This morning, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron MP, visited the Farringdon Crossrail station work site in central London as part of an event to mark the completion of tunneling. Cameron said “Crossrail is an incredible feat of engineering that will help to improve the lives of working people in London and beyond. The project is a vital part of our long term plan to build a more resilient economy by helping businesses to grow, compete and create jobs right along the supply chain.”
“One of the biggest challenges on this project was tunneling beneath centuries of tightly-woven infrastructure”, said Ailie MacAdam, managing director for infrastructure, Europe and Africa, Bechtel. “Huge tunnel-boring machines have been chewing up London’s earth around the clock, moving through ground that's honeycombed with networks of sewer lines, water and gas mains, foundations of buildings, and even some London Underground tunnels dating to the 1860s.”
A 200-strong Bechtel team of project managers, engineers and world-class specialists in sustainability and rail systems are working on Crossrail. With the project 65% complete, Bechtel will now focus on the integration and completion of rail and station systems in advance of testing which will commence in 2017. Under a separate contract, Bechtel is also working as delivery partner for Network Rail to upgrade the existing rail network outside London to integrate with Crossrail.
“To carry out this tunneling safely in such a busy, urban environment is testament to the skills and dedication of everyone involved. Collaboration with our customer, contractors, local businesses and the community has been integral to our success, and we thank them for their support,” added MacAdam.
The first Crossrail services through central London will start in late 2018. An estimated 200 million annual passengers will use Crossrail. The line will increase capacity of London’s passenger rail network by 10% and dramatically reduce journey times across the city.
A global leader in the rail industry, Bechtel has successfully delivered some of the largest and most complex rail projects in the world, including the Channel Tunnel, High Speed 1, San Francisco BART system and the Athens Metro. The company is also currently working on the Riyadh Metro, Rio de Janeiro Metro and the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension.
Bechtel and Crossrail Complete Tunneling on Europe’s Largest Engineering Project
65% of London-based Crossrail Complete and On Schedule
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About Bechtel
Bechtel is a trusted engineering, construction and project management partner to industry and government. Differentiated by the quality of our people and our relentless drive to deliver the most successful outcomes, we align our capabilities to our customers’ objectives to create a lasting positive impact. Since 1898, we have helped customers complete more than 25,000 projects in 160 countries on all seven continents that have created jobs, grown economies, improved the resiliency of the world's infrastructure, increased access to energy, resources, and vital services, and made the world a safer, cleaner place.
Bechtel serves the Energy; Infrastructure; Manufacturing & Technology; Mining & Metals; and Nuclear, Security & Environmental markets. Our services span from initial planning and investment, through start-up and operations. www.bechtel.com
