A new 3km rail tunnel under the Thames was unveiled on Friday by Chancellor George Osborne at a depth of 15m beneath the river.

The ‘Thames Tunnel’ near North Woolwich, part of the £14.8Bn Crossrail project, is set to help significantly improve connections between South East London and the rest of the capital when the railway opens in 2018.

The Crossrail route will serve 40 stations and run more than 100km from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new twin bore 21km tunnels to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

London Underground managing director Mike Brown said: “The completion of this tunnel under the Thames marks another key milestone in the construction of Crossrail which, when it opens, will boost rail capacity in the capital by 10%.”

During the works joint contractors Hochtief Construction and J Murphy & Sons used tunnel boring machines named ‘Mary’ and ‘Sophia’ to excavate around 500,000t of earth and install 3400 concrete rings lining the tunnel.

The job of fitting out the tunnel with tracks and communications systems will begin shortly.

Further to the west tunnel boring machine ‘Ellie’ this week broke through into a cavern 40m beneath Stepney Green, marking the structural completion of tunnels for Crossrail’s North East spur between Whitechapel and Pudding Mill Lane.

It took ‘Ellie’ just over three months to complete the 2.7km journey, travelling as much as 72m in a 24 hour period under contractor Dragados Sisk JV’s management.

(Photo: Crossrail)

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