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‘Victoria’ chopped and unscrewed after Crossrail completion

The final Crossrail tunnelling machine, Victoria, is being broken up and recycled after “finishing her journey” under the capital.

The machine – whose self-explanatory name honours Queen Victoria’s involvement with the birth of modern railways – is being dismantled 40 metres below Farringdon, after the completion of tunnelling works in June on the new £14.8bn east-west railway.

Victoria’s 130m trailer is being removed through the shaft at Stepney Green to be returned to manufacturer Herrenknecht, with the cutter head currently being cut into small pieces. Some of its parts will be recycled for future tunnelling projects.

It completed tunnelling work after successfully breaking into Farringdon Crossrail station in May 2015.

Roger Mears, Crossrail eastern tunnels project manager, said the quality of “marvellous machines” like Victoria and the skills of the teams operating them helped complete the tunnels, which are now ready for the “complex task of fitting out the railway”.

Eight 1,000-tonne tunnelling machines have bored 43km of 6.2 diameter rail tunnels in London over the last three years, with the channels “weaving their way between Underground lines, sewers, utility tunnels and building foundations” from station to station.

Crossrail tunnelling began in 2012 and ended with Victoria’s breakthrough, expecting to add 10% capacity to London’s rail network and serve 40 stations.