TfL announced on Wednesday (5 May) that services on the Elizabeth Line – the name Crossrail will assume when it opens – will begin running on Tuesday 24 May.
The Elizabeth Line will initially operate as three separate railways, with the central tunnels of the line yet to be connected to services from Reading, Heathrow and Shenfield.
From May 24, services will begin running on the central section of the line between Paddington and Abbey Wood. Elizabeth Line services will run at a frequency of 12 trains per hour between 6:30am and 10:30pm Monday to Saturday.
Engineering work and testing will be carried out on Sundays and outside of operating hours to allow for the frequency of Elizabeth Line services to increase to 22 trains per hour in autumn at peak times between Paddington and Whitechapel.
At this point, TfL expects a journey from Heathrow Airport to Canary Wharf to take a little over 30 minutes
The final stage of the rollout is expected to be completed in May 2023, when the frequency of services on the Elizabeth Line will increase to 24 trains per hour.
Written with contributions from Joe Talora – Local Democracy Reporter
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May 5, 2022