The Story of Crossrail

The story of an engineering marvel of the 21st century, from Britain's bestselling railway writer. In autumn 2019, Europe's biggest infrastructure project, a state-of-the-art cross-London railway, will finally come to fruition. From Reading and Heathrow in the west, the Elizabeth line will extend to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east, including 42km of new tunnels dug under central London. Crossrail, first conceived just after WWII in the era of Attlee and Churchill, has cost more than $15bn and is expected to serve 200 million passengers annually. The author sets out the complex and highly political reasons for Crossrail's lengthy gestation, tracing the troubled progress of the concept from the rejection of the first bill in the 1990s through the tortuous parliamentary processes that led to the passing of the Crossrail Act 2008. He also recounts in detail the construction of this astonishing new railway, describing how immense tunnel boring machines cut through a subterranean world of rock and mud.