But Crossrail, the £15.9bn rail project to link Heathrow directly with London's financial centre, finally reached the end of a tortuous 20-year journey to secure royal assent yesterday - holding out the promise of a transformation in the corporate travel experience within a decade.

The rail link, which will be 118.5km long and carry 200m passengers a year, is designed to lop at least a third off the journey time between Heathrow and Canary Wharf.

Work will begin in spring or summer next year to clear the way for construction to start in 2010. The new link is expected to start operating in 2017 and the entire route would be open within 12 months, said Crossrail.

The ambitious rail plan has been in the making since the late 1980s but was shelved in the early 1990s when a recession forced the government to rein in public spending.

But lessons have been learnt from what is now seen as the premature decision to abandon it when times got tough. With polls suggesting the Conservatives may win power before the scheme is completed, a cross-party consensus ensures it will survive whatever the government's stripe. Crossrail said all parties shared the view that, in spite of the economic slump,the long-term benefits and the scheme's wider contribution to the economy must override short-term concerns about the health of the public finances.

Crossrail, which becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London from today, will recruit a chief executive to take over from Douglas Oakervee, the current executive chairman. Four non-executive directors were yesterday appointed to the board. They are Michael Cassidy, Patrick Crawford, Sir Joe Dwyer and Heather Rabbatts. Mr Cassidy is an independent non-executive director at UBS. Mr Crawford is chief executive of the Export Credits Guarantee Department in London, Sir Joe is the former president of the Chartered Institute of Building and the Institution of Civil Engineers. Ms Rabbatts is a former governor of the London School of -Economics.

The scheme, expected to cost £15.9bn, will be financed by a £5.1bn grant from the Department for Transport; £8.2bn from the City of London; and £500m from the City of London and BAA, the airports company that owns Heathrow. The rest will come from a variety of sources, including the London Planning charge, a controversial levy that will be paid by London businesses.

The direct gains fromEurope's largest infrastructure project, in-clude up to 30,000 new jobs, with 14,000 people employed full-time at the peak of construction in 2013-14; commercial, retail and residential property developments; and greater access to the City for people who live in the south-east.

The City of London Corporation believes Crosslink will play a critical role in helping London maintain its status as the nucleus of the world's financial industry. Stuart Fraser, policy chairman told the FT good transport infrastructure was essential, with competition intensifying to seduce the world's biggest players away from London to European capitals, such as Paris, and emerging financial hubs in the east, such as Shanghai.

"We don't have a choice. There is a temptation when government budgets become strained to take a short-term view and push major projects into the long grass until times improve. Thank goodness the Victorians didn't take a short-term view, otherwise we would never have had the Underground," he said.

Mr Fraser said, however, that Crossrail would only be as strong as its weakest link, which made it crucial that other aspects of London's transport infrastructure were up to the same standard.

How travelling will become easier:

*State-of-the-art trains will have extra-wide doors to help passengers with luggage

*Wheelchair access at seven new stations

*The 600 carriages will have air-conditioning, and potentially additional features such as wi-fi and mobile phone reception

*Travellers will journey directly from Heathrow to Abbey Wood in 56 minutes. The trip currently involves at least two train changes and takes about 90 minutes

*Adding four trains an hour on the line between Heathrow and Paddington used by the Heathrow Express services, which also runs four times an hour, will ease congestion on the route

*Crossrail will be fully integrated with Transport for London, which means commuters will be able to use their Oyster payment cards - no supplementary fare will be required

*The fare will be significantly cheaper than the Heathrow Express, which costs up to £23.50 one way

*A dedicated Crossrail station will be built at Heathrow by BAA, the airports authority

*Canary Wharf Group will build its own facility

See also:

Crossrail should be a public project in every sense, says RMT

RMT: July 23 2008

BRITAIN’S BIGGEST rail union today welcomed the news that the Crossrail project has been given the go-ahead by parliament.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow today said:

“Crossrail makes sense from every angle. It will help ease overcrowding on other routes, get more people off the roads and onto public transport and give the capital a massive economic boost.

“But we need to learn the lessons from the failures of privatisation and ensure that Crossrail is a public project in every sense, publicly run and publicly accountable, and with rolling stock built in Britain to help rescue our skilled train-making industry

“A modern, high-capacity and affordable rail network is not a luxury, it is essential for the economy and the environment, and we hope the government will use the momentum to work quickly towards a new high-speed north-south link as well.

“Businesses stand to benefit massively from Crossrail and it is only right that they pay their share towards its cost, but its benefit will be lost if it becomes a premium railway for use only by those who can afford high fares.”