Contractors on the £14.8bn Crossrail project have now finished all tunnelling work under London.
Over the past three years Crossrail’s eight tunnel boring machines have excavated six million tonnes of earth, created 42km of running tunnels and installed more than 200,000 concrete tunnel segments.
The final tunnel breakthrough was at Farringdon in the City of London.
The fastest day of tunnelling was on 16th April 16 2014 when TBM Ellie travelled 72 metres between Pudding Mill Lane and Stepney Green.
Train services between Reading in Berkshire to Shenfield in Essex are on course to start in 2018, with full services operating in 2019.
Crossrail chairman Terry Morgan said: “Crossrail is the most significant addition to London’s transport network in a generation and one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever undertaken in the UK. The completion of Crossrail tunnelling is a truly significant milestone and would not have been possible without the support and commitment of London, our contractors and everyone who works on Crossrail.”
Chief executive Andrew Wolstenholme added: “Crossrail is being delivered on time and within budget and will transform how people travel across the capital. Over the last three years, our highly skilled team have worked tirelessly to build these major new tunnels under one of the world’s busiest cities. The challenge now shifts to the complicated and substantial task of fitting out the tunnels and stations to enable Crossrail services to operate.”