I had been infatuated with the idea of exploring a brand new tube line since the TBM’s launched 5-6 years ago; I thought to myself it’s one thing exploring the tube network that already exists, but it’s another exploring a whole line that doesn’t quite exist yet and where you can see monitor its progression from TBM to fully a fledged running underground line while still facing a lot of the challenges one faces exploring the rest of the tube’s infrastructure.
One of the main obstacles when exploring the London Underground are the orange clad trackies that pop up most nights and will either thwart you before you’ve even started, or force you to run/climb in a way you never thought you were able to. The difference between an active line and one that’s under construction is that where you may have half a dozen-or-so workers come out on random nights to carry out maintenance, these can usually be avoided by simply trying again another night. With a line that’s under construction, they’re obviously still building it. So there’s a lot of workers – and they’re there 24/7.
This made exploring it awkward, to say the least – I and many others in London would manage to probe a little into the line from time to time and we’d come away with photos of concrete tunnels in varying stages of completion – but without ever managing to reach any of the really interesting sections.
Bank holidays didn’t make an awful lot of difference either – not even Christmas it seemed. In fact, one Boxing Day night Space Invader, LonDan and I found ourselves stuck in a staircase down to a station with workers on the stairs below, workers on the stairs above and workers in the adjacent corridor… (we got away).
After this it was hard to keep up any motivation to carry on working on it - exploring any of it became a perpetual cycle of going out, spotting workers and taking the night bus home. I began to doubt that anyone would ever manage to walk the full length of Crossrail – bits and pieces would get done, sure, and some managed to get further than others. But the ever-present workers kept us mostly at bay.
Cracking Crossrail became a team effort, with Adders, Monkey, Anorak and I working to tick the whole of the line off.
Plumstead to Canary Wharf:
First up, I don’t actually have any photos of the Plumstead portals; we didn’t use them for access, we used them to exit after walking up from Woolwich. After seeing Crossrail’s unique track laying machines sleeping in the tunnels we had hopes their worker train that’s already using the laid track may be sitting in the tunnels somewhere. Alas it wasn’t but anyway – the portals are all identical really and I’ve included photos further down the report from a different set of portals.
In the tunnels prior to Woolwich station – track and track laying machines:
Into Woolwich station:
From here the tunnel winds its way under the Thames before resurfacing in North Woolwich, where it then follows the surface route of the long abandoned eastern terminus of the North London Line, through the refurbished Connaught Tunnel and into Custom House station. Being a surface station I never bothered to explore it, simply because it’d be boring. I also struggled to find time and motivation for the Connaught Tunnel – I saw it many years ago while it was still abandoned.
Thames Tunnel and the North Woolwich portals:
From here Lizzy goes back underground, passing the two massive shafts at Limmo Peninsula (FYI one is to be filled in – the other is to be retained as a permanent intervention point) before then arriving at the next station on the line – Canary Wharf.
In the tunnels near to Limmo Peninsula:
And into Canary Wharf:
I tried to get in here on a couple of occasions but was always thwarted by workers. Remember the aforementioned story where we became trapped on all sides on a staircase by workers? That was here – we were trying to get to the station to then walk up to the Stepney junction. It didn’t work out obviously, but we got away and I slept in my own bed that night which matters more.
Owing to the shopping centre that sits on the floors above the station, the developers were pretty keen to get everything finished quickly; so Canary Wharf was the first and only (at the time) completed station. The only missing bits were the platform edge doors, the trains, people and a million CCTV cameras. When Monkey and I finally got in, we had the platforms to ourselves, although workers were busy in the tunnels and later on in the night when we climbed through the heavy-duty dust sheets into the tunnels we had a near miss when a truck appeared over a crest at the opposite end of the platform driving straight towards us!
Pudding Mill Lane to Stepney Green:
PML is where the Essex branch of the Lizzy Line dives underground for its route through central London. There are no stations on this stretch – just two permanent intervention points (Eleanor Street and Mile End) and at the end the Stepney caverns where the Essex branch and the Plumstead branch of the line converge into a single line before carrying on to Whitechapel.
Stepney was what brought us here – Monkey and I worked on this one together and came up with all sorts of plans to do it, even taking bicycles down on Christmas Day if all else failed.
It’s roughly a 2.8km walk from PML to Stepney, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’m not gonna lie the tunnels on this stretch are boring – just plain featureless concrete that repeats itself with every bend. I think Monkey and I walked this 2 or 3 times before actually getting into Stepney; one of those occasions we got all the way to Stepney only to find ourselves no more than 5 metres away from workers and 2.8km from the nearest camera-free escape route. We ran away pretty quick and quietly and took the long walk back out again.
In the end, we got in on a rare night where there were no workers at all and so had free roam of both of the massive caverns and the rectangular shaft that engulfs the site above.
En route to Stepney and the Eleanor Street intervention point:
Stepney Caverns:
Stepney to Farringdon station:
This stretch was one of the last to be bored, with the TBM’s responsible terminating at Farringdon station in May last year. As such – the stations and tunnels here (Whitechapel and Liverpool Street) felt very primitive compared to the rest of the line where in some places there’s already track. Whitechapel seemed to have pretty much been left in the same state it was in when the TBM’s passed through; muddy and partially flooded, there was even remnants of the concrete boring head at the ends of the platforms – still embellished with scars from the TBM’s violent break-through.
Adders, Monkey, Anorak and I took the long walk to Whitechapel on one regular work night evening. This meant our stay in Whitechapel station was limited; it was the point where workers passed a door which we were stood on the other side of that we decided it was time to pack up and scarper, bearing in mind our only viable exit was 1.6km away and had the workers seen us heading in that direction they’d have known exactly where we were going.
Whitechapel station:
^the sign spoke the troof
At the western end of Whitechapel sits a future crossover in the running tunnels. Right now it’s semi-flooded and blocked off, but it’ll look good once they’ve laid the track here.
Part 2 coming up...
