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

Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More

This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism.

Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets.

We've always done that and won't be changing, in fact we'd like to do more.

However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do.

We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area.

A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site.

One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute.

If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor.

For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you'd like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site.

May 5, 2022