Pictures show how commuters are leaving ‘ghost’ marks on the walls of Elizabeth Line Tube stations.

Photos at Tottenham Court Road on London’s newest line show grey outlines of people – left by travellers sitting on benches.

The marks also appear at Liverpool Street, with the stations’ white walls appearing to be stained by commuters’ coats and heads.

The Elizabeth Line, named after the late Queen Elizabeth II, opened on 24 May 2022 – 13 years after construction began in 2009.

The new Elizabeth Line platform at Tottenham Court road has unsightly marks where commuters have been leaning back against the wall, staining the covering 

The marks also appear at Liverpool Street station, again caused by commuters 

The 41-stop route now hosts 204million passenger journeys per year, costing the Government around £18.9billion.

Transport for London, who operates the line, say that they maintain a ‘rigorous’ cleaning programme at all stations to ensure they are safe for commuters.

A spokesman for TfL said: ‘We are exploring new ways to clean the walls behind seating at some of our Elizabeth line stations to try to remove any marks and protect the walls in future.’

It is the latest complication for the much-anticipated Elizabeth line which has been beset by problems over the last 18 months. 

READ MORE Years of chaos on the Elizabeth line as Network Rail announces engineering works on TfL route until 2029 

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Before it even launched in May last year, the Crossrail project suffered numerous issues including construction difficulties and complications installing signalling systems which delayed the opening multiple times.

This was much to the frustration of many homeowners buying properties along the route during the construction period in the hope of having an easier commute.

In 2007, the line was given an opening date of December 2017, and set a budget of £14.8billion in 2010. But the estimated final cost was £18.9billion, including £5.1billion from the Government – making it more than £4billion over budget.

In 2010, the opening was pushed back by a year to take place in December 2018 – but just four months before this date, in August 2018, it was announced that the line would in fact not open on time.

Four years later the Elizabeth line did eventually open in May 2022 – but only in three sections, with services on the new part from Paddington to Abbey Wood.

Existing services from Reading and Heathrow to Paddington, and from Shenfield to Liverpool Street, were also rebranded from ‘TfL Rail’ to the ‘Elizabeth line’ at this point.

The grand opening was long awaited, and its first service from Paddington saw international rail enthusiasts travelling to the capital and queueing for more than six hours to get on board – with Mr Khan pictured hugging TfL officials in delight.

However the first day was also blighted by a fire alarm being activated which saw Paddington evacuated. The disruption was clearly a sign of things to come.

The line initially opened in three sections – from Reading/Heathrow to Paddington, Liverpool Street to Shenfield and the new Paddington to Abbey Wood part.

The grey marks are the latest problem highlighted on the £18.9bn rail link 

Then in November last year, the second stage began which saw through trains start running from Reading and Heathrow to Abbey Wood; and Shenfield to Paddington.

The final stage from May this year saw services start running from Shenfield to Heathrow, as well as the existing Reading and Heathrow to Abbey Wood offering.

But MailOnline revealed in March that there would no direct trains from Shenfield to Reading, despite TfL previously heralding the line as a ‘new east-west railway’ – with trains from Shenfield instead forking off after Hayes and Harlington to terminate at Heathrow.

It also emerged that at Acton Main Line and Hanwell, there would be almost no direct services to Shenfield or Reading – with these west London stations only served by trains between Abbey Wood and Heathrow every 15 minutes, as they previously were before the change.

Days before the timetable change on May 21 this year, there was major disruption on May 16 that saw rush-hour passengers trapped on a service for 75 minutes.

The rail line opened late and was more than £4bn over budget by the time it was completed

A spokesman for TfL said: ‘We are exploring new ways to clean the walls behind seating at some of our Elizabeth Line stations to try to remove any marks and protect the walls in future’

The delay was so long that one passenger allegedly had to urinate on the carriage floor because there are no toilets on board the trains.

Since May 21, the line has been affected by further reliability issues and ongoing rail strikes, with one in six Elizabeth Line trains either cancelled or delayed this summer.

Network Rail has recently apologised for the poor service, particularly out of Paddington, amid mounting fury.

Major issues occurred on July 25 when the western section of the route was hit by a major Network Rail signalling system outage.

This severely impacted services for two days and meant trains were not able to easily get to and from the Old Oak Common depot, located in Acton near the proposed HS2 station.

Another major problem occurred on August 16 when a maintenance train leaked hydraulic fluid within the central tunnel section of the line.

This fluid had to be cleaned from more than 1.2miles (2km) of track before TfL could safely run again services.

The line was part suspended from Abbey Wood to Whitechapel for most of that day, which severely limited the number of trains that could run.

Just last month, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) regulator revealed Elizabeth line cancellations had hit 9.1 per cent in the four weeks to August 19 – the worst figure for any UK rail service over that period.

MailOnline can reveal that this cancellation rate has dropped to 4.3 per cent in the four weeks to September 16, but that is still the joint second highest figure since the Mayor opened the line to great fanfare in May 2022.