Design of Canary Wharf Elizabeth line station and Crossrail Place oversite development

The new Elizabeth line station at Custom House was a unique opportunity for design and construction. It is the only above-ground station on the central section of the line and will welcome millions of visitors to London’s largest conference centre, ExCeL, as well as providing vital connections for the Borough of Newham. A joint team from Crossrail Ltd, Atkins, Arup, Allies & Morrison, and Laing O'Rourke collaborated to develop the striking station design, creating a beacon for both the Elizabeth line and the local community. Faced with many constraints, a ‘kit of parts’ strategy was developed for Custom House’s construction, including prefabricated and standardised components. This approach – where much of the station was built off site – minimised workon site, drove down programme times and costs, and reduced the impact on the local community. The approach also led to Custom House’s excellent health and safety record – one of the best of any Elizabeth line station to date.

The new Elizabeth line station at Tottenham Court Road, delivered by the Crossrail programme, has been an exercise in interface management as well as a feat of engineering. This paper describes the design carried out by the Arup Atkins Joint Venture (AAJV) under contract C134, principally of the Western Ticket Hall box. Nestled in Soho, this was developed within a dense urban grid and the constraints of a residential oversite development above. The team worked closely with London Underground Ltd's engineers at the Eastern Entrance, which was delivered as part of London Underground’s own station upgrade works. The tunnel for the eastbound Elizabeth line passes through the Western Ticket Hall box, which also provided construction access for the sprayed concrete-lined platform and concourse tunnels. Access dates to the site meant that there was insufficient time to complete construction of the box before the arrival of the tunnel boring machine (TBM). Consequently, the need to complete the excavation became critical and the team adopted a bottom-up construction sequence for one of the deepest open shafts ever excavated in central London. The box, formed of elements of diaphragm walls and raft, was constructed before the TBM arrived, and the remaining internal elements completed afterwards.

The Elizabeth line will use above-ground sections of existing Great Eastern and Great Western tracks between Stratford and Maidenhead where new overhead line equipment (OLE) and traction power supply will be installed. The OLE is supported by gantries of various types and configurations. In the case of the Great Eastern, the gantries date from the electrification of UK railways in the 1940s. Initial structural assessment carried out had shown that existing gantries on the route were inadequate to carry increased loading from the upgraded OLE. However, a rigorous procedure incorporating detailed non-linear structural analysis was developed that eliminated some of the inherent conservatism in traditional codified approaches. Particular benefit was found in the case of the many types of slender structure where buckling was a governing factor. Using non-linear techniques, it was possible to demonstrate that families of structures were suitable for incorporation in the Crossrail (Elizabeth line) scheme. This paper describes the approach that was used. The project is remarkable for significant programme and cost savings that were accomplished using sophisticated engineering analysis. It is also noteworthy from a sustainability point of view, as it allowed the existing infrastructure to be reused.