The railway, which has been renamed the"Elizabeth" line in honour of Queen Elizabeth, is expected to carry200 million people a year and will increase London"s rail capacity by 10%,according to Transport for London (TfL).
London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Transport forLondon Commissioner Andy Byford travelled on the first westbound service thatdeparted Paddington at 06:33 am (0533 GMT), accompanied by hundreds of railenthusiasts and a few commuters.
"We should be incredibly proud ofthis fantastic new line, it is 22nd century fit," Khan told reporters."It"s spacious, silent, comfortable; this is the game changer weneed."
Construction started more than 12 yearsago on Europe"s biggest infrastructure project at the time. In 2010, theproject was budgeted at 14.8 billion pounds and was set to open in December2018.
Delayed by issues with safety testingand signalling systems, even before the onset of the pandemic, Crossrail hasopened three and a half years late and more than 4 billion pounds over budgetfor a total cost of 18.8 billion pounds ($23.6 billion).
Passengers will be able to interchangewith London"s Tube - the world"s oldest underground passenger railway - and theline is on the famous London Underground map.
But its scale dwarfs the Underground,with Class 345 trains that are more and than one and a half times longer than aTube train and able to carry 1,500 passengers.
Colin Kelso, an 18-year-old rail fan,travelled down from Glasgow to travel on the debut service.
"I"ve never been able to explain whyI"m in love with trains, but I guess it"s just this new multi-million poundinvestment has been created, and to say I was the first person on it," hesaid. "It"s such an achievement."
Initially 12 trains per hour will run ineach direction through the middle section of the line, which includes 21kilometres (13 miles) of tunnel, linking Paddington in the west to Canary Wharfand Abbey Wood in the east.
Later in the year, the central sectionwill be connected to branches in the west and the east, allowing services tonearly double, TfL has said.
($1 = 0.7959 pounds)
