Employees of Crossrail Joint Venture, BBMV (Balfour Beatty, BeMo Tunneling, Morgan Sindall and Vinci Construction), yesterday joined the Prime Minister David Cameron, London Mayor Boris Johnson and Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin at a celebration event to mark the completion of tunnelling works on the £14.8bn Crossrail scheme.
Boris Johnson said the completion was "an historic day" and marked "a huge success for the whole of the UK economy."
David Cameron said “Crossrail is an incredible feat of engineering that will help to improve the lives of working people in London and beyond.”
The final breakthrough of the last boring machine named Victoria tunnelled through Farringdon at 5.30am on 23 May. The eight boring machines which have worked on the project weighed 1,000 tonnes each and have created 26 miles (42km) of tunnels beneath the City.
BBMV contributed to the completion of tunnelling with its schemes at Whitechapel and Liverpool Street Station which involved 500 workers and the excavation of 580,000 cubic metres of soil.
Fatima Alghali, a Balfour Beatty Commercial apprentice who has been working on the Whitechapel and Liverpool Street tunnels project attended the celebration event. She said: “It has been an amazing opportunity and such a great experience to be involved in a high profile project that will make such a positive impact.”
Crossrail will run from Reading in Berkshire in the west to Shenfield in Essex in the east and is due to open in 2018 with full services running in 2019.
Media Enquiries:
Am Golhar
Balfour Beatty
Tel: +44 (0)207 216 6897
am.golhar@balfourbeatty.com
Images:
The Prime Minister and the Mayor of London celebrate completion of Crossrail Tunnelling
Crossrail train tunnels crossover at Whitechapel Station
Notes to editors:
Balfour Beatty is a leading international infrastructure group.
With 36,000 employees, we provide innovative and efficient infrastructure that underpins our daily lives, supports communities and enables economic growth.
We finance, develop, build and maintain complex infrastructure such as transportation, power and utility systems, social and commercial buildings.
Our main geographies are the UK, US, Middle East and South East Asia. Over the last 100 years we have created iconic buildings and infrastructure all over the world including the London Olympics’ Aquatic Centre, Hong Kong’s first Zero Carbon building, the world’s biggest shopping mall in Dubai, the National Museum of the Marine Corps in the US and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
Balfour Beatty’s works on Crossrail include the £132 million Crossrail South East Section contract due to complete in 2018, the Crossrail West Outer works including track work (£45m) and Electrification (£65m) due for completion in June 2017. As part of the Crossrail joint venture, BBMV, Balfour Beatty is also delivering the £250m Whitechapel and Liverpool Street Station Tunnels contract and the £110million Whitechapel station construction and fit out and in joint venture with Morgan Sindall, recently completed the Advance Station Works for Tottenham Court Road.
