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Construction of first Crossrail station building complete

The construction of Canary Wharf station, the first of 10 new Crossrail stations, was completed yesterday (17 September).

Fit-out of the railway systems at the station – communications equipment, tunnel ventilation, signalling, overhead line equipment and platform screen doors – is now getting underway.

The main construction work was done by Canary Wharf Contractors Limited, a subsidiary of Canary Wharf Group plc also responsible for delivering Crossrail Place in May. The group injected £150m in the costs of the new station and delivered the station box for a fixed cost of £500m.

According to Sir George Iacobescu CBE, chair and CEO of Canary Wharf Group, the station has been completed four months ahead of programme and will nearly double the working population at the region over the next ten years.

At six storeys high and 256 metres long, Canary Wharf, in the North Dock of West India Quay, is one of the largest Crossrail stations. Work has progressed further than on any other Crossrail station, already boasting flooring, wall cladding and 17 escalators.

Work began in May 2009 when a watertight dam was built in the waters of North Dock using a Japanese ‘silent’ piling method, after which the station box was built ‘top down’ below the water surface to create the ticket hall and platform levels.

The construction team has driven almost 1,000 piles and pumped nearly 100 million litres of dock water in these six and a half years, excavating around 300,000 tonnes of material from beneath the dock bed and pouring nearly 375,000 tonnes of concrete.

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, said: “This spectacular new station is being delivered ahead of schedule and is a pivotal moment in our Crossrail journey, as we can now prepare for the next major stage of work ahead of the launch of services in 2018.

“This vital new railway is already proving a huge success for the UK economy and when complete it will boost London’s rail capacity by 10%, providing an enormous benefit to passengers travelling across the capital and beyond.”

The station will provide a link between Canary Wharf and Poplar, currently split by North Dock, and includes links to the Canary Wharf Estate, via Adams Place and the Jubilee line and DLR stations.

Journeys from Canary Wharf will take six minutes to Liverpool Street, eight minutes to Farringdon and 39 minutes to Heathrow once Crossrail opens in 2018.

The £14.8bn Crossrail route will rip through 40 stations and run from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new twin-bore tunnels to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.