Crossrail Bulletinwww.crossrail.co.uk

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FREEPOST CROSSRAIL

ISSUE

24Nov 2011

First tunnel portal completed earlyWe have reached our fi rst tunnelling milestone,

the completion of Royal Oak Portal. The portal,

the fi rst of fi ve on the Crossrail route, was

completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

Royal Oak Portal has been built within a narrow

corridor west of Paddington, bordered by the A40

Westway and the Hammersmith & City line and

Network Rail lines. Just 21 metres at its widest point

and one kilometre in length, getting the logistics right

in terms of workers, materials and machinery was

critical for success.

The works comprised the building of a massive 285

metre long ramp structure that will take the Crossrail

tracks from ground-level down into the underground

tunnels.

At the deepest end of the ramp, a concrete headwall

was constructed with a pair of 7.24m diameter

tunnel ‘eyes’. The ‘eyes’ mark the exact location

where the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) will

commence tunnelling. They have an important role in

supporting the tunnel opening when the TBMs break

through the headwall.

Over 25,000 m3 of ground was excavated to

construct the portal with the excavated material re-

used at construction sites in London.

Work is now underway to prepare the site for the

launch of the TBMs next spring. The TBMs, weighing

around 850 tonnes and measuring up to 120 metres

long, will dig Crossrail’s tunnels under London

towards Farringdon. This will be followed by the

launch of further TBMs in the east to construct the

remaining tunnels for the new Crossrail service.

Crossing the Capital

Connecting the UK

The completed tunnel portal at Royal Oak.

Crossrail Bulletin – November 2011

Bird sanctuary takes offOver six million cubic metres

of material will be excavated

during the construction of

Crossrail. Almost all of this will

be contaminant-free and ready to

be reused. Work is now underway

at Wallasea Island bird sanctuary and at our

logistics hub to prepare for the arrival of this

benefi cial resource.

We will provide around 4.5 million tonnes of

excavated material to the Royal Society for the

Protection of Birds (RSPB) for the Wallasea Island

Wild Coast project, a landmark conservation and

engineering scheme, on a scale never before

attempted in the UK. The Wallasea project will

combat the threats of climate change and coastal

fl ooding by recreating ancient wetland landscape,

compensate for tidal habitat loss elsewhere in

England and provide a haven for wildlife including

birds, seals and water voles.

Work has begun on a new jetty at Wallasea Island,

on the Essex coast, where ships will offl oad Crossrail

excavated material to build the new 1,500 acre

wetland nature reserve.

We have also begun transforming a disused cement

works in Northfl eet, Kent, into a temporary logistics

hub to receive, store and transfer Crossrail’s

excavated material. Northfl eet is an ideal location

for our hub because it is on the River Thames

which enables us to transport excavated material to

Wallasea Island and other regeneration projects via

ship.

Reinstating an old freight link from the National Rail

network and installing 4.75km of new track into the

site is also underway. This link will allow us to move

material from Crossrail’s western tunnels (Royal Oak

to Farringdon) to Northfl eet by rail.

Using rail and removing excavated material through

our tunnels reduces the need for Crossrail lorries to

use London’s busy streets.

The fi rst ships will arrive at Wallasea Island next

summer.

The UK’s fi rst Tunnelling and Underground

Construction Academy (TUCA) has welcomed its

fi rst students.

Located at Ilford in east London, TUCA aims to

address the shortage of people with the necessary

skills to work on Crossrail and other tunnelling

projects in London, the UK and Europe.

The current training courses to be offered at the

Academy include the Tunnel Safety Card, a pre-

requisite for anyone who will work below ground

on Crossrail, and Construction Skills Certifi cation

Scheme health and safety card training. Vocational

courses initially on offer are pre-cast concrete

manufacture and tunnel operations training.

A variety of other vocational training courses will begin

to be offered over the coming months, increasing the

number of students attending the new campus.

Tunnelling plant and machinery including a static

tunnel boring machine and a simulated tunnel

environment, will arrive at the Academy soon.

The Tunnelling and Underground Construction

Academy will offer training to at least 3,500 people

over the lifetime of the Crossrail project.

TUCA welcomes fi rst students

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Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy.

Crossrail Bulletin – November 2011

Animal bones, possibly hundreds of thousands of

years old, have been uncovered during excavations

for our tunnel portal at Royal Oak.

The remains identifi ed include those of the Auroch (a

now extinct, large ancestor of modern cattle). Bison and

Deer have also been found within soils that have fi lled in a

Pleistocene river channel. The soil sequence shows that

the river channel fi lled during a warm period in the last ice

age. Erosion is likely to have washed the animal remains

into the channel, preserving them for thousands of years.

Some of the bones appear to have small marks on them

that may suggest butchery by humans. Scientifi c dating

is helping to confi rm whether this is the period of Homo

Sapiens or their ancestors Homo Neanderthalis (50,000-

350,000 years ago) and Homo Heidelbergensis (350,000-

500,000 years ago).

Simon Parfi tt, a specialist from the National History

Museum, visited the site to study the fi nds:

“This is a really exciting fi nd. Our entire knowledge of early

prehistoric human activity, zoology and environment comes

from a small number of sites such as this. Apart from the

range of animal species present, environmental samples

can help recreate the landscape. Any evidence of humans

in these periods will be very precious indeed.”

The bones are now being studied before they are

incorporated into the museum’s permanent collection.

Prehistoric bones uncovered

Auroch bones discovered at Royal Oak.

Crossrail’s fi rst ‘living walls’ have been installed

around our worksite in Finsbury Circus Gardens.

These vertical gardens will help improve air

quality by reducing dust, pollen and carbon

dioxide levels. They will also improve the look of

our worksite and benefi t biodiversity by providing

new wildlife habitats.

The living walls act like a breathing, photosynthesizing

skin and consist of plants that thrive in the urban

environment. The walls also help to purify the air and

transform the worksite boundary.

The gardens mimic the action that plants use to grow

vertically on cliffs, branches or along waterfalls. The

walls are maintained through a build-in irrigation system

that uses soil-free technology to receive water and

nutrients from vertical supports rather than the ground.

Living walls will contribute towards The Mayor of

London’s plan to reduce PM10 airbourne particle

pollution by a third by 2015.

Living walls will be grown around

other Crossrail sites soon. If you

would like to sponsor a living wall please

contact art@crossrail.co.uk.

Crossrail’s living wall at Finsbury Circus.

Living walls

keeping communities informed

Trainees begin working with the donated track.

Crossrail is donating unwanted materials of all

shapes and sizes to charities, restoration projects

and local training academies so they can be

benefi cially reused. Four recent donations are

highlighted below.

Track for trainees

We have donated 300 metres of track, 220 sleepers

and a switch and crossing from a disused section

of the North London Line to a training academy in

Newham.

The academy, Alpha Building Services and

Engineering Training, specialises in training

local 16-20-year-olds in trades including railway

apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship skills.

This has enabled the academy to complete a large

section of their outdoor training area enhancing the

hands-on learning opportunities that the academy

can offer.

Protecting railway heritage

A disused 20th Century footbridge, 200 railway

sleepers and 95 metres of track has been donated

to Whitwell & Reepham Railway, a heritage railway

project in Norfolk.

Whitwell & Reepham was once a station on the

Midland & Great Northern Railway line - a rival

railway to the Great Eastern Railway (GER). It is

perhaps a twist of fate that a GER footbridge has

ended up helping to restore a station on a rival’s

railway.

Preserving heritage

Four tonnes of Tudor bricks from our Stepney Green

worksite have been donated to English Heritage for

restoration projects around the UK.

The bricks originally formed part of Worcester

House, a fortifi ed manor constructed by the Marquis

of Worcester in 1597. Our contractor, Museum of

London Archaeology, studied and documented the

remains of the house before carefully removing the

bricks for donation.

A video about our archaeology work at Stepney

Green can be found on our website.

Recycling trees

Stepney City Farm’s animal and visitor facilities have

been enhanced thanks to a donation of logs and

wood from its Crossrail neighbour.

The farm has used the wood to create climbing

mounds for the animals, insect habitats, benches

and stools for the farm café and wood chippings

for paths. Some wood was also used in the farm’s

woodwork and carpentry workshops.

All donations great and small

Dragados Sisk JV site foreman Declan Wallace presents a log to Jessica

Hodge, Manager of Stepney City Farm.

An archaeologist unearthing the remains of Worcester House.

keeping communities informed

Our contractors have been hosting a series of ‘Meet the

Contractor’ events to encourage local businesses to compete

for subcontracts on Crossrail. We have also been holding career

information days to connect local people to the employment

opportunities on the project.

The ‘Meet the Contractor’ events are part of a larger plan to

communicate opportunities for small and medium sized businesses

Example contracts include; security, catering, reptile mitigation and tree

relocation.

We also post opportunities on ‘CompeteFor’, a web based portal that

matches potential subcontractors with current contractors. For more

details see www.competefor.com.

Career information days have recently been held in Whitechapel and

Islington to highlight employment opportunities on Crossrail and explain

the various skills

routes available to

work on the project.

Representatives from

our contractors and

the Crossrail Job

Brokerage Service,

which incorporates

Jobcentre Plus and the

National Apprenticeship

Service, were also on

hand to offer advice.

A similar event will

be held in Redbridge

soon.

Building skills

A career information day at Whitechapel.

Crossrail has been awarded £2.5m from the European Social

Fund (ESF) to help unemployed local people obtain jobs on

the project.

This is the fi rst time that the ESF has allocated funds to a specifi c project

and clearly indicates the importance of Crossrail in building a skills legacy

for London and the South East.

Crossrail will use the fund for pre-employment training including the

technical skills needed for people to access jobs. The types of jobs

needed for Crossrail include tunnel and construction operatives, logistics

and tunnel segment manufacturing.

We are working at industry best practice

by reusing or recycling 97% of the

material excavated from our sites. Our

team working at Limmo Peninsula

recently exceeded that target by reusing

or recycling an impressive 98% of

materials cleared from the site.

The team have removed over 120,000

tonnes of excess material from the Limmo

site, cleaning up wood, tyres and even half

a car.

During the recycling process rubber was

shredded for use in equestrian arenas, and

playgrounds and timber was re-processed

and shredded for woodchips using waste-

to-energy technology.

Local state-of-the-art recycling facilities also

helped achieve environmental success,while

short transport times and low fuel use

also helped to reduce the project’s carbon

footprint.

The recycling targets on Crossrail were

developed with the Waste Resources Action

Programme (WRAP).

Striving for zero waste

Cleaning up at Limmo Peninsula.

£2.5m skills fund received

Contact Information

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e-mail

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website

www.crossrail.co.uk

Visitor Information Centres

West End

16-18 St Giles High St, WC2H 8LN

Open Tues and Thurs 11.00 to 19.00

Whitechapel

Idea Store, 321 Whitechapel Rd, E1 1BU

Open Mon and Wed 11.00 to 19.00

Delivering a world-class affordable railway safely through effective partnerships

We are using the latest Quick

Response (QR) technology

to increase the accessibility

and speed of fi nding out

information about Crossrail.

QR codes operate similarly

to barcodes and are scanned

with a smart phone application.

Scanning this code sends the

user directly to our website.

Look out for

Crossrail’s QR

code in our

publications

and on our site

hoardings.

Breaking the code

1,500 drivers steer safetyOver fi fteen hundred drivers

have now been trained on

Crossrail’s lorry driver safety

programme spotlighting how

to share London’s roads with

vulnerable road users.

Every lorry driver, regularly working

on the construction of Crossrail,

must complete the custom-made

course designed in consultation

with cycling and road safety

campaign groups, and the Police.

Hazard perception, causes of

collisions and driver health are

covered in the course.

It’s just one element of our ongoing

programme to ensure that the

professional lorry drivers working

on Crossrail are safe.

We are also working with our

contractors to fi t lorries with safety

devices like Fresnel lenses and

side scan equipment that allows

the driver to see into blind spots.

An online version of the training

will be rolled out later this year.

This shorter interactive course is

for drivers who infrequently work

on Crossrail. It will cover key road

safety messages and also act as a

refresher course.

Up to 4,000 professional drivers

will attend the training course

throughout the duration of the

project and many more will benefi t

from the online training.

Crossrail’s training is helping to set new industry standards.