Crossrail
The £18 Million Railway*

Crossrail is a railway construction project underway mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency suburban passenger service crossing the capital from west to east, by connecting two major railway lines terminating in London, the Great Western Main Line and the Great Eastern Main Line. The project was approved in 2007, and construction began in 2009 on the central section and connections to existing lines that will become part of the route, branded the Elizabeth line.

*The project had an original budget of £14.8 billion but has since risen to over £18 billion.

Crossrail on Wikipedia

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The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway - Urban Heart Surgery - Episode 1.mp4

Episode 1

As they burrow the 42km of tunnels, engineers must battle to make sure that listed buildings don't crack, London Underground trains keep running, roads don't shut and the City stays in business. Crucially, they must drive one of their gigantic 1,000-tonne tunnel-boring machines through a tiny gap in the congested underbelly of Tottenham Court Road station without the passengers on the tube platforms below knowing they are there.

The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway - Tunnels Under the Thames - Episode 2.mp4

Episode 2

This episode follows engineers building London's brand new underground railway, Crossrail, as they take on a Great British obsession - building train tunnels underwater.

Linda Miller, an engineer more at home building space launch complexes at Cape Canaveral, battles to rebuild a Victorian tunnel under the Royal Docks in London's East End. Meanwhile, a British tunnelling dynasty - the Bermingham family - follow in the footsteps of the original father-son team of Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel to build a brand new tunnel under the River Thames.

The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway - Platforms and Plague Pits - Episode 3.mp4

Episode 3

A team battles to put together the giant jigsaw that will become a cathedral-sized station at Canary Wharf. It's so big, they have to build it in a dock and underwater. Its architect-designed roof is so complicated it comes in a kit of over 2,500 pieces. As engineers carve out the underground caverns that will become the new stations, they hit on some gruesome discoveries of London's past.

The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway - The Final Countdown - Episode 4.mp4

Episode 4

Costing 15 billion pounds, it is the biggest engineering project in Europe. 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 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.

The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway - The Elizabeth Line - Episode 5.mp4

Episode 5

Engineers must construct and fit out a new station at Paddington, erecting a 130m-long glass canopy to soar above the structure and plug directly into Brunel's original Grade I-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 the 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.