Crossrail franchised?

Considering that current Overground franchise will end in 2014 or 2016 - perhaps Crossraill will be part of a bigger franchise from that moment?

Will they come up with a better name? I mean Crossrail works fine for the project name, but I'm not sure I'd like it just describing a service.

I'm with cityboy, I think it works well for describing a cross-London rail service.
In that regard it's better than any of the current TfL lines other than the Waterloo and City, West London Line and the Goblin. The East London Line under LU was also an accurate description, although now it's taking in more and more of south London it's lost this. The Circle post circularity is another example of this.

The Bakerloo serves more than Baker Street to Waterloo, West Ruislip and Epping are hardly central, nor are East Ham and Plaistow either Hammersmith or the City. The Jubilee does not operate only on monarchical anniversaries^[1] and while "District" is a vague term, Westminster and Monument are not the rural or suburban areas it sort of implies.
Chesham and Croxley are not metropolitan locales, Morden isn't northern and Heathrow is a long way from Piccadilly.
Victoria is but one stop, Richmond is not North London and neither Lewisham nor Stratford are in the docklands.

[1] although Diana might disagree

That might be the case if it were hyphenated, but to have it as a compound word kind of implies it is a name, and thus something specific.

It's impossible to give a name to any line that would be truly meaningful to all those that use it and certainly not to the majority. Why should the name be anything more than that?

In my view a pointless discussion really! A name that suits a few is unfair to the rest so perhaps a better idea would simply be to rename all lines numerically or alphabetically which would probably please nobody but be fair to everybody! I don't think the name is important at all and what on earth is Goblin, I've seen it used here often but have no idea what it is which proves somewhat that names are unimportant!

The name Crossrail works in relation to what it plans to do at the moment - crossing the whole of London (rather than just Zone 1), as well as crossing between several key existing stations. With time the name may become a glaring misnomer but, as mentioned above, all line names do so the more the line develops.

Will Crossrail have its own roundel? And if so, what colour would it be? Because the purple that is commonly used to illustate Crossrail is currently used for London Dial A Ride and the blue from the logo is being used for the Tfl logo. Black or yellow perhaps?

And in answer to railtechnition's question, GOBLIN is the Gospal Oak to Barking Line now run by London Overground.

Edit: It would appear that unlike me, Ben didn't get distracted whilst writing his post.

I agree the names don't matter much (why not re-name them all after District Dave contributers?, or X-factor finalists), but Goblin is one of the few that actually makes good geographical sense G(ospel)O(ak)toB(arking)LIN(e). (But I usually call it the BOG line, for no good reason I can remember!)

It's still a diesel route, but thanks to London Overground it's no longer dirty or smelly (for a diesel route). The inclination now just needs to be found to electrify it.

Crossrail passes near or through areas famous for some of Britain's most impressive mass murderers. Whitechapel and Notting Hill (nearly!). So how about the "John Reginald Ripper Line" or better still, the "Jack The Christie Line". That way you could say "I'm just catching the Jack to Romford"......Class!

Do we know yet what the service pattern will be? i.e. will all ex-Heathrow trains go to Abbey Wood or will there be trains from both western branches to both eastern ones (and vice versa)?