crossrail bulletin 2474f85f59f39b887b696f-ab656259048fb93837ecc0ecbcf0c557.r23.cf… · crossrail...
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Crossrail Bulletinwww.crossrail.co.uk
0345 602 3813
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 [email protected].
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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Visitor Information Centres
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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.