>>1880853because all of those places would benefit from having their railway connections upgraded? the point of Crossrail the Second is to create an intensive, high-capacity north-south railway tunnel through central London, that then heads off to the suburbs surrounding London on upgraded existing infrastructure.
...which is the exact same thing as happened with Crossrail the First, only CR1 goes from east to west instead (and directly connects to one of the busiest airports in the world).
>>1880915tldr: it was a whole bunch of mini-projects glommed together to improve commuter rail transport around the London area, with a single catchy title. rebuilding stations, lengthening platforms, improving track, new rolling stock, and so on.
so it's not some single special "thing" you can point at and say 'that's Thameslink', because it wasn't a single megaproject with a single end goal. it was lots of small wins and a few big flagship projects that, by and large, made rail transport in the capital a little nicer.
