A bird’s eye view of Crossrail

While Crossrail continues to be mired in delays and multi-billion-pound cost overruns, RAIL presents a series of stunning aerial shots taken from above the pan-London route this summer

The new 120-metre-long steel and glass canopy for Crossrail’s Paddington station dominates the south side of Brunel’s famous 19th century terminus along Eastbourne Terrace.

The canopy is some eight metres above street level, while the platforms are located 20 metres below ground within the three-level box structure.

Destined to be served by 34 Elizabeth Line trains per hour (24 eastbound and ten west), the station is expected to

accommodate some 174,000 passengers per day.

They will be able to interchange with main line services to Bristol, South Wales and the West Country, as well as Underground services on the Bakerloo, Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines.

The station also marks the transition between the underground central section of Crossrail and its western surface sections to

Heathrow Airport and Reading.

Some of the 70 Class 345 trains ordered for the Elizabeth Line have already been introduced between Paddington (main line station) and Reading, while the first services ran to Heathrow Airport on July 30 ( RAIL 911).

It had been planned that the Paddington-Abbey Wood central section of the Elizabeth Line would open by summer 2021, with the full

Shenfield/Abbey Wood-Reading/Heathrow Airport route operational by mid-2022.

However, in late July, Crossrail Ltd said that these dates would no longer be achievable because of disruption and delays incurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Crossrail Ltd, the central section will now be ready to open in the first half of 2022 (see Network News).

The new station concourse and ticket office at Whitechapel sweeps over the east-west Hammersmith & City and District London Underground lines, while the north-south London Overground East London Line passes directly beneath.

The green roof of the concourse, topped with sedum plants, leaves Whitechapel High Street in the foreground before dipping down beneath Durward Street, where it continues north above the London Overground cutting before providing access to the new underground Elizabeth Line platforms.

The station will be served by 24 Elizabeth Line trains per hour during peak times, with eastbound services splitting shortly after leaving the station into two branches to Shenfield and Abbey Wood.

With Christopher Wren’s 17th century masterpiece St Paul’s Cathedral dwarfed by the UK’s tallest building the Shard (standing 306.9 metres high), the old meets the new in this view looking east across Farringdon towards London’s ‘square mile’ financial district.

Once the Elizabeth Line is open,

Farringdon will become one of the busiest stations in the entire country, providing direct connections with both the Thameslink and London Underground networks.

Two new ticket halls have been built for Crossrail that are connected by underground platforms.

The western end is located near to the

Thameslink ticket hall on the corner of Farringdon Road and Cowcross Street ( beneath the building in the foreground with the crane on top), while the eastern end is bound by Charterhouse Street, Lyndsey Street and Long Lane (beneath the building to the immediate left of the ornate Smithfield Market in the middle of the picture).

Consisting of two island platforms, Abbey Wood station serves through trains operated by Southeastern, and will soon also act as a terminus for the South East branch of the Elizabeth Line.

Shaped like a manta ray, the striking new station building on the Harrow Manor Way flyover has already opened to passengers, with its zinc-surfaced ‘wings’ sheltering staircases that lead to the platforms below.

Two ‘345s’ can be seen occupying the Crossrail side of the station, while on test.

Once an area strictly closed off to the public, the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich on the south bank of the Thames manufactured and tested guns and ordnance for British armed forces for almost 350 years until it ceased to be a military establishment in 1994.

The site now forms part of the London

Gateway redevelopment project, which includes plans for more than 3,700 new homes and new cultural, heritage, commercial and leisure quarters.

A 276-metre-long box station sits below the housing development in this picture, which also shows the new station entrance opening out onto Dial Arch Square.

Some 56,000 passengers a day are expected to use the station, located on Crossrail’s south-eastern spur to Abbey Wood and with interchange opportunities with the Docklands Light Railway and main line services operated by Southeastern and Thameslink.