THE CROSSRAIL STATION IS VYING TO BE THE EARLIEST MAJOR STATION ON THE ELIZABETH LINE TO REACH COMPLETION
It is no secret that one of Crossrail’s biggest challenges has been station construction. Bond Street will not be ready to open with the rest of the Elizabeth Line, while there have been major challenges at Whitechapel.
At the other end of the scale, some stations are almost ready to welcome trains. One of these is Farringdon, where Construction Manager Martin Gamble jokes that there is a friendly rivalry with Tottenham Court Road, also well advanced, as to which will be the first to reach completion.
Crossrail’s construction partner here is the BFK joint venture of Bam, Ferrovial and Kier. On 4 October Farringdon went ‘PPE-free’, meaning personal protective equipment was no longer a mandatory requirement for site visitors in the front of house areas.
This is not to say that Farringdon hasn’t been a challenging site to work on: the Crossrail platforms are buried beneath Smithfield meat market. Like most of the Elizabeth Line’s central stations, there will be entrances at each end of the platforms; at the western end, where the existing Farringdon station is located, the integrated ticket hall was b…
