Please Note  There has been much posted about Crossrail and archives back for may years can now be seen at our special Crossrail archive section in our archives page HERE

 

Crossrail updates June 2017

Crossrail is coming (but very slowly)! It will run from Reading and Heathrow in the west through central London to Essex (Shenfield) and Kent (Abbey Wood) in the east. It will use 200m long mainline style trains with air-conditioned carriages. At peak times, 10 trains an hour (in both directions) will stop at Ealing Broadway. Some of these will also stop at West Ealing, Acton Main Line, Hanwell and Southall.
Crossrail is being run by Crossrail Ltd,  a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London. Work on the tracks and stations on the existing surface railway (such as at Ealing Broadway) are being carried out by Network Rail, or by their contractors. 
Overall, the Crossrail programme is now about 80% complete, with work on the shiny new stations in the central section  well advanced. The new service will be introduced in stages with the part through central London due to open in December 2018. A "Crossrail" service from the current Paddington station to Heathrow will replace the Heathrow Connect service in May 2018.  The through service from Ealing Broadway to central London and beyond is planned to be the last to start in December 2019.

However, in contrast to the on-schedule progress being made on the central section progress on the western overground section of the route is slipping seriously. For 3 long years Crossrail reported that their designs for Ealing Broadway station were always just 3 months away from publication. When they did eventually emerge, they were roundly condemned. SEC coordinated the campaign that secured some improvements as they now appear on the Ealing Broadway page of the Crossrail website.

        Key features of the new station will be:-
·         A large new canopy running across the whole frontage of the station and the Villiers House frontage.
·         A much bigger, street level ticket hall.
·         Almost double the number of ticket gates than there are now.
·         Four lifts to provide step free access from street level to the platforms
·         Improved staircases to platforms 2/3, and platform 1 (not normally used).
·         New toilet facilities
·         Platform extensions to accommodate the longer trains and some canopy changes on the platforms.

The new design was approved by the Ealing Planning Committee in August 2014 in the face of SEC’s objections that it would provide a station that remained unfit for purpose. 

Meanwhile, back in 2011, it had been agreed to accelerate work on Ealing Broadway Station in advance of the needs of Crossrail. This was because the station was already overcrowded and there was no step free access to the platforms, despite the large number of people using the station. The number of people entering and exiting the station has increased from 12.8 million per year in 2003 to 18.6 million in 2016.

Some work at Ealing Broadway Station eventually started in late summer 2015, with the takeover of the shops on the forecourt, a works compound on Haven Green and a compound on College Court at the eastern end of the station. Crossrail said work would be substantially complete by the summer of 2017. At first, things seemed to go well. An escape footbridge at the east end of the station was soon constructed. After that things slowed. Hoardings remain around the forecourt, but nothing is happening behind them. Some work is still going on to extend the platforms and do other minor works on them.

All attempts to find out what has gone wrong have been met with silence. Hints were made about unspecified design difficulties and later that Network Rail was at fault. Little work is going on either at any of the other western surface stations. There is no schedule when the facilities station users need will be available - not even a date when one will be published.

Crossrail is being funded almost entirely by public money. To have this lack of progress and lack of information is, to put it mildly, unfortunate!.

The original story from 2011

Crossrail is coming! It will run from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west through central London to Essex (Shenfield) and Kent (Abbey Wood) in the east. It will use mainline style trains, each with 10 air-conditioned carriages. At peak times, 10 trains an hour (in both directions) will stop at Ealing Broadway. Some of these trains will also stop at West Ealing, Acton Main Line, Hanwell and Southall.

The Crossrail programme is being run by Crossrail Ltd. This is now a wholly owned (but autonomous) subsidiary of Transport for London. There will be a whole series of contracts to implement various parts of the programme. Work on the tracks and stations on the existing surface railway (such as at Ealing Broadway) will be carried out by Network Rail, or by their contractors.

Work on the Crossrail programme is now well underway, especially on the stations in the central section. The Crossrail service will be introduced in stages with the part through central London expected to open in December 2018. A "Crossrail" service from the current Paddington station to Heathrow will replace the Heathrow Connect service in May 2018. However, it will be December 2019 before there is a through service from Ealing Broadway to central London and beyond.