2022 p RE view
OPENINGS
NEW LINES
Just two pieces of main line are due to be added to the national rail network in 2022, but one of them is a biggie.
CROSSRAIL/ELIZABETH LINE
Originally due to open by the end of 2019, well before Covid, the central section of London’s major cross-city underground link, some 30 years in the making, is (we hardly dare put this in print) finally due to open to passengers at an unspecified date in the first half of 2022. The 70 nine-car Derby-built Class 345 Bombardier (now Alstom) Aventra EMUs have, of course, been running as seven-car units on TfL Liverpool St-Shenfield and latterly Paddington-Heathrow Airport/Reading routes since June 2017 and have over the past year gradually been lengthened to full length in anticipation of the opening of the west-east underground sections from Paddington (low level) to Stratford/Abbey went to press, trial operations had commenced, with 12 trains per hour (tph) running through the central section and demonstrations of 24tph taking place. A final phase of ‘shadow running’, when a normal timetable service without passengers, will then take place. The 26 miles of new line, all electrified overhead at 25kV AC, brings with it new platforms and extensions to existing stations (see below).
