Crossrail workers tunnel into Liverpool Street station

A 1,000 tonne tunnel machine called Elizabeth has broken into Liverpool Street Crossrail station on Thursday as part of a project to link all Crossrail tunnels for the first time.

The project, launched with Elizabeth’s 40 metres breakthrough in the eastern end of Liverpool Street station, will mark Crossrail’s largest tunnel drive. It will run 8.3km from Limmo Peninsula near Canning Town, to Farringdon.

The machine was named after the Queen of England and will carve out another 750 metres of tunnel before arriving at Farringdon, where another machine will then take over.

The new tunnels will boost rail capacity by 10%, according to Crossrail, serving an additional 1.5m commuters with a 45-minute journey to central London, linking Reading with Essex.

Crossrail chief executive Andrew Wolstenhome said: “This is a phenomenal feat of civil engineering that London can be justifiably proud of. The next challenge is to implement railway systems across the route, keeping the project on time and within budget.”

Sister-machine Victoria, and Elizabeth are the last of eight Crossrail tunnel machines to have carved out a route underneath the city, linking the West End, Canary Wharf and southeast London.