Elizabeth line grand opening: As it happened

1. The delayed and over-budget Crossrail project finally opens to passengers
2. The £18.8bn railway - known as the Elizabeth line - links Reading and Essex via central London
3. Transport for London says 130,000 journeys made on the line by midday
4. Paddington's Elizabeth line platforms were evacuated following a fire alarm but have now reopened
5. The line was meant to start running in December 2018 but the project has missed multiple targets
6. Passengers can now use the Abbey Wood to Paddington section, with journey times between the two cut by almost half
7. People wishing to travel the length of the line will need to change at Paddington or Liverpool Street, depending on their destination, until next year
8. The Queen made a surprise visit to Paddington Station last week to see the completed line that bears her name

Thanks for joining us

Chirag Trivedi

BBC News

And that's all we have time for. Thanks for reading our coverage on what has been a momentous day.

It wouldn't be an opening day without a few glitches - like the Paddington station evacuation this morning - and some delays, but people seemed happy enough, with tens of thousands making more journeys using the new line today.

• The delayed and over-budget Crossrail project finally opened to passengers on Tuesday
• By midday TfL said 130,000 journeys had been made
• The £18.8bn railway - now known as the Elizabeth line - links Reading and Essex via central London
• Paddington station's Elizabeth line platforms were evacuated following a fire alarm
• London Mayor Sadiq Khan described the opening day as "historic" while UK PM Boris Johnson said the whole country would reap the benefits of the new line

Two national pastimes combined

Harry Low

BBC London News

BBC

At 6am, I stood and watched in the rain as a queue formed, giving those gathered at Abbey Wood in south-east London an opportunity to combine two national pastimes: queuing and complaining about the weather.

For the first time in recent memory, though, one could not hear any complaints about delays to Crossrail.

That's because for the first time throughout this whole project, transport bosses can legitimately claim to have delivered on time, with the first train arriving at Paddington from Abbey Wood at 06:58 - 28 minutes after departing.

The challenge now will be to maintain that performance before the line fully opens from one end to the other next year, by which time it's hoped a seven-day-a-week service will be operating.

Is the Elizabeth line a Tube?

It's a question many have been asking today and the answer is .... no.

Although it intersects with other London Underground lines and stations, it is a railway, as denoted on the new Tube map with a double purple line rather than a solid line.

The Elizabeth line uses a huge amount of the National Rail network and its trains can carry up to 1,500 passengers, many more than Tube services can.

Read more about the line here.

Full service kicks in next year

Getty Images

Although trains start running today, a full service will not be immediately available.

Initially, trains will run six days a week, every five minutes from 06:30 to 23:00 with no Sunday service. The line will operate in three parts - from Abbey Wood to Paddington, from Heathrow and Reading to Paddington, and Shenfield to Liverpool Street.

Bond Street station in central London will not open until later this year due to problems during construction.

In the autumn, trains from Heathrow will no longer terminate at Paddington and continue on through the central section of the line.

However, it will not be until May 2023 that passengers will be able to travel directly from one end of the line to the other.

Greenwich mayor celebrates opening

Elizabeth Line: Local mayor Denise Hyland celebrates opening with samba dancers

Samba dancers gave it their all outside Woolwich station to mark the opening of the new London line.

The Mayor of Greenwich Denise Hyland joined them to celebrate.

Woman travels from South Carolina to be on first train

Luxmy Gopal

BBC Look North

BBC London's Luxmy Gopal has been out this morning speaking to passengers - some have travelled from beyond the capital for this historic occasion.

Passengers travelled thousands of miles to be on first train

Can you spot the hidden artwork at the new stations?

Thomas Mackintosh

BBC London News

Earlier (post at 11:51) historian and broadcaster Siddy Holloway spoke about the various unique takes each new Elizabeth line station has to reflect the area of London it is in.

Transport YouTuber has been out and about and has given one spoiler of one in central London.“On the Dean Street entrance of the Tottenham Court Road station look out for a map,” he told BBC London.“You think it is silver dots on the black wall on the ticket hall but you realise what they have done is drawn a map of the local area.”

Try and spot the artwork and work out why it is there - Woolwich has a very subtle one on the pillars...

Geoff, who is known for his YouTube videos detailing various hidden gems on each London Underground, Overground and tram line, has said he will be looking to do one on the Elizabeth line.

But it will need to replace a previous video he did … as he explains…

“A few years ago as an April Fools’ joke I did make a video called‘Secrets of the Elizabeth line’ saying there would be no Sunday service ever and there would be a limited addition Oyster cards with the Queen on them.

“So I feel like I’m in an episode of The Simpsons predicting that Donald Trump was going to be president.

“There really is limited edition Elizabeth line oyster cards and there will be no Sunday service initially.

“At some point once the service has bedded in I will be making a video about it.

“It is a historic occasion, extremely newsworthy and it is going to be a lot of fun being out there.”

TfL Rail re-branded as Elizabeth line

Thomas Mackintosh

BBC London News

EPA

Today is the day the Elizabeth line officially gets added to the London Underground network and is open to passengers.

The two existing branches of what was TfL Rail - from Paddington to Reading and from Liverpool Street to Shenfield - has now been re-branded as the Elizabeth line.

Technically, the first Elizabeth line train left Paddington for Heathrow at 04:42 BST and the first train to run through the core sections of the Elizabeth line left Abbey Wood westbound at 06:30 and Paddington eastbound at 06:33.

A hat-tip to popular transport YouTuber Geoff Marshall who spotted this the other day.

He told BBC London:“A lot of people have said it isn’t connected up yet and why isn’t that the case?

“It was always part of the plan to open it up as three separate railways and then merge them altogether.

“So it is nothing to do with it being delayed. Even if it had opened in 2018 it would have done so in three different stages. It is always better to ease things in gradual phases rather than everything at once.

“The scale is epic, you are used to cramming into tiny Tube trains and tunnels.

One of my favourite phrases came from an amazing engineer called Emily Tibbitts and she said‘it is intercity-sized trains in a metro environment’.”

Central London buses could move to outskirts as 18% cuts loom

Local Democracy Reporting Service

Getty Images

The opening of the Elizabeth Line could lead to some central London bus services being axed to satisfy demand in outer London as TfL contemplates a“managed decline” scenario.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan suggested buses could be moved from central to outer London if TfL was unable to secure long-term funding from the government.

Speaking at a Mayor’s Question Time on Thursday, Mr Khan said:“At the moment, what we’ve planned was for a 4% reduction in buses because, in central London there’s some duplication[of routes] – particularly with the new Elizabeth line opening up.

“So, some of the buses we could take from central London to outer London where there’s a bigger need for buses, not least because there are fewer Tube lines in outer London.

“There is a demand in outer London for our buses, so the idea[is that] we go into a managed decline scenario where we’re reducing, by 18% or 19%, our bus usage across London, it would be catastrophic to – in particular – outer London.”

First Tube map featuring new Elizabeth line

To mark the opening of the Elizabeth line, Transport for London (TfL) has dropped a new map showing how the route will fit in.

The Elizabeth line now joins the Northern Line Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station extensions as well as Thameslink on Harry Beck’s famously designed map.

In December 2020, the rail route Thameslink was added as it operates services through London, and TfL said it wanted to show Londoners more options during the pandemic.

TfL’s Julie Dixon said: "Our world-renowned map now has another iconic addition in the Elizabeth line, which will serve London and the South East for hundreds of years to come.

"This latest Tube map is a real credit to the team who have put it together.

"It has been both a challenge and a privilege to update Harry Beck's original design to literally put a new piece of transport history on the map.”

Transport for London

The human cost during Crossrail construction

Thomas Mackintosh

BBC London News

Met Police

Claire Hitier-Abadie, 36, originally born in France, was a mother of two children

There was a human cost during the construction of the Elizabeth line which is often forgotten.

Rene Tkacik was 43 when he was killed by a section of the tunnel roof collapsing. The Slovakian had been spraying the walls with liquid concrete.

Two other people were injured in similar incidents. One had his leg crushed by a tipper truck, the other was injured when a high-pressure mixture struck him.

The contractor was fined over £1m for health and safety breaches. It was one of many harrowing low points for the project.

Nursing assistant Maria Karsa died after being hit by a lorry while she was on her way to work in September 2013.

Weeks later hospital, porter Brian Holt, 62, was killed in November 2013; 74-year-old Ted Wood was crushed to death by a lorry in Whitechapel in February 2014.

One year later, mother-of-two Claire Hitier-Abadie, 36, died after being hit by a lorry during rush hour near Victoria station.

Last July, the Mayor of London said that he remains open to exploring a memorial to those who lost their lives.

Crossrail: A timeline

January 2002: Cross London Rail Links Ltd is set up to develop plans for Crossrail

October 2007: PM Gordon Brown gives the go-ahead for the project, with an expected opening date in December 2017 and a budget of £15.9bn

May 2009: Boris Johnson - then London's mayor - and Transport Secretary Lord Adonis break ground on the project

October 2010: The budget is cut to £14.8bn and opening date delayed until December 2018

February 2016: The Queen announces the railway will be called the Elizabeth Line in her honour

July 2019: The project's costs rise to £15.4bn

August 2018: Crossrail Ltd says it will miss the December 2018 opening date, but the central section will open in autumn 2019

December 2018: Transport for London says Crossrail may be delayed further and might need £2bn more. London Mayor Sadiq Khan agrees a package to cover this

December 2018: Sir Terry Morgan resigns as chairman of Crossrail Ltd and is replaced by Mark Wild

November 2019: Crossrail Ltd says the line will open in 2021, with the cost rising to £18.25bn

January 2020: Services will start in summer 2021, according to the latest assessment

July 2020: Crossrail Ltd says the line will not open in summer 2021, blaming delays caused by the pandemic

August 2020: The Elizabeth line will open in the first half of 2022, it's announced

May 2022: Transport for London says the line will open in three sections on 24 May

WATCH: 'No way I'm going to miss this'

Elizabeth line: 'No way I'm going to miss this'

Passengers on the Elizabeth line tell us of their excitement at being among the first passengers to ride on the new trains. They boarded the first service from Woolwich heading into central London.

London Underground funded differently compared to major world cities

BBC

TfL documents show London is one of the only cities in the world that does not receive government funding to support the operating costs of its transport network - in comparison, fares on the Paris Metro make up only 38% of its income.

The UK's capital city used to get grants from the government, amounting to £700m a year. This all changed in 2015 when Boris Johnson, as London mayor in the final full year of his term, and then Chancellor George Osborne agreed to phase out this government operating grant.

A report in November 2018 showed TfL received only £55m in grants - a stark contrast to the help it received only a few years before.

It said: "The loss of the government operating grant within just a few years has been the single largest change to TfL's income streams. Just four years ago, TfL received £876m in grants."

Since then, TfL has been heavily reliant on fares as a source of income - it is anticipated the Elizabeth line will provide a huge boost to TfL's income.

The people who made the Elizabeth line happen

Tim Donovan

BBC London, Political Editor

Reuters

Ken Livingstone

It’s an unfortunate reality that by the time big infrastructure is completed in the UK - usually late and more expensive than first envisaged - the people who first made things possible tend to have been forgotten.

So credit where it’s due and big Elizabeth line shout-outs to the following:

Ken Livingstone: London’s first elected mayor was passionate about transport and intent on securing the kind of investment the capital needed. The big Crossrail breakthrough happened under him.

He persuaded then prime minister Tony Blair and - as important - chancellor Gordon Brown that this rail link was a no-brainer.

Crucially, to get government backing and a commitment to a share of funding, he offered to raise a much bigger amount (the lion’s share) from London businesses through an extra chunk on business rates as well as a special infrastructure levy.

Negotiations were tough, and some say it got to a stage when a gap of several hundred million pounds seemed to stand between approval and rejection of the project.

Enter another unsung hero.

Michael Snyder: He was chairman of the policy and resources committee at the City of London Corporation - equivalent to council leader in the wealthiest district in the country. The City wanted Crossrail for the practical benefits it brought to its many thousands of employees as well as for what it said about the intentions of a serious global city with a world-beating financial sector. But you don’t get money out of the Square Mile unless your business case sings and your sums add up.

Snyder - working closely with the ‘Red Ken’ who never turned out so horrid to business after all - got agreement that City firms would stump up several hundred millions of pounds.

Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf also paid up.

It signified a gap filled, a deal sealed. And Gordon Brown signed it off.

But then electoral upheaval intervened and for a while uncertainty prevailed.

Reuters

Livingstone was defeated by Boris Johnson in 2008 and Gordon Brown lost in 2010, replaced by the David Cameron-led Coalition government which embraced austerity, reviewed everything in the pipeline and insisted nothing was guaranteed.

That was a moment for the then head of Transport for London to step up to the mark.

Peter Hendy: Appointed by Livingstone, and retained by new London mayor Boris Johnson, Hendy played a key role in persuading the new Tory mayor of the value of Crossrail.

With chancellor George Osborne supposedly needing to be convinced, he and Johnson successfully made the case that this was a vital investment in the future, not just for the capital but for the UK as a whole.

The coalition chancellor then slashed £1bn from the budget.

As mayor, Mr Johnson got to preside over some early symbolic drill-in-the-ground moments. Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne too found opportunities to go underground, donning their hard hats as construction progressed.

It then became a question of time… and more time.

But today - albeit later and pricier than planned - it has finally happened.

A fillip for south Londoners

Harry Low

BBC London News

BBC

Although this isn't a London Underground line, it is still a significant day for Londoners south of the river.

When Battersea Power station opened last year, it took the tally for south London Tube stations above 30 for the first time.

To put that into context, there are 272 Tube stations in total meaning the Elizabeth line links from places such as Abbey Wood and Woolwich, in south-east London, to the rest of the city are understandably being well received by those used to relying on slower modes of transport such as buses and metro trains to get around the city.

How many Elizabeth line stations have toilets?

Thomas Mackintosh

BBC London News

BBC

We’ve all been there. Desperate for the loo, but stuck on the Tube with miles of track still to go.Helpfully, TfL has many public toilets available for customers across the London Underground.

Good news, a few of the new Elizabeth line stations have toilet facilities.

According to TfL, these include:

• Abbey Wood - inside the booking hall
• Custom House - inside the booking hall
• Liverpool Street - mainline station concourse
• Farringdon - platform 4(northbound Thameslink)
• Tottenham Court Road - toilet available on request
• Paddington - mainline station concourse

Bad news… there will be no public toilet facilities at Woolwich, Canary Wharf, Whitechapel and Bond Street stations.

When completed, 34 of the 41 Elizabeth line stations will have toilet facilities, with a further seven stations having toilet provision in an adjacent building, TfL says.

Permanent toilets will also be delivered at Taplow and Hayes & Harlington stations by the end of this year.

WiFi onboard trains but no toilets or plug sockets

Thomas Mackintosh

BBC London News

EPA

The Class 345 Elizabeth line trains have no toilets - but they do have WiFi onboard which passengers can connect to while travelling.T

At nine-carriages long they are built like Thameslink, London Overground and Metropolitan Line trains so passengers can walk through the full vehicle.

Unlike the Thameslink trains the Elizabeth line carriages have no plug sockets for passengers.

The trains have a maximum speed of 90mph but will mostly run at 60mph on the new central section which has opened today.

But as Tom Edwards points out below ... the WiFi may need a bit of work ...

Tune in to BBC London at 13:30 for the latest

BBC London

Tolu Adeoye will have the regional news headlines from around the capital on BBC One at 13:30.

Of course, the main story at the moment is the new Elizabeth line and Transport correspondent Tom Edwards will have the latest following this morning's grand opening.

Luxmy Gopal has been out speaking to commuters and Kate Kinsella will have a full weather forecast.

Tune in here at 13:30 after the main national news on BBC One.

'My waistcoat is over-budget too'

Railway enthusiast James Chadwick shows us his themed Elizabeth Line waistcoat, which he finished off about midnight last night.

Elizabeth Line: Railway enthusiast James Chadwick shows us his themed waistcoat