Building Crossrail Preperations Well In Hand

Though tunnelling for the central section of Crossrail cannot begin for at least three years, preparations for the work are well in hand.

Though tunnelling for the central section of Crossrail cannot begin for at least three years, construction details released in connection with Round 2 of the Developing Crossrail consultation show that preparations for the work are well in hand.

It will entail heavy civil engineering operations of the kind associated with construction of a new railway, some of it in densely populated areas on the fringes of the City of London.

Subject to Parliamentary consent and the raising of sufficient finance, 22.5 km of twin bored tunnels of 6 m diameter will be built from Paddington in West London to a point east of Whitechapel where the route divides, one branch going in tunnel to the Isle of Dogs (Canary Wharf), the other in tunnel as far as Pudding Mill Lane in East London.

On present plans there will be seven deep level stations - in fact a pressure relief shaft for the railway has already been incorporated in the foundations of the new Moorhouse development in the City of London, a design and construct office and retail scheme built by Skanska for the Greycoat Hammerson and Pearl Assurance partnership.

This prior provision means that about ?1 million advance expenditure has been incurred with the agreement of Transport for London as an indication of confidence in the ultimate realisation of the project.

The intention is that the ticket hall of Crossrail's Liverpool Street station should be housed in the lower levels of the Moorhouse development, for which purpose the Corporation of London as freeholder has made the land available to Crossrail.

The tunnelling contracts will begin with construction of 10 ventilation shafts which will provide access for the TBMs.

Some of the shafts are to be sited at locations of international fame such as Hyde Park and Park Lane.

Others are not so well known but one of them is bound to bring the Bangladeshi community of Brick Lane on the eastern flank of the City of London into greater prominence; some of the heaviest civil engineering operations will be located close to the heart of this town within a town, where even the street names are written in Bengali.

To give people an early opportunity of expressing their concerns, Crossrail opened its first information centre in the Round 2 consultations at 91 Brick Lane, site of the former Truman brewery.

Assuming that tunnelling work begins in earnest four or five years from now, Crossrail will certainly make an impact on the London scene, for as the engineers forecast, it is possible to foresee a situation in which up to ten tunnelling machines would be working at any one time across London.

In addition to the vent shafts, emergency intervention points have to be provided at intervals of 1 km along the tunnel route.

Starting point for the TBMs At Hanbury Street the shaft will take about 18 months to get down to the 31 m depth at which the Crossrail trains will run.

When that is completed, Hanbury Street will provide the starting point for the TBMs driving the twin running tunnels westwards about 4 km towards the shaft at Fisher Street in West Central London and eastwards in the direction of Stepney Green.

It will also facilitate construction of a short temporary tunnel giving access to the major worksite some 500 m distant at Pedley Street in Shoreditch where a conveyor belt is to be installed to haul tunnel spoil out of the area alongside the route of the Great Eastern Railway.

Materials to build the tunnels will also be brought in at this point, indicating that Pedley Street will be one of the busiest sites in the whole project.

The Isle of Dogs station Canary Wharf would be below the North Dock at West India Quay, at the eastern end of which a combined vent shaft and emergency intervention point is proposed as one of the starting points for tunnel construction towards the Stepney Green shaft.

Upgrading West and East of London Otherwise the remaining 100 km or so of Crossrail will use mainly existing but upgraded track and facilities.

The Crossrail management present the project in four parts: The Great Western Corridor which makes better use of existing tracks and stations between Maidenhead and Paddington, with an extension in tunnel to Heathrow Airport; the Central Area in tunnel described above; the Great Eastern Corridor again making better use of existing tracks and stations between Stratford and Shenfield, with a tunnel entrance and exit at Pudding Mill Lane; and the existing Kent Corridor being adapted along similar lines.

Tunnel entrance and exits for Central London would be required at the Royal Victoria Dock on the north bank of the Thames, and a new tunnel under the river with entrances and exits at North Woolwich and Plumstead.

Other major works in the Kent Corridor include a ventilation and intervention shaft at Limmo Peninsula and the new Crossrail station at Ebbsfleet with connections to Northfleet and Ebbsfleet Channel Tunnel Rail Link stations.

A major implication of the decision to run Crossrail trains on the Great Western main line out of Paddington is that the line will need to be electrified between the Airport Junction and Maidenhead.

This would involve installation of masts and gantries to support the overhead catenary and construction of line side sub-stations.

All in all, a huge package of work for the U.K.

construction industry, provided that is that the money can be raised on the right terms.

Transport for London has been greatly heartened by the promise of a £3 billion grant from the Department for Transport in the recent restatement of transport policy.

The new funding arrangements include for the first time the ability to raise bonds to finance transport investment.

This will help with the badly needed improvements in rail transport in East London in answer to the infrastructure weaknesses hindering London's bid for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Whether this new burst of largesse on the part of the Government will extend to Crossrail will turn upon the outcome of current discussions on alternative funding sources.

Questions about planning and construction are relatively easily answered; finance is not so easy, and on that subject the flurry of explanatory papers which followed the decision to place the Crossrail issue before Parliament is silent.

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