In 1993 it was almost (but not quite) time for the Crossrail project shown here, featuring the history and proposed future of the line.

Whilst this film would have you believe that the original idea for the Crossrail project began with inconveniencing Queen Victoria on a train journey from Windsor to Sandringham, the project that became Crossrail actually has origins in an earlier 1905 proposal to connect the separate Victorian train company lines together that wasn’t taken up. The term "Crossrail" emerged in the 1974 London Rail Study Report. Although the idea was seen as imaginative, only a brief estimate of cost was given: £300 million. In 1991 a private bill was submitted to Parliament for a scheme including a new underground line from Paddington to Liverpool Street. The bill was promoted by London Underground and British Rail, and supported by the government. The film uses glossy computer animated models to show what the stations and service could look like, along with new designs for the trains. Unfortunately this scheme was eventually rejected by the Private Bill Committee in 1994 on the grounds that a case had not been made, though the government issued "Safeguarding Directions", protecting the route from any development that would jeopardise future schemes. The new Crossrail project was finally approved in 2007, and construction began in 2009 on the central section and connections to existing lines that will become part of the route, and it will eventually be branded the Elizabeth Line.