Crossrail / Elizabeth line
London, UK · 2009–2022 · £18.8bn (2022 prices)
The judgement call
Account action unavailableSuccessful implementation of offsite solutions and Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) at Liverpool Street station to accelerate programme delivery and recover lost time. - Effective use of NEC3: Engineering and Construction Contract for procurement, setting clear best practice targets. - Significant delays and cost overruns at Bond Street station due to tunnelling problems and subsequent contractor change, highlighting challenges in complex interfaces and project management. - Lessons learned regarding system integration and system safety challenges, emphasizing the complexity of large-scale railway systems.
Key engineering challenges
Constructing the Canary Wharf station box, a 256m long, 30m wide, six-storey deep structure rising from below river bed, utilizing silent piling rigs. - Tunnelling through varied ground conditions (London clays, sands, gravels, wet chalk and flint under River Thames) with real-time settlement control to minimize surface impact. - Navigating a maze of existing infrastructure (sewers, Tube lines, Post Office Railway) and archaeological finds (Bedlam burial site) during station construction in dense urban areas. - Managing complex logistics for construction in operational railway environments and highly constrained central London sites.
Project facts
- Client / owner
- Crossrail Ltd, Transport for London (TfL)
- Lead contractor
- Canary Wharf Contractors (Canary Wharf station box), Laing O’Rourke (Liverpool Street station), Costain Skanska JV (Bond Street station - initially), Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall and Vinci (BBMV) (Whitechapel station)
- Lead designers
- Grimshaw (lead design architect), Arup (technical design engineering), Atkins (in JV with Arup for Tottenham Court Road), SYSTRA (traction power, OLE, signalling, control system)
- Project type
- new build | upgrade
- Scale
- 100km+ railway; 10 new stations; 31 station upgrades; 42km of tunnels; 8 TBMs; 220,000 concrete segments
- Disciplines
- civil; structural; mechanical; electrical; systems; tunnelling; environmental; logistics
- Standards & frameworks
- NEC3; CDM
Sources: New Civil Engineer (May 2022, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/elizabeth-line-opening-8-civil-engineering-challenges-overcome-during-13-years-of-construction-24-05-2022/); ICE proceedings (May 2017, https://www.ice.org.uk/news-views-insights/inside-infrastructure/crossrail-delivering-london-s-new-elizabeth-line); The Guardian (March 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/13/elizabeth-line-crossrail-opening-london); Reuters (May 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/londons-24-billion-crossrail-finally-opens-2022-05-23/); Parliament Commons Library (Nov 2024, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2024-0146/); Crossrail Learning Legacy (https://learninglegacy.crossrail.co.uk/)