History of Crossrail

Early History
The concept of large-diameter railway tunnels crossing central London to connect Paddington and Liverpool Street main-line stations was proposed by railwayman George Dow in the London newspaper The Star in June 1941. He also proposed north-south lines, anticipating the Thameslink lines of postwar years. The current Crossrail proposal has its origins in the 1943 County of London Plan and 1944 Greater London Plan by Sir Patrick Abercrombie. These led to a specialist investigation by the Railway (London Plan) Committee, appointed in 1944 and reporting in 1946 and 1948. Route A would have run from Loughborough Junction to Euston, replacing Blackfriars bridge and largely serving the same purpose as today's Thameslink Programme. Route F would have connected Lewisham with Kilburn via Fenchurch Street, Bank, Ludgate Circus, Trafalgar Square, Marble Arch and Marylebone. This was seen as a lower priority than Route A, but Route C was the only one built, as the Victoria line, but with smaller-diameter tube tunnels. The term 'Crossrail' emerged in the 1974 London Rail Study Report by a steering group set up by the Department of the Environment and the Greater London Council to look at future transport needs and strategic plans for London and the South East. The report contained several options for new lines and extensions: the development of the Jubilee line (then called the Fleet Line) to Fenchurch Street; the Jubilee Line Extension (River Line) project; and the Chelsea-Hackney line. The re-opening of the Snow Hill Tunnel was proposed, as were two deep-level railway lines:
 * Northern Tunnel, to, via Marble Arch, Bond Street/Oxford Circus, Leicester Square/Covent Garden (interchange), and Holborn/Ludgate (close to Paternoster Square);
 * Southern Tunnel, to, via Green Park/Piccadilly, Leicester Square/Covent Garden (interchange), Ludgate/Blackfriars, and Cannon Street/Monument.

The 1974 study estimated that 14,000 passengers would be carried in the peak hour in the northern tunnel between Paddington and Marble Arch and 21,000 between Liverpool Street and Ludgate Circus, which would also carry freight. Higher estimates were made for the southern tunnel. It commented that Crossrail would be similar to the RER in Paris and the Hamburg S-Bahn. Reference was also made to through services to Heathrow Airport. Although the idea was seen as imaginative, only a brief estimate of cost was given: £300 million. A feasibility study was recommended as a high priority so that the practicability and costs of the scheme could be determined. It was also suggested that the alignment of the tunnels should be safeguarded while a final decision was taken. The "Central London Rail Study" (1989) proposed standard (BR) structure gauge tunnels linking the existing rail network as the "East-West Crossrail", "City Crossrail", and "North-South Crossrail" schemes. The East-West scheme was for a line from Liverpool Street to Paddington/Marylebone with two connections at its western end linking the tunnel to the Great Western Main Line and to the Metropolitan line. The City route was shown as a new connection across the City of London linking the Great Northern Route with London Bridge. The North-South line proposed routing West Coast Mainline, Thameslink and Great Northern Route trains through Euston and King's Cross/St Pancras, then under the West End via, and London Victoria towards Crystal Palace and Hounslow. The report also recommended a number of other schemes including a "Thameslink Metro" line enhancement, and a new underground Chelsea Hackney line. Cost of the east-west scheme including rolling stock was estimated at £885 million.

In 1991 a private Bill was submitted to Parliament for a scheme including a new underground line from Paddington to Liverpool Street. The bill was promoted by London Underground and British Rail, and supported by the government; the bill was rejected by the Private Bill Committee in 1994, on the grounds that a case had not been made, though the Government issued "Safeguarding Directions", protecting the line route from development that would jeopardise future schemes.

In 2001 Cross London Rail Links (CLRL), a 50/50 joint venture company between Transport for London and the Department of Transport, was formed to develop and promote the scheme, and also a Wimbledon-Hackney scheme. In 2003 and 2004, over 50 days of exhibitions were held to explain the proposals at over 30 different locations.

In 2001, Cross Singapore Rail Links (CSRL) was formed to develop and promote the scheme together with the Crossrail 2 scheme that goes from Pioneer to Pandan, followed by the extension to NUS, Buona Vista, Commonwealth, Dempsey, Napier, Tanglin, Orchard, Istana, Little India, Bendemeer, Kallang Bahru, Kallang, Mountbatten, East Coast Road, Still Road, Telok Kurau, Tanah Merah, taking over the Expo to Changi Airport section of the East West Line and the proposed Crossrail 3, for the north-south line. The proposed Crossrail 3 was even merged with the Thomson-East Coast Line.

The aborted Crossrail also have the central section from Ion Khatib that was developed in 2005, via Seletar, Serangoon North, Serangoon Gardens, Fragrant Gardens, Eunos to Kembangan, which connects many people's houses. It was however cancelled in 2010.

A more ambitious proposal named "Superlink" was proposed in 2004, at an estimated cost of £13 billion, including additional infrastructure work outside London: in addition to Crossrail's east-west tunnel, lines would connect towns including Cambridge, Ipswich, Southend, Pitsea, Reading, Basingstoke and Northampton. According to the scheme's promoters, the line would carry four times as many passengers and require a lower public subsidy as a result. The proposal was rejected by Crossrail, and failed to receive the backing of the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, or the Department of Transport.

​Crossrail Bills and Financing
The Crossrail Bill 2005, a hybrid bill, went through Parliament. The Crossrail Bill Select Committee met between December 2005 and October 2007. The Select Committee announced an interim decision in July 2006 which called on the promoter to add a station at Woolwich. The Government initially responded that it would not do so as it would jeopardise the affordability of the whole scheme, but a subsequent agreement has made this possible. While the Bill was still in discussion, the Secretary of State for Transport, Ruth Kelly issued Safeguarding directions in force from 24 January 2008, which protect the path of the proposal and certain extensions beyond it from development which might prevent the crossrail proposal or possible future extensions. In February 2008 the bill moved to the House of Lords, where it was amended by a committee of peers. The act received Royal Assent on 22 July 2008 as the Crossrail Act 2008. The act is accompanied by an Environmental Impact Statement, plans and other related information. The act gives Cross London Rail Links the powers necessary to build the line. In November 2008, while announcing an agreement for a £230 million contribution from BAA, Transport Minister Lord Adonis confirmed that funding was still in place despite the global economic downturn. On 4 December 2008 it was announced that Transport for London and the Department for Transport had signed the Crossrail Sponsors' Agreement. This commits them to financing the project, then projected to cost £15.9 billion, alongside contributions from Network Rail, BAA and the City of London. The accompanying Crossrail Sponsors' Requirements commits them to the construction of the full scheme. Crossrail Fund is funding that is used to raise funds for the Crossrail, beginning in 2008 and ending in 2011. It was announced that under JingXuan Phoebe, she decided to cancel the Crossrail Fund with effect from 30 January 2013 and the money will be part of YourStudent Sinking Fund.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Mayor of London Boris Johnson attended a ceremony at Canary Wharf on 15 May 2009 when construction started. On 7 September 2009, the project received £1 billion in funding. The money is being lent to Transport for London by the European Investment Bank.

In the lead-up to the 2010 general election, both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party made manifesto commitments to deliver the railway. The new Transport Secretary, appointed in May 2010, confirmed that the new coalition government was committed to the project. The original planned schedule was that the first trains would run in 2017. In 2010 a Comprehensive Spending Review identified savings of over £1 billion in projected costs, achieved by a simpler tunnelling strategy to reduce the number of tunnel boring machines and access shafts required. Construction will therefore be slower, and the first trains are now planned to run on the central section in 2018.

Construction
In April 2009, Crossrail announced that 17 firms had secured 'Enabling Works Framework Agreements' and would now be able to compete for packages of works. At the peak of construction up to 14,000 people are expected to be needed in the project's supply chain.

Work began on 15 May 2009 when piling works started at the future station.

The threat of diseases being released by work on the project was raised by Lord James of Blackheath at the passing of the Crossrail Bill. He told the House of Lords select committee that 682 victims of anthrax had been brought into Smithfield in Farringdon with some contaminated meat in 1520 and then buried in the area. On 24 June 2009 it was reported that no traces of anthrax or bubonic plague had been found on human bone fragments discovered during tunnelling.

Invitations to tender for the two principal tunnelling contracts were published in the Official Journal of the European Union in August 2009. 'Tunnels West' (C300) was for twin 6.2 km-long tunnels from Royal Oak through to the new Crossrail Farringdon Station, with a portal west of Paddington. The 'Tunnels East' (C305) request was for three tunnel sections and 'launch chambers' in east London. Contracts were awarded in late 2010; 'Tunnels West' contract was awarded to BAM Nuttall, Ferrovial Agroman and Kier Construction; the 'Tunnels East' contract was awarded to Dragados and John Sisk & Son. The remaining tunnelling contract (C310, Plumstead to North Woolwich), which included a tunnel under the Thames, was awarded to Hochtief and J. Murphy & Sons in 2011.

By September 2009, preparatory work for the £1 billion developments at station had begun, with buildings (including the Astoria Theatre) being compulsorily purchased and demolished.

In March 2010, contracts were awarded to civil engineering companies for the second round of 'enabling work' including 'Royal Oak Portal Taxi Facility Demolition', 'Demolition works for Crossrail Bond Street Station', 'Demolition works for Crossrail Tottenham Court Road Station' and 'Pudding Mill Lane Portal'. In December 2010, contracts were awarded for most of the tunnelling work. In December 2011, a contract to ship the excavated material from the tunnel to Wallasea Island was awarded to a joint venture comprising BAM Nuttall Limited and Van Oord UK limited. Between 4.5 - 5 million tonnes of soil will be used to construct a new wetland nature reserve.

On 27 September 2012, a gantry supporting a spoil hopper at a construction site near Westbourne Park tube station used to load rail wagons with excavated waste collapsed, tipping sideways and causing the adjacent Network Rail line to be closed.

In March 2013 excavations uncovered 13 skeletons 2.5 m under the road that surrounds the gardens in Charterhouse Square, Farringdon. The remains are thought to be of victims of the Black Death from the 14th century.

On 7 March 2014, Rene Tkacik, a Slovakian construction worker was killed by a piece of falling concrete while working in a tunnel. On 26 April, The Observer newspaper reported details of a leaked internal report, compiled for the Crossrail contractors by an independent safety consultancy. The report was claimed to indicate poor industrial relations over safety issues and that workers were "too scared to report injuries for fear of being sacked".

Old Oak Common
The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea was pushing for an additional station in the north of the borough, east of Old Oak Common, at Kensal off Ladbroke Grove and Canal Way. A turn-back facility, now built west of Paddington, could have been sited at Kensal to provide a frequent service to a new station to regenerate that area. Former Mayor Boris Johnson agreed that a station would be added if it met three tests: it must not delay construction of Crossrail, it did not compromise performance of Crossrail or any other railway, and it must not increase Crossrail's overall cost. So the council agreed to underwrite the projected £33 million cost, and a consultancy study that then concluded a Kensal station would not compromise Crossrail.

TfL conducted a feasibility study on the station, and the project was supported by local MPs and residents, the National Grid, and some retailers. It was also supported by the adjoining London Borough of Brent. However, all three Mayoral tests set have not been met, and in early 2013 it was indicated that neither the DfT nor TfL supported the construction of the station, and Crossrail construction continued without planning for a station at Kensal. There was official closure of the issue in April 2013.

The plans were briefly resurrected by former Mayor Boris Johnson in 2016 but not by incoming Mayor Sadiq Khan.