Today should have been the day that the Crossrail project triumphantly handed over to the Elizabeth line.
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Today should have been the day that thousands of excited people woke up to their very own Christmas Day as shiny new trains and stations begged to be explored. |
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Today should have been the day that saw more dignitaries than you knew existed tuning up for a ceremonial purple ribbon cutting exercise. |
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Today should have been the day when a new line appeared on the tube map. |
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Today should have been the day people arriving at Paddington on an Elizabeth line train would need to walk to another platform to catch the Elizabeth line into central London. |
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Today should have been the day that the public got to see inside the Victorian Connaught tunnel for the first time since it closed in 2006. |
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Today should have been the day it became possible to walk into Moorgate tube station and come out of Liverpool Street station. |
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Today should have been the day that so many people arrived on Oxford Street that they would wonder why Westminster Council cancelled plans to pedestrianise it. |
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Today should have been the day when people went into new stations in Central London and gasped at how huge they are. |
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Today should have been the day a person living in Woolwich Arsenal could get to Canary Wharf faster than many people living on the Isle of Dogs. |
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Today should have been the day people using the Central line found it much easier to get a seat as people switched to using the Elizabeth line. |
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Today should have been the day that getting from Paddington to the West End wouldn’t need a change of trains. |
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Today should have been the day when people started wondering what Abbey Wood is like and why trains terminate there. |
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Today should have been the day when people who have no idea about London transport would have caught a new train in new tunnels not having the faintest idea that it opened today for the first time. |
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Today should have been the day when you could catch an Elizabeth line train to Crossrail Place. |
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Today should have been the day when 81 escalators were switched on for the first time to carry paying passengers. |
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Today should have been the day that central London’s rail capacity increased by 10 percent. |
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Today should have been the day that an additional 1.5 million people found themselves living less than 45 minutes from London’s main employment centres. |
Today should have been the day that the Crossrail project triumphantly handed over to the Elizabeth line.
But it isn’t. Please come back later.
Was it the Abbey Wood-Paddington/Heathrow Airport route that was going to open today. With the May 2019 opening between Shenfield-Heathrow Airport or Paddington. Or is it in stages that the Elizabeth Line was going to have some of its lines opened in December this year.
But instead it has been pushed back until Autumn next year with the last phase to open in December 2019 (Abbey Wood/Shenfield-Reading). I think I might of got myself confused.
But I am so disappointed that its not going to open partly. Another year of waiting.
Today should have been Paddington to Abbey Wood while the existing TFL Rail services would have been rebranded to Elizabeth Line.
Also given the delay with the first lot I highly doubt the original date of December 2019 for the rest of it will be achieved.
Today would have been the day that everyone stopped saying Crossrail for ever and started saying Elizabeth line?
Your forgetting Crossrail 2 which had everything gone to plan including Cameron winning his Referendum (!) would now be under starters orders ….
Instead even Tube Station upgrades at stations like Moorgate and Whitechapel are still not finished!
Anyway this opening date of December 2018 was announced years ago and took no notice of how complicated the Crossrail project including the roll out and testing of the rail equipment was .
Errm, “Today should have been the day that getting from Paddington to the West End wouldn’t need a change of trains” – have we forgotten the venerable Bakerloo?
But look at it another way:
Today is only a year from getting what you want whereas those of us who live in rural mid-Wales have to put up with some or all of our four daily (return) trains being cancelled because the 1960s infrastructure or 1980s Class 153s have broken down and TfW say nothing will change at least until 2022 when we *might* get an extra return journey.
Puts your “today” in a different light doesn’t it!
[But I don’t disagree with what you say – keep up the excellent site and a Happy Christmas!]
Wow, brilliant piece!
Damn annoying and screwed my commute, took a job on the basis that it was opening in December.
Today should have been the day, getting to Heathrow from Woolwich would be a breeze!
Not Crossrail, but also 9 December 2018: “Today should have been the day that London Overground’s last six diesel trains go to Birmingham, having long been replaced by new trains.” Instead the trains that were due in January are still not ready, and West Midlands Railway are waiting for our trains to replace their old one-carriage diesel trains, which are going to East Midlands.