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Insight User Guide: Railway infrastructure and projects

Underground railways (London)

Details of all active London Underground lines, including approximate tunnel roof depth and operational hours.

Data source: Publicly available information sourced by Groundsure
Data update schedule: Variable

Underground railways (Non-London)

Details of the Mersey rail system, the Tyne and Wear Metro and the Glasgow Subway. Not all parts of all systems are located underground. The data contains location information only and does not include a depth assessment.

Data source: Publicly available information sourced by Groundsure 
Data update schedule: Variable

Railway tunnels

Railway tunnels taken from contemporary Ordnance Survey mapping. This information has been digitised by Groundsure.

Data source: Ordnance Survey 
Data update schedule: Biannually

Historical railway and tunnel features

Railways and tunnels digitised from historical Ordnance Survey mapping at scales of 1:1,250, 1:2,500, 1:10,000 and 1:10,560.

Data source: Ordnance Survey and Groundsure
Data update schedule: Variable

Royal Mail tunnels

This dataset includes the location and depth of the Royal Mail tunnels beneath London, used for the underground transit of mail between 1927 and 2003. The Post Office Railway, otherwise known as the Mail Rail, is an underground railway running through Central London from Paddington Head District Sorting Office to Whitechapel Eastern Head Sorting Office. The line is 10.5km long. The data includes details of the full extent of the tunnels, the depth of the tunnel, and the depth to track level.

Data source: Groundsure and The Postal Museum
Data update schedule: Static

Historical railways

Former railway lines, including dismantled lines, abandoned lines, disused lines, historic railways and razed lines. This information has been derived from OpenStreetMap and digitised by Groundsure.

Data source: OpenStreetMap 
Data update schedule: Annually

Railways

Currently existing railway lines, including standard railways, narrow gauge, funicular, trams and light railways. This information has been derived from Ordnance Survey mapping and OpenStreetMap and digitised by Groundsure.

Data source: Ordnance Survey and OpenStreetMap
Data update schedule: Annually (Ordnance Survey) and biannually (OpenStreetMap)

Crossrail 1

The Crossrail railway project, now known as The Elizabeth Line, links 41 stations over 100 kilometres from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through underground sections in central London, to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

The data table contained within the report will only detail the route centre line, however the new stations and any additional worksites will be displayed on the section map.

Data source: Publicly available information sourced by Groundsure
Data update schedule: Static

Crossrail 2

Crossrail 2 is a proposed railway linking the national rail networks in Surrey and Hertfordshire via an underground tunnel through London. A decision was made in 2020 to pause any further work on the design and development of Crossrail 2.  Further information on the project can be found at http://crossrail2.co.uk.

The data table contained within the report will only detail the route centre line, however the proposed safeguarding areas, worksites, headhouse and station locations will be displayed on the section map.

Data source: Publicly available information sourced by Groundsure
Data update schedule: Quarterly

HS2

HS2 is a proposed high speed rail network running from London to Manchester and Leeds via Birmingham. Main civils construction on Phase 1 (London to Birmingham) of the project began in 2019, and it is currently anticipated that this phase will be fully operational by 2026.

Originally intended to link Birmingham and Crewe (Phase 2a) and Crewe to Manchester (Phase 2b) however it was confirmed in 2023 that all of Phase 2 has been cancelled. 

The data table contained within the report will only detail the route centre line, however the proposed safeguarding areas (surface and subsurface), depots and station locations will be displayed on the section map.

Data source: HS2 Ltd
Data update schedule: Quarterly