Archive for October, 2011

Hillingdon Council planning department has now approved provisional plans for a new flyover as part of a Crossrail link between West Drayton and Hayes and Heathrow Airport. Work on the early infrastructure for the project will soon be underway and the site clearance is expected to begin within the next few weeks. Once the project has been completed, passengers will be able to enjoy a fast link to Heathrow Airport via the Crossrail network.

The project will involve construction of a new rail flyover as part of a Crossrail branch line extension to Heathrow Airport. The Crossrail link to Heathrow will leave the main section of track between Hayes and West Drayton, cross the new flyover, and then continue underground. As well as the planned rail flyover, other essential work on the Crossrail project includes the construction of new overhead lines, perimeter fencing, lighting, and of course new rail track. Two ponds south of the main site will also need to be filled in to make way for the new flyover.

Crossrail work sites have been set up on local industrial sites in the area and preliminary work will be starting shortly. Since the construction work on the Crossrail Heathrow link will be taking place in industrial areas, residential homes are unlikely to be affected by the noise of construction traffic entering and leaving the work sites, but it is very likely that roads in the vicinity of the sites will be affected by closures and sheer volume of traffic.

The £15 billion Crossrail high speed rail project is already well underway and Crossrail tunnelling work will start next spring. Once the Crossrail project has reached completion in 2018, passengers will be able to enjoy a high speed rail link between east and west London.

Developers have recently submitted plans for an exciting new revamp of the area that surrounds the Tottenham Court Road Crossrail station in London. Back in 2009, to make room for the Crossrail development of Tottenham Court Road station, the iconic Astoria theatre was demolished. However, plans for a new 350-seat theatre, shops, offices, and flats have been submitted to Westminster Borough Council.

Tottenham Court Road Crossrail station will play an important part in the new Crossrail high speed rail network as travellers will be able to pass to and from the tube lines and Crossrail trains at Tottenham Court Road. To this end, Tottenham Court Station is currently being expanding to make way for Crossrail facilities.

As part of this expansion work, developers are now hoping to revamp the area surrounding the station. These plans include a new theatre to replace the old Astoria, plus four new blocks of offices, flats and shops at various points in the vicinity of Tottenham Court Crossrail station.

One nine-storey block will be constructed above the station itself, and will include nine floors of office units and three floors of shops. A further block will be built on Charing Cross road and will be comprised of offices, flats, and shops, plus the new theatre. Another two blocks are also planned for development on Dean Street and Oxford Street, and will include flats and shops.

Work on Crossrail is moving forward quickly and work on the tunnelling phase of the Crossrail project will begin next spring when TBMs move in and start excavating beneath the city of London. The high speed Crossrail network should be ready for its first passengers in 2018 and commuters will be able to travel from Maidenhead and Brentwood across central London to Abbey Wood.

Sources from Transport for London have expressed concern that the government’s proposed plans for Crossrail to secure funding from private funding initiatives (PFI contracts), could cost UK taxpayers a lot more in the long term.

Crossrail intends to use private funding initiatives to purchase new rolling stock, but the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, believes that the necessary funding should come from the state as opposed to private investors. Boris’s views were recently made public in a confidential memo from Transport for London officials, a memo based on Transport for London’s experiences with private finding initiatives during the London tube upgrades.

Following agreements made with the Department of Transport in the wake of the public spending review last year, Transport for London are not allowed to borrow more than a set amount from the government. However, Boris Johnson is hoping to persuade the Treasury department and government to give Crossrail the go-ahead to borrow the necessary funds from the state to buy Crossrail carriages instead of relying on private funding initiatives.

According to a report issued by the Treasury department, the main reason for argument is the “…significant widening of the gap between the cost of finance under a private-financed concession compared with the public sectors…”

As such, Boris Johnson and Transport for London are arguing that borrowing money from the state to help fund Crossrail carriage purchases will be significantly cheaper than borrowing the funds from private investors since PFI contracts could easily add a 70% premium to the cost of the Crossrail projects in the pipeline, which is clearly not good value for Crossrail or the British taxpayer.

Boris is confident that as long as public procurement is handled sensibly, Crossrail will reap the benefits. There has also been suggestion by some industry insiders that the last UK train factory, Bombardier, would also benefit from access to public funding.

The Costain-Skanska joint venture partnership were awarded the Crossrail Royal Oak civils contract back in 2010, and now, almost one month ahead of schedule, the Royal Oak portal has been handed over to Crossrail.

There have been many problems for the Skanska-Costain project team to deal with whilst working on the Crossrail Royal Oak site. During the site excavation, live electrical cables and other utilities were never very far away and the workers were often very close to live rail and tube lines. There are also several bridges and tunnels in close proximity to the Royal Oak site, and as the Costain-Skanska project manager recently commented, “We were no more than three metres away from the Hammersmith & City line on one side and the A40 on the other, with three bridges overhanging at the side, so space was extremely tight.”

Despite the exceptionally challenging conditions at the Royal Oak portal construction site, Costain-Skanska are very proud to have completed their work ahead of schedule. The first Crossrail portal to have reached completion was a massively complex undertaking for the contractor as more than twenty five thousands cubic metres of soil needed to be excavated in order to create steel ring supported openings large enough for the giant tunnel boring machines to access next year. With the A40 to the north and several major rail and tube lines to the south, building the Crossrail portal has been something of a logistical nightmare.

The first stage of construction of the Crossrail tunnels is due to begin next spring. Tunnel boring machines will begin their task at the Royal Oak portal and from there major tunnelling work will commence.

Crossrail Royal Oak is the first of the Crossrail portals to reach completion. Trains will transition from Royal Oak into and out of the London Crossrail network. The next Crossrail portal, Pudding Lane, will be completed in 2012.