What effect will Crossrail east-west rail have on London, compared with the 19th-century rail-powered expansion of the city?

A photo of The East Portal, Primrose Hill Tunnel, London's first railway tunnel, constructed by Robert Stephenson and completed in 1837. Considered the architectural achievement of the day (e.g. the Crossrail tunnel of its era?). Photo by the very accomplished Louis Berk Flickr photo  Louis Berk Website and blog


Railways transformed and are still transforming the London landscape in ways that cars could never approximate. Before the railways, London was a compact, walkable, city. Click here for a map of London at the beginning of the 19th century  By the late 19th century London was a truly modern heaving metropolis, thanks to the spread of the railways Click Here for 1883 rail map
and read http://provokehistory.blogspot.com/2011/04/growth-of-19th-london.html
The BBC had a recent radio programme comparing Marc Brunel's first tunnel beneath the Thames with that of a massive rail project, designed to reduce (for instance) Canary Wharf rail times to Heathrow, at a cost of around 15billion GBP For more on Crossrail click here   To Visit the Brunel Museum on the south side of the Thames Tunnel at Rotherhithe Click Here


click for BBC IPlayer Long View Programme on Brunels Tunnel and Crossrail

Jonathan Freedland takes the Long View of the fate of grand building projects at times of economic uncertainty.

The importance of major transport infrastructure schemes is much in the headlines, with the Government's confirmation of plans to build a new high speed rail link between London and Birmingham. But while the reality of an HS2 line is still some way off, a very real project is now well underway beneath London, carving out the massive London Crossrail network, which will link Heathrow Airport with the financial heart of the capital.

This scheme has taken many years for work even to start. But, as Jonathan discovers, such struggles have a long history.

Back in the 1820s, a similarly grandiose scheme - a North-South tunnel under the River Thames - was getting underway, and hitting problems and protestations.

Jonathan is joined by contributors including leading columnist Sir Simon Jenkins, and former Transport Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequeur Alistair Darling, who gave Crossrail the green light.

Is the 'can-do' attitude of the great Victorian engineers something we can learn from today - or was it really little more than a myth?