Crossrail project "demanding but achievable" says senior engineer

£16 billion scheme will link City of London with Heathrow Airport

The £16 billion Crossrail project to link London’s City and West End to Heathrow Airport is “very demanding but nevertheless very achievable”, an engineer closely involved with the scheme has said.

Douglas Oakervee, a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and former executive chairman of Crossrail, made the claim in a lecture last night at City University in London. 

Crossrail is expected to be completed in 2017 and the first work on the project is already commencing at Canary Wharf Station. It will connect three existing railway lines through a new 21km stretch of track, much of it underground, linking Maidenhead in the west with Abbey Wood and Shenfield stations in the east, via Heathrow Airport and central London.

Oakervee, who said such a project had been considered several times over the last half-century, added that Crossrail was “long overdue”. “There have been years of underinvestment in urban rail, ignoring the wider economic benefits,” he said.

Crossrail requires the integration of the new line with several existing stations, including Canary Wharf and Tottenham Court Road London Underground stations. It also requires the electrification of certain parts of existing track between Paddington and Maidenhead. Eight new sub-surface stations will be created.

The complexity of the project means that Crossrail engineers must work closely with counterparts at Network Rail, London Underground and the Canary Wharf Group. Crossrail is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Transport for London and its funding is being provided by TfL and the Department of Transport.

Crossrail would increase rail capacity in London by 10%. It will cater to an expected rise in population of 800,000 people in Greater London, and the creation of more than 600,000 jobs on Crossrail’s west-east axis in the next six years.

The scheme endured a tortured gestation in Parliament before it was finally passed into law in 2008. Oakervee said the support of former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone had been crucial to acceptance of the project and that Oakervee’s team had worked very closely and openly with staff at the Treasury to enable Crossrail to move forward.

He said that a possible forthcoming change of government should not derail Crossrail. The current Tory Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has backed it publicly.

It is thought, as a conservative estimate, that the scheme could create more than £36 billion of value for the UK economy, with almost £15 billion in tax revenues for the Exchequer.