THE Elizabeth line, the latest addition to the London Underground, is a feat of engineering. When it gets rolling in December, it will stretch more than 60 miles from Reading and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. It required ten new stations and 26 miles of new tunnels; those tunnels were created by eight 1,000-tonne boring machines through some of the most densely populated urban space in the world. The £14.8bn ($19.5bn) project has been co-ordinated by Britain’s best engineers, individuals that are masters not only of creative engineering but also in the logistics of delivering it. Andrew Wolstenholme, the chief executive of Crossrail from 2011 to 2018, had previously overseen the construction of Heathrow’s stunning fifth terminal. His replacement, Simon Wright, is a former director of Arup, a pioneering engineering firm; Howard Smith, the operations director, was responsible for knitting suburban railway lines into the London Overground.

Yet while the Elizabeth line may be a triumph of engineering, the initial photographs suggest architectural blandness. That is not to say that the design isn’t considerate, or that there aren’t moments of inspiration: the raised walkways at Whitechapel, snaking through the pre-existing station, will be a particular highlight. Entrances to the new stations have been carefully inserted into the existing streetscape, artwork will enliven the walls and the concourses and tunnels are roomy. But as passengers descend to the platform, the stations become more and more uniform, with identical perforated glass-fibre panels, benches and signage creating unvaried environments.

This is deliberate: Crossrail Ltd has stressed the “consistency and familiarity” of the interior architecture. Although each station is overseen by a different architectural team, their creative freedoms were limited. “Common design elements…appear across all the stations,” says John McAslan, whose firm is managing the Bond Street station. “Like the linings at platform level, which were all designed across stations by one team.” The uniformity that is engendered has created an identity for the line at the expense of the character of individual stations.

Crossrail’s execution contrasts sharply with that of the Jubilee Line Extension (JLE), completed in 1999, which saw stations added to the south and to the east. Roland Paoletti, who served as the commissioning architect, preached an “underlying philosophy” of spaciousness, maximising natural light and using materials such as polished metal and concrete, but considered each station an individual entity. That resulted in architectural treats such as Westminster, designed by Michael Hopkins Architects. A cavernous space beneath the Houses of Parliament, it threads escalators down through huge concrete columns. In 2015 the city’s residents chose it as one of the icons of London transport architecture.

The flamboyant designs of the JLE stations may have won plaudits from the creatively minded— rhapsodising perhaps a little too lyrically, the Royal Fine Art Commission stated that the entire extension was “comparable to the achievement of Haussmann when he constructed the great boulevards of Paris”—but among transport engineers they were viewed with scepticism and blamed for cost overruns. Architects say that in the early stages of the design process for the Elizabeth line, the JLE stations were used as a cautionary tale.

“Compared with the Jubilee Line Extension, the pendulum has perhaps swung too far the other way,” Roger Hawkins, the principal architect of Hawkins/Brown, the firm responsible for the new station at Tottenham Court Road, suggests. “Although there was a lot of opportunity for design diversity, if you look at the stations particularly at platform level they are the same,” he says. “I think perhaps for Crossrail 2 [a proposed rail link running north to south across London] they might think a bit about how they might use architecture more: both throughout and around the stations.” That might mean using strategies other than signage to help with navigation through the station, for example, such as the subtle grading of wall colouring or the use of natural light to intimate the direction of exit.

More than 200m people will use the Elizabeth line every year, and they will likely be grateful for modern and roomy stations and a speedier commute. That their journeys, often dull and repetitive in themselves, will be punctuated by almost identical platforms is a missed opportunity. Frank Pick, the first chief executive of London Transport, understood the importance of diversity in design and feel: he once redesigned the carriage interiors of an entire line because of their “coldness”. Those who like their tube stations as varied and colourful as the city itself may find the Elizabeth line brings quite a chill.