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Exploring the Elizabeth line, one of the world’s largest construction projects
- peterburkimsher 10y agoI want to know about the tunnelling machine. It was boring, but I think it's interesting!
- calebsurfs 10y agoThe video at the bottom of the page goes into great detail on the machine and was not boring at all! :)
- masklinn 10y agoI had the privilege to visit the dig for Lyon's Caluire tunnel (ø9,8m though relatively short) during construction, and walk the length of the TBM as part of the visit, it was impressive as hell.
- tomc1985 10y agoWell, I wouldn't call its boring boring.
- billforsternz 10y agoSo does the new name ("Elizabeth line") imply that this is an expansion of the Underground - rather than a separate system? I know it sound like just semantics, but the DLR system for example is definitely quite distinct from the Underground, and I would like to know whether Crossrail will be too.
- kristianp 10y agoCrossrail seems to be original name for the Elizabeth Line, in case anyone else was confused by this comment. I'm guessing it will be part of the system, by sharing stations with the existing lines, but the platforms will be at different levels. http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/crossrail-to-become-the-elizabeth-line-in-honour-of-her-majesty-the-queen http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/crossrail-to-become...
- billforsternz 10y agoSorry, I was assuming readers knew about Crossrail - which was presumptive. Note that the DLR shares stations with the pre-existing Underground system, and has platforms at different levels, but is still considered a separate system not part of the system. I think the desire to see the greater system decomposed into various properly named subsystems in the most coherent way possible is something that is characteristic of a software development mindset.
- kieranhunt 10y agoAs far as I know, Crossrail is the name of the project whilst the Elizabeth line is the name of the actual line. The Elizabeth line seems to be not quite an extension of the underground. This video clears it up somewhat [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaBBg6Cyv9Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaBBg6Cyv9Q
- billforsternz 10y agoThanks, love this guy's passion. Summary of his position: No it's not a new underground line.
- Symbiote 10y agoIt's "normal" railway. Big trains, which continue onto the national railway network after leaving the tunnel. Visitors to London especially don't need to care about this, and the name tells then to treat it like the other underground lines: there will be trains every two minutes, and a special ticket isn't required. Also, Crossrail 2 is being planned.
- albinoloverats 10y ago> a special ticket isn't required. Excellent, I've been trying to figure this out; whether I will be able to just jump on/off using my debit (or Oyster) card as I currently do on the over/underground. Any idea how far out of town this ticketing system will be usable? Will someone in Reading be able to use a contactless card without having to buy a paper ticket?
- lmm 10y ago> Excellent, I've been trying to figure this out; whether I will be able to just jump on/off using my debit (or Oyster) card as I currently do on the over/underground. Note that you can also use contactless or Oyster on National Rail within the zones, e.g. King's Cross to Alexandra Palace or Moorgate to Finsbury Park. > Any idea how far out of town this ticketing system will be usable? Will someone in Reading be able to use a contactless card without having to buy a paper ticket? At the moment no. One would hope that common sense will prevail.
- MagnumOpus 10y agoPeople will be able to use contactless and oyster once the Reading side of the system is taken over by TfL in a year or so. If I recall correctly, this is already the case on the other side of Crossrail (Shenfield/Brentford). It's also been introduced at Gatwick Airport recently.
- elthran 10y agoYou recall correctly - the Shenfield part has been switched on for Oyster/contactless
- nattofriends 10y agoIt has interrunning with GEML and GWML, so a separate system. As TfL basically owns most of it, it is co-branded the same way Overground and DLR are too.
- panste 10y agoI would not consider it to be "one of the world's largest construction projects".
- Symbiote 10y agoOk. What's bigger that we might be interested in?
- cosmolev 10y agoGotthard base tunnel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
- dalke 10y agoI think it's okay for the second or third or even tenth largest project to be called "one of the world's largest projects". FWIW, Crossrail is on this list of the 25 "most impressive" projects - http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g2121/the-worlds-25-most-impressive-megaprojects/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g2121/the-worlds-... . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transport_megaprojects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transport_megaprojects describes it as a "megaproject", and I can agree that everything which is a megaproject is one of the largest construction projects in the world. Looking at the list of projects which are "under construction", and ordered by cost, Crossrail is #6 at US$25B and the GBT is #10 at US$10B.
- twic 10y agoGotthard base tunnel: 4 million man hours http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/11/23/gotthard.base.tunnel/ http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/11/23/gotthard.base... Crossrail: 20 million man hours three years ago http://m.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/london-transport/stunning-crossrail-london-images-revealed/4356.article http://m.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/london-transp... I'd love to see some more reliable figures, though.
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- kibwen 10y agoFor more big digs, see also New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, a 60-mile long tunnel that has been under continuous construction since 1970 and which will allow the city's two existing water supply tunnels to be closed for repairs for the first time in a century.
- Symbiote 10y agoLondon is also building a water tunnel, but for sewage: https://www.tideway.london/the-tunnel/ https://www.tideway.london/the-tunnel/ It's to be 25km / 16mi long, and mostly run under the river, and should take 9 years in total to build. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tideway_Scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tideway_Scheme
- maxerickson 10y agoThe Tunnel 3 project is famous. It featured in Die Hard 3: All Die Gold. 20 years ago.
- Animats 10y agoThere are tons of videos available about Crossrail. It's a full sized (for the UK) electrified railway, with trains running above ground out to London's eastern and western suburbs. Main site: [1] [1] http://www.crossrail.co.uk/ http://www.crossrail.co.uk/
- mstade 10y ago> Before I was allowed down into the building site, I had to be shown what to do in case of emergency. Basically, "run away from the smoke if you can." I met a guy at an after work thing a few years back, somewhere in the city, who said he worked with contingency planning for TfL. I asked him, what's the plan if there's a fire in the tube, one of the older lines where you're deep, deep underground, and there's heavy smoke development? His answer wasn't very re-assuring: "we pray." Since that day I very rarely, if ever, take the tube anywhere. If I do I make sure it's on off hours when there aren't as many people on board or in the stations. Irrational fear, for sure, but coupled with the extreme amounts of people you may find, with people literally jammed up against the walls, I figure I'd rather spend a few more bucks on a cab, or just spend more time walking. (Also the signs in various stations, King's Cross for instance, commemorating the victims of accidents and/or attacks aren't really re-assuring.)
- peteretep 10y ago> Also the signs in various stations, King's Cross for > instance Which happened in 1987.
- m-i-l 10y agoBack in the days when escalators were made of wood, often had piles of inflammable litter built up behind them, and still had smokers flicking their smoldering cigarette butts all over the place. There was a huge investigation into the causes of the King's Cross fire, and many changes implemented as a result [0]. The investigation even led to the discovery of the Trench Effect [1] "a combination of circumstances that can rush a fire up an inclined surface". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_effect
- Symbiote 10y agoThat seems especially irrational if your alternative is road transport. People die every day from that. No passenger has died since 1987 on the Underground, except with the terrorist attacks. Even those didn't cause fires.
- Twirrim 10y agoA friend of mine is the Innovation Project Manager for Crossrail (strictly speaking it won't be called the Elizabeth line until it opens). There's a good interview with him which I think would be of interest to HN readers, especially the approaches TFL has been taking to encourage innovation, and the new technologies they've been using for the project: http://digitalconstructionnews.com/2016/02/10/dcn-talks-to-william-reddaway/ http://digitalconstructionnews.com/2016/02/10/dcn-talks-to-w...
- maattdd 10y agoI'm surprised no one mentioned the already existing (40 years old!) same project in Paris (called RER). It's full scaled train (even double decker) running underground in Paris and overground outside. The oldest line (A) is the most used line in the world expect Japan (>1 million person/worked day). Auber station was (is?) the biggest underground station in the world and Chatelet-Les Halles is the most used underground station in the world.
- nattofriends 10y agoNo one mentioned it because it is not the same, it is only comparable. RER is, like you said, of the same scale, but 40 years old and proven. You should be happy to bring things you like into the conversation, but not surprised that other people don't like the things you like.
- maattdd 10y agoIt's a thread about a rail engineering project so I was assuming the crowd was interested by those stuff...
- spdegabrielle 10y agoAll stations wheelchair accessible! Your city may be different but wheelchair accessible stations are a rarity in London.
- masklinn 10y agoI have to say I'm a bit weirded out by there being a conductor (according to the demo videos) on a brand new subway project. Do the platform door prefigure automation in the future? Good thing on the large diameter though, IME many of the tube's older sub-surface lines are unfortunately (and uncomfortably for modern average heights) small.
- adrianN 10y agoA commenter further down said that these trains are supposed to also run on the normal train lines. This probably means that they have to comply with the regular train regulation, which are quite different from the subway regulations and make automatic driving a lot more difficult.
- lmm 10y agoYeah. London won't allow fully automated trains without platform edge doors, and it would be impractical to put them on the Great Eastern Main Line or the Great Western Main Line with the variety of other trains that share those tracks. AIUI Crossrail is planned to use fully automated signalling eventually (i.e. similar to the Victoria Line, where the driver only pushes the button at each station and speed is automatically controlled between stations) once ETCS in Britain is standardized enough.
- thomaspurchas 10y agoStrange because the DLR is almost completely automated (no driver, but ticket inspector closes the doors) and has no platform edge doors. But they do have emergency stop buttons on the platforms.
- fredoralive 10y agoAFAIK It's the lack of a human making the close doors / start moving decision that leads to a need for platform doors. (The Central, Jubilee, Northern and Victoria lines also use automatic operation to similar levels as the DLR, it's just less obvious as the train operator still has a separate cab).
- Intermernet 10y ago> "Because the TBMs are so large and unwieldy, two of them—named Phyllis and Ada—were left buried in the ground near the new Farringdon tunnels." There's a movie plot in that, but I'm not sure if it's a "mad scientist destroys London with TBM" plot, or a "heroic genius saves London from zombies with TBM" plot, or a "Bruce Willis foils terrorists in London with TBM" plot. I guarantee those machines get referenced in a movie / book in the next decade :-)
- chiph 10y agoI expect they'll be taken over by MI6 and be used to create a high-speed escape tunnel for the staff and agents at Vauxhall Cross
- sgt101 10y agoThe latest William Gibson book features a sculpture made of diggers recovered from the basements of the super rich erected in a possible future London. Apparently the cost of retrieving them is a major driver in the small digger market!
- mostlystatic 10y agoDiggers being left buried in London seems to be an urban legend. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/06/london-urban-legend-jcb-digger_n_5459717.html http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/06/london-urban-lege...
- MaysonL 10y agoIIRC there's a jail-break plot twist involving them in Oath of Fealty by Niven and Pournelle…
- twic 10y agoEither that, or someone will open a cocktail bar in them.
- philjohn 10y agoThere was an interesting documentary on the BBC a year or so ago following the CrossRail project. One segment in particular was fascinating - a manoeuvre they called "threading the eye of the needle". The Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) had to go through an gap between an existing underground station at the bottom, and a tunnel for the down escalator at the top ... tolerances were razor thin, much less than 1m either end. Image that shows what they did here: http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2015/01/Crossrail_Planning_Jan15_3.jpg http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2015/01/Crossrail_Plan...
- jsingleton 10y agoYou probably mean this: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/crossrail-documentary-the-fifteen-billion-pound-railway http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/crossrail-documentary-the-fi... Not on iPlayer any more but you can buy it on DVD if your don't think tunnelling is boring. :) http://www.londonreconnections.com http://www.londonreconnections.com is also a detailed resource.