C305 – Eastern Running Tunnels (Limmo Peninsula to Farringdon; Limmo Peninsula to Victoria Dock; Stepney Green to Pudding Mill Lane)

 

The Crossrail route links the new stations at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street and Whitechapel.

The railway divides at Stepney Green, with the southeast spur running underground to Plumstead and then onto Abbey Wood via the Isle of Dogs and the north east spur running underground to Pudding Mill and then onto Shenfield in Essex. All of this adds up to 42km of bored tunnels located below the busy streets of London.

The tunnels will weave their way between existing underground lines, sewers, tunnels and building foundations from station to station at depths of up to 36m.

Two different techniques will be used for the tunnel construction;

• Tunnel Boring Machines will be used to build 6m diameter tunnels for the trains to travel between stations
• Sprayed Concrete Lining will be used to build the larger platform tunnels at stations and the shorter passenger circulation tunnels at stations

A number of tunnel drives are planned to construct the Crossrail tunnels using tunnel boring machines (TBMs).  The tunnels will be twin bore, running from;

• Royal Oak to Farringdon (6.2km) - Drive X
  
• Limmo Peninsula to Farringdon (8.3km) - Drive Y
• Stepney Green to Pudding Mill (2.7km) - Drive Z
  
• Limmo Peninsula to Victoria Dock (1.0km) - Drive G
  
• Plumstead to North Woolwich (2.6km) - Drive H
  

 

TMTunnelling are project managing drives Y, Z and G