Open House – TUCA
I went to the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy at Ilford.
It is an impressive place, that trains workers and prospective ones in the skills needed to work underground.
It is actually the first legacy of CrossRail, as they will be needing substantial numbers of workers over the next few years.
Pudding Mill Lane Station – 18th September 2012
I went to Pudding Mill Lane DLR station to see how things were progressing with CrossRail and the construction of the new station.
A senior person in the DLR told me, that it will be two years before the new station is fully open. But then it will be a double-track line all the way past the station on the way to Bow Church station.
Europe’s Largest Man-Made Nature Reserve
If you dig a big hole, you get a lot of earth and rubbish to dispose of. CrossRail is digging two of the biggest tunnels in the world and have not only done a proper archaeological job, but have come up with an innovative solution to the spoil disposal. It is being shipped to Wallasea Island to create a whole new nature reserve. There’s a BBC report on the operation here. You can also see CrossRail’s press release, which has a lot of pictures.
Crossrail And The Stepney City Farm
CrossRail is Europe’s largest construction project and the tunnels have a terrible job to squeeze through underneath the City. One problem is where the two eastern branches of the tunnel join under Stepney City Farm. I visited the area in March and described it in this post. It would appear now that the new buildings at the farm have been completed, according to this press release.
CrossRail are now building a large underground cavern to allow the tunnelling machines to pass through and eventually contain the railway junction.
Bison to Bedlam or How To Make Friends
CrossRail is the biggest project in Europe and sometimes I get annoyed with it, as the works in the City around Liverpool Street do cause a lot of diversions to the 21 and141 buses I use to get to a lot of places. Sometimes, I call the project AngryRail as that’s how it makes me feel.
But they know the problems they are causing and they do their best to mitigate them, be it by green walls or other means.
I have just received an e-mail from the company about the staging of their pop-up exhibition; Bison to Bedlam for a month in October.
They are giving talks on the Wednesdays and offering prizes for visitors.
Prize 1:
A Young Friends pass from the British Museum – includes annual YF Membership (the child receives magazines, a birthday card etc), two tickets to sleepover in the museum, two tickets to attend an activity event organised at the museum.
Prize 2:
An annual family membership card that covers entry into the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, the Banqueting House Kensington Palace and Kew Palace.
They don’t seem to me to be bad prizes.
My only worry about the exhibition is that if the numbers who turned up at the pop-up version is anything to go by, is a month long enough?
When they have completed the railway, and collected a lot more valuable finds, they all need to be properly displayed, together with displays about the engineering. Perhaps there should be a CrossRail museum at Whitechapel?
More CrossRail Green Walls
I visited two more of CrossRail’s green walls today, in Hanover Square and Park Lane.
They certainly seem a good way to improve the look of a building site.
CrossRail’s Living Walls
CrossRail has been using ivy to hide their digging sites in Central London.
This protographs were taken at Finsbury Circus.
There’s more here on the CrossRail web site.
CrossRail On Open House
Whilst finding out about the archaeology, I also found that some CrossRail sites are to be thrown open to the public on the Open House Weekend. Here’s their summary.
On Saturday, 22 and Sunday, 23 September, we will ‘open the doors’ of the Bond Street station work sites, the Canary Wharf station work site and the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy (TUCA) to the public as part of the Open House London weekend.
TUCA is an interesting one, as it is a legacy of CrossRail and is effectively a European University of Tunnelling. I have talked about it before.
CrossRail’s Archaeology Exhibition Is Back By Popular Demand
I saw CrossRail’s pop-up archaeology exhibition; Bison to Bedlam, a few month’s ago and it was one of the most interesting exhibitions I’ve ever seen. Especially, as it was put together at short notice.
They have now decided to bring it back by popular demand. Here’s an extract from their press release.
The exhibition will be held at the Crossrail Visitors Information Centre at Tottenham Court Road from 2 October to 27 October on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11am to 7pm and Saturdays from 10am to 5pm. Crossrail’s Tottenham Court Road Visitor Information Centre is located at 16-18 St Giles High Street, WC2H 8LN.
It will be worth going again.
I suspect this exhibition could run and run.
The CrossRail Site At Limmo
The CrossRail site on the Limmo Peninsular is easy to see, either from the Beckton branch of the DLR or from the Emirates Air-line.
The tunnels will be driven both west towards Canary Wharf and ultimately Farringdon, and east towards the Victoria Dock portal.
Note that the CrossRail site is easily identified by the the white gantries and the three beige towers, which I suspect are for producing concrete. The site is tightly sandwiched between the River Lea to the west (left) and the DLR to the right (east), with the Lower Lea Crossing in front (south), partly hidden by trees. You can get a better idea of the layout on the ground, by looking at this map.
Note that Instone Wharf in the right front, opposite to the two light ships, will be used to take all the spoil from the tunnels away in barges. Spoil will be brought to the wharf by conveyors and then will go to create a new nature reserve at Wallasea Island in Essex.
I suspect that if someone gets in the cable-car with a good camera with a strong telephoto lens, some good pictures could be taken on a clear day. It would be best to take them, whilst travelling from south to north from North Greenwich to Royal Victoria.
The Anonymous Widower 