Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Edward (right) and Andy Byford (left), Commissioner (Executive Director) of Transport for London, at Paddington Underground Station, London May 17, 2022. ANDREW MATTHEWS / AP
The London “Tube”, the oldest subway in the world (opened in 1863), is being extensively expanded. On May 24, the first leg of a new line will be inaugurated, the Elizabeth Line, apparently in homage to Queen Elizabeth II, whose platinum anniversary, marking an exceptionally long reign of 70 years, will be celebrated a week later. This massive £19 billion (€22.4 billion) project, which traversed Greater London from east to west and brought the city back to just 34 minutes from Heathrow International Airport, took thirteen years of work.
Semi-automatic, equipped with a state-of-the-art transmission system, “it’s a tube for the 21st century, it will increase passenger traffic in the capital by 10%, it will help London recover from the pandemic,” enthuses Andy Byford , Commissioner (Executive Director) of Transport for London (TfL), the management company for public transport in Greater London. The rail professional, who managed Australian railway networks, public transport in Toronto and then New York, leads the tour of the near-opening completed section from the brand new Paddington Station (near the station train of the same name) to Liverpool Street, in the heart of the city, via Bond Street and Farringdon.
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In a megalopolis of 8.9 million people, whose core has been densely populated for two thousand years, the construction of this central part of the Elizabeth Line presented a significant engineering challenge. It took digging deep – an average of 30 meters, to cross the Thames three times, excavated so much earth and rubble in four years that it was enough to enlarge an island (Wallasea, Essex) and set it up as a nature reserve. The project engineers needed to limit vibration as much as possible as the train passed – as it passed under the Barbican Center concert hall (in the city) – or around the foundations of Center Point, a skyscraper on New Oxford Street.
A goal of around 150 million passengers per year
The Elizabeth Line was one of the most important archaeological sites in Europe, notably with the discovery of a mass grave containing 3,300 bodies of the Black Death dead (17th century) at Liverpool Street railway station. “The most complicated thing was connecting the ventilation, station closure or train signaling systems together,” says Byford. TfL has also bet on gigantism: Liverpool Street or Paddington stations have been designed in the spirit of the cathedral, all in curves and smooth concrete, with impressive ceiling heights, endless corridors that contrast with other inner-city stations. The platforms are 250 meters long and allow 11-car trains to stop – they were manufactured by Alstom in Derby (in the Midlands).
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