First of two huge tunnel boring machines soon to start work on the longest underground run on the Crossrail project was lowered into a 40m deep shaft in east London last Thursday night.

The machine named Elizabeth weighs 550t, the equivalent of 280 London taxis. She was lifted into position using a 1350t crane, reportedly one of the largest in Europe. A second TBM christened Victoria will shortly be lowered into the same shaft.

Machines will begin tunnelling from the site near Canning Town towards Farringdon before the end of the year, a distance of 8.3km. Crossrail chief executive Andrew Wolstenholme said positioning of the machines underground represents “a significant milestone for the project.” He added: “When Crossrail is completed it will dramatically improve transport in east London and bring places like Custom House and Abbey Wood to within 20 minutes of London’s major employment areas.”

Assembly of the tunnelling machines and associated gantries will be completed underground to create two 148m long tunnel trains. The two machines will use large shove frames to push themselves forward into the earth.

Beside the River Lea next to the shaft work is also taking place to build a jetty to berth ships. Vessels will take 1.2m tonnes of earth to Wallasea Island to create a new nature reserve and the jetty will also be used by dock barges to bring 120,000 concrete segments from Chatham to line the tunnels.

Crossrail’s first tunnel started to be built in May from Royal Oak near Paddington in west London. In all, eight tunnelling machines will construct a total of 21km of twin tunnels under London.

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