Crossrail delayed

The opening of Crossrail has been delayed by yet another year. It never was a good scheme. The stated need was for additional capacity on the northern section of the Metropolitan between Paddington and Liverpool Street. This could have been met by a new tube line between Paddington and Liverpool Street, on the same alignment as Crossrail. Because these are not logical starting points, it might have run westward to Heathrow and/or Hammersmith (the Metropolitan branch), and eastward to Stratford or Woolwhich, but as a tube.

With no need to run on the national network, and running in tunnels of just over half the diameter, it could have been completed 15 years ago at a fraction of the cost.

This was a bad case of mission creep. Like HS2.

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