Here’s how much it actually cost TfL to rebrand Crossrail as The Elizabeth Line
When Transport for London (TfL) announced back in February that it was rebranding Crossrail as The Elizabeth Line, eyes across the capital were rolled.
Another lame corporate rebrand, probably costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, right? Wrong, apparently.
City Metric, an arm of the New Statesman, submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to find out how much it actually cost – and it turns out the full sum was a rather cost-effective £5,000.
Read more: After Crossrail is renamed, Elizabeth Line wakes up famous
In its response to the FoI request, TfL said the rebrand was so cheap because it had previously decided to change the name of the line – so it had already produced the necessary materials.
"The cost of the branding change has been identified as circa £5,000 for a revised roundel prototype," it said.
Essentially, as City Metric pointed out, "it appears the five grand was to pay a designer to change a piece of text in a photoshop template".
To be fair, once it's completed in 2019 (the first stations will begin to open in 2018), Crossrail/The Elizabeth Line/whatever you want to call it will have cost taxpayers a stonking £14.8bn, after a decade of building works across the capital.
Last year, TfL unveiled the design of the Crossrail trains, decked out in eye-catching Elizabeth Line colours. Enjoy: