page_title: Crossrail
section_title: Eastern branches
hierarchical_section_title: Crossrail / Route / Eastern branches
caption_attribution_description: English: Class 345 unit 345007 at London Liverpool Street station having just arrived with the (at time of writing) daily westbound Class 345 service from Shenfield, on 7th July 2017. It will return to Gidea Park as an empty carriage stock service.
context_page_description: Crossrail is a 117-kilometre new railway line under development in the United Kingdom. Crossing London from west to east, at each end of its central core the line will divide into two branches: in the west to Reading and Heathrow Central; in the east to Abbey Wood and to Shenfield. In May 2015, a section of one of the eastern branches, between Liverpool Street and Shenfield, was transferred to TfL Rail; this precursor service also took control of Heathrow Connect in May 2018 and the Paddington to Reading line in December 2019.
  The project was approved in 2007, and construction began in 2009 on the central section and connections to existing lines that will become part of the route. A main feature is 13 miles of twin tunnels completed in May 2015 running from Paddington to Stratford and Canary Wharf.
  New nine-carriage Class 345 trains will run at frequencies in the central section of up to 24 trains per hour in each direction. This will provide some relief for London Underground lines such as the Central, the District, the Jubilee line extension and the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly line.
context_section_description: One of the two eastern sections runs underground from Whitechapel to Stratford, then on the surface on the existing main line. The service will replace the "Shenfield metro", with key stops at Ilford, Romford (for interchange with London Overground services to Upminster), Gidea Park (where some peak hour trains will start or terminate), and Shenfield.
  
  The other eastern branch runs underground from Whitechapel to Abbey Wood via Canary Wharf, Custom House and Woolwich. This branch takes over a stretch of the former North London line built by the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway, and connects it with the North Kent Line via a tunnel under the Thames at North Woolwich.
caption: Liverpool Street (shown here in 2017) is currently the terminus of the eastern branches
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