What do you know?
- The Crossrail project is 80 per cent complete. With the track installation complete this month, the project is on time for launch, 18 December 2018,and within funding.
- Costing £14.8bn, the project will go through the capital, running for more than 60 miles, and span Reading and Heathrow to Shenfield and Abbey Wood. Once launched, it will be named the Elizabeth line in honour of Queen Elizabeth II.
- Once fully functional, the line is expected to carry 10m people every year between the 10 specially built stations.
- The project will make travelling in the capital easier and quicker. The new trains will be 200m, which is almost twice as long as a London Underground train!
-  This is a fully funded UK project, with money coming from the government and business rates. There’s no money arriving from the EU and therefore Brexit will have no effect on its progress.
- It is UK government’s flagship project in attracting business to London, creating jobs which will ripple across the country. Crossrail has already created jobs and driven economic growth across the UK with companies based here winning 96 per cent of the contracts.
- World-class architects and designers are working for the the project and drawing upon the architectural heritage of the capital and London Underground, with each station reflecting the distinct character of the area.
- The construction of Crossrail line has created an island of dirt in Essex from everything dug from the tunnels called Wallasea Island, which is now a bird sanctuary!
- While digging a shaft, Crossrail engineers found plague victims just outside what will be Farringdon’s eastern ticket hall. Archaeologists arrived onsite quickly and took the bodies to the Museum of London.
- There will be no toilets on the Elizabeth line! The engineers found that installing toilets would take up the space of 600 customers an hour, so they have compensated with 33 toilets at stations along the final line between Shenfield and Reading.
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