The first Londoners have taken to the Elizabeth line, the biggest shake-up of London transport for years.
The £20bn new railway has been hailed as a game-changer for travel in the capital, shrinking journey times and providing much-needed capacity to the network as a whole.
But despite going underground for the central part of its route, it is not considered a new Tube line.
Why isn’t the Elizabeth Line considered a London Underground line?
There are two key reasons why TfL does not consider the Elizabeth Line to be an addition to the Tube network.
The first is that the line goes across a large amount of the National rail network, using Great Eastern and Great Western infrastructure.
The second, say TfL officials, is that the trains are simply much bigger than those on Tube lines.
The trains on the Elizabeth Line carry around 1,500 people each, compared to around a thousand on the Central Line.
In a briefing to media in March, Crossrail’s CEO, Mark Wild, said that the Elizabeth line was “not a Tube line”, but is actually a “new mode of transport”.
He said: “[It’s] a bit like you'd have the RER in Paris or the S-Bahn in Munich.
“Big trains from Heathrow, from Reading, will come straight into the tunnel, through the central area and out the other side to Shenfield. There's been nothing like this in the UK”.
However, the debate will likely continue amongst Londoners.
Passengers will be able to interchange with the Tube or DLR at nine of the 10 new Crossrail stations, though Bond Street will not be open until later this year.
Fares will also mirror the Tube, apart from journeys to and from Heathrow, although a fare cap will limit how much customers can pay.
On Thursday, TfL released an updated Tube map, with Crossrail shown as a white line with a double purple border, not the solid lines of Tube lines.
“The ‘Elizabeth line’ is in itself the full name of the new railway and the route it operates on,” said a spokesperson.
“In contrast, the London Underground is the name of a separate mode of transport which operates individually named routes”.
The line stretches from Reading in Berkshire and Heathrow Airport in west London to Shenfield in Essex and Abbey Wood in south-east London.
It will initially operate as three separate railways, before all the sections are fully connected together by May 2023.
