Crossrail

Bond Street station tunnellers break through to meet Crossrail

London Underground (LU) engineers excavated the final passageway linking the expanded Bond Street station to the new Crossrail station yesterday (1 October), bringing the Tube station’s two-year tunnelling project to an end.

The breakthrough was a “major milestone” in the Bond Street station upgrade programme and will pave the way for the next phase at the £320m Tube station upgrade.

The station overhaul, set to finish by 2017, will include an interchange with Crossrail as well as a new ticket hall, escalators and step-free access to all platforms.

Over 550m of new tunnels have been constructed as part of the engineering project. Lifts and escalators will now be installed with electrical fittings and interior finishing.

Nick Brown, managing director for LU, said the “complex” station upgrade was largely constructed out-of-sight “beneath an extraordinarily small footprint on Oxford Street”.

He added: “Upgrading stations like Bond Street and introducing Crossrail is critical to keep London working and growing, and continued investment in transport infrastructure is essential to meet rising demand for our services.”

Boris Johnson MP, mayor of London, added: “This breakthrough is the latest engineering triumph on our great Crossrail journey. This vital new railway is already proving a huge success for the UK economy, and the work completed at Bond Street will ultimately prove to be of huge benefit to the whole of the West End.”

The station is being reconfigured to provide 30%more capacity to accommodate London’s growing population. Work is expected to result in fewer delays, less congestion and quicker journeys in an out of the station. The new ticket hall, currently being built underneath Marylebone Lane, will open in 2017.

The Crossrail Bond Street station is also expected to increase the capital’s rail-based transport network capacity by 10%, with services due to commence through central London in 2018.