The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway: Countdown to Opening follows the team of more than ten thousand engineers and construction workers – close up - as they race to build ten new stations in Central London, lay thirty miles of track, and build a fleet of sixty-six new 200m long trains to complete the brand new subterranean railway under the capital – Crossrail – London’s new Underground.
Costing almost fifteen billion pounds and taking ten years to build, it’s one of the biggest engineering projects in Europe. In the last series we witnessed gigantic boring machines navigating their way beneath city infrastructure and under the Thames. But now comes the tricky part. Construction work spills out over the hoardings and into the streets. The challenges facing the engineering teams are immense – from constructing platforms and concourses the size of an aircraft carrier hidden under Oxford Street, to building a 130m long great glass canopy that soars above Paddington Station – all while keeping London moving.
This series follows the team of more than ten thousand engineers and construction workers as they race to build a brand new railway under London – Crossrail – London’s new Underground. Costing fifteen billion pounds, it’s the biggest engineering project in Europe and a huge challenge to pull off.
Linda Miller, an engineer more at home constructing space launch complexes at Cape Canaveral, must build what will become Britain’s busiest station – Farringdon – an underground structure longer than the Shard skyscraper is tall. Linda and her team must battle ancient fault lines that threaten the site with flooding, race to build emergency access tunnels to alleviate pressure on a congested construction site, and piece together a giant geometric jigsaw that will form a ‘cathedral’-sized station entrance. Engineers in Whitechapel must drag the original Victorian station into the 21st century by building a brand new station on top of a bridge. While construction workers build innovative ‘floating’ rail tracks directly under the Barbican Concert Hall to stop noisy trains from disturbing performances as they travel right underneath the building at 90mph. The episode ends with a very special visitor arriving on site to give it, the railway its new title – the “Elizabeth Line”.
This final episode follows the men and women racing to build London’s brand new underground railway – the “Elizabeth Line’’ - in time for the first train launch in May 2017.
Engineers must construct and fit out a new station at Paddington, erect a 130m long great glass canopy to soar above the structure, and plug directly into Brunel’s original grade one listed station – a nerve wracking feat. At Tottenham Court Road, workers are building underground platforms and concourses the size of an aircraft carrier in the heart of the world’s busiest shopping district. The team must carefully remove enormous props that hold apart the station walls, as convoys of concrete trucks drive down Oxford Street where half a million shoppers and tourists visit, every day. In Derby, a father and son team – third and fourth generation train builders – race to construct sixty-six trains to ferry passengers across the 30 miles of Crossrail line. Every site and engineer must pull together as they race to deliver this new fifteen billion pound railway - one of Europe's largest construction projects - in time for the first trains roll out.
| Executive Producer | Carlo Massarella |
| Series Director & Producer | Lee Reading |
| Production Manager | Farne Sinclair |