Canal Tunnels

The Canal Tunnels are a pair of single track railway tunnels in north London which connect the East Coast Main Line (ECML) at Belle Isle Junction to the low level platforms at London St Pancras railway station, allowing connection to the Thameslink route. Their name comes from the Regent's Canal, which they pass close beneath, and allow up to eight trains per hour operated by Thameslink to access the Thameslink route from the ECML, significantly increasing capacity on the former. The tunnels also allow Thameslink trains stabled at Hornsey Depot to access the route. The tunnels were conceived as part of the overarching Thameslink Programme, which aimed to improve capacity, reliability, and utility of the Thameslink route. They reinstated a link between the ECML and Snow Hill tunnel, which connects London north–south that had been severed after the closure of King's Cross York Road in 1977. The tunnels were the first part of the program to be constructed, between 2004 and 2006, but their fitting out did not begin until 2013. The first services ran through the Canal Tunnels during February 2018, while its official opening occurred three months later, and have allowed the theoretical maximum capacity of the Thameslink route to increase by fifty percent from sixteen to twenty-four trains per hour.

Tunnel data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).