Progress report on Crossrail 2015

Prime Minister David Cameron joined the Secretary of State for Transport and the Mayor of London at Farringdon to mark the last of Crossrail’s 26 miles of rail tunnels being cut from underground the streets on London.

For almost three years, eight tunnel boring machines have been in operation, seven days a week, on the new rail line that will carry an estimated 200 million passengers per year running from Berkshire to Essex.

Network Rail is delivering major surface works on the existing rail network with a number of key phases completed including the first section of the Stockley Flyover; the installation of a new signalling system between Reading and the Heathrow Junction; the first mile of the Crossrail track has been in installed in Southeast London; the demolition of the existing Abbey Wood station has been carried out, and a number of surface stations have improvement works well underway.

In July 2014, it was announced by Transport of London that the contract to operate future Crossrail services had been awarded to MTR Corporation (Crossrail) Limited (MTR). Around 1,100 staff are expected to be employed by MTR, which will include nearly 400 new drivers and over 50 apprenticeships for people who live in communities along the rail route.

Crossrail has so far appointed 460 apprentices, exceeding the original target of 400 over the project’s lifetime. In addition to this, contractors have created 3,886 jobs for local people and those who had previously been unemployed.

Since opening in 2012, Crossrail’s Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy has had over 10,000 course enrolments. Currently, there are over 12,000 people currently working across 45 Crossrail construction sites.

With the excavation of the tunnels comes the creation of Wallasea Island, a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds nature reserve in Essex. Three million tonnes of excavated material from the Crossrail tunnels was delivered in 1528 shipments to create Europe’s largest nature reserve.

Transport Secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, said: “When the first trains start running through these tunnels from 2018, Crossrail, together with the billions of pounds we are investing in the Thameslink programme, will transform travel across London and the south east. It will also play a vital role in driving forward our long-term economic plan by boosting business and creating thousands of new jobs.”

Crossrail is being forecast to be constructed within budget by the Crossrail Board with the final cost not expected to go beyond £14.5Bn.

The project is now over 65% complete, with work well underway on planning and delivering an operational railway from 2018.

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