Episode 2 The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway

After an extraordinary 100 million hours of labour...

CHEERING

Wecome to Farringdon!

..it's finally possible to experience

a driver's-eye view of the brand-new £15 billion railway

being built directly beneath the heart of central London -

Crossrail.

Now it's a race to the finish line.

Right now, the pressure is mounting on 10,000 workers

to finish building this ambitious railway's stations...

We're currently working 24/7.

..platforms...

If any one component is not finished, you have nothing at all.

..and trains...

It's a hell of a challenge.

..so that passenger services can finally begin.

It is vital that this is right.

Heads up! Heads up!

They face a constant battle to avoid snarling up the streets...

It gets the nerves going, the adrenaline pumping.

..or causing them to collapse.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

That's a problem.

For the last three years, cameras have been following crews

as they struggle to finish construction

so that the first train can depart on time.

It's all part of keeping London moving.

The launch is in touching distance.

Keep coming down.

We're in the home straight now.

We'll get cracking, then, yeah?

This is the exclusive inside story

of the race to complete London's new underground railway.

It does keep me awake at night.

Time is money here.

We knew it was always going to be tight.

All stop there.

Across the capital,

Crossrail's engineering teams are feeling the heat.

After six years' work,

the tunnels and platforms for the city's new 42km underground railway,

the Elizabeth line, are almost complete.

Two notches up again!

Now they face a race to build and fit out

the railway's ten new stations,

so the line can open on time.

It's an epic endeavour.

Crossrail is a huge new railway for London.

I don't think there's been anything in my lifetime

as complex as Crossrail.

The scale of it, the technical challenges that have been overcome

and the really critical timescale to which we're delivering.

We often talk about the current day as a sort of new golden era

for infrastructure and engineering in Britain.

And you've got to go back to the days of Brunel and the like

to get something that's probably comparable.

The new railway will pass right across London...

..cutting the commute from Heathrow Airport in the west into the city

to less than 30 minutes.

It will connect key mainline train stations...

..to London's West End,

the historic Square Mile...

and the new business district at Canary Wharf.

With the first phase of the new railway soon set to open,

there's one crucial component missing -

the trains.

We can build all the stations and track you like.

But the trains have to be there, as well.

After a two-year battle, waging off rival bids from Spain and Japan...

..the £1 billion contract to design and build the rolling stock

for the Elizabeth line landed here in Derby...

supporting over 1,200 jobs.

It's one of the biggest contracts on the entire Crossrail project.

Workers have been building trains on this site for more than 140 years.

OK, great.

But constructing the Elizabeth line fleet

will really test the mettle of these seasoned train builders.

It's a massive challenge going from, effectively, a blank sheet of paper

to ramping up to producing a whole fleet of trains.

It's a huge task.

-And so you can see that there's a tiny gap there.

-Yep.

Martin has just 24 months to design, build, test and deliver

594 train cars and carriages

before passenger services begin.

Miss this deadline and they face heavy financial penalties.

Are you ready? Faster.

Capable of travelling at speeds of up to 90mph,

each Elizabeth line train will be over 200 metres long.

The team is designing their floors, walls and roofs

to be made from aluminium.

They must be compact to squeeze through the tunnels,

but big enough on the inside to accommodate up to 1,500 passengers.

The trains need full air conditioning

and live passenger information boards.

The stakes are high.

If we make mistakes in engineering that then go into production

and are only found later on in the life of the train,

they cost a large amount of money to put right.

For us, we want to make sure it's right at the design phase.

What time are the covers coming?

It's down to 25-year-old Kane Jellyman

to keep the £1 billion train build on track.

These are the largest trains we've actually produced on the site

and the largest trains you'll probably see

on London Underground for a long while.

The target is to build 66 trains, which is actually 594 carriages.

That is a hell of a lot of trains.

In order to do that,

we've split the production line down into many key stages.

There's five key steps into making, like, an actual train.

The underframe comes in, which is like the floor.

The roof is loaded into the jigs.

Followed by that, we bring the body sides in.

It's called the tombing process,

because this is where the shape of the vehicle actually comes together

and it looks very much like a tomb.

Through the years,

generations of train-building families have worked at this plant.

I get to see my dad every day at work.

It wasn't really intended. It's kind of...

It's ended up this way, yeah.

But, yeah, I'm the fourth generation here.

Believe it or not, it's four generations of Jellymans.

My son, Kane, myself,

my father, Maurice and my grandad, Frank,

spanning over 128 years.

I've always heard positive things about my grandad

when he was down here.

I know there's a certain standard that I have to uphold.

Train production began on site here

during the railway boom of the 1840s.

By the early 20th century,

the Derby train works were producing 40 steam trains a week.

-REPORTER:

-She's off.

Another product of creative brain and deft fingers goes on its way,

a monument to the men who made it.

The workshop may look nice and clean now,

but it's the same metalwork, the same bricks

which were here over 100 years ago,

which we're building these brand-new vehicles in.

While Kane's team construct the shells of the train...

So here we are, John, our mock-up.

Excellent.

..John Hunter oversees the fit-out of their interiors.

So tell me about these seats.

John is in charge of all aspects

of London Underground's Tube train design,

from seat covers and signs

to the iconic Tube map.

This is the first time we'll see a physical mock-up.

We see lots of things in the computer world.

But seeing a train in reality, it's quite trepidatious

about actually is it as good as we were hoping it will be?

In terms of the form,

these are representative of what Crossrail will look like.

Handing over a design

is like handing over your child or your baby

to somebody else to look after.

I'm very protective of the design.

There's always the question with a mock-up is how real is the mock-up?

Obviously, it needs to be

a dull-polished stainless steel finish.

The traditional LED bright spots, which I really detest.

The thing that concerns me slightly at the moment is lacking handholds.

If I'm here, I'm OK.

Here.

Here, I'm fine.

Over here...

I think the problem is, if you're in the middle,

I'll have nothing to hold.

So I guess we'll need to work how we're going

-to get a hand hold about here.

-Right.

I think the important thing is we don't end up with a jungle gym

of grab holds everywhere.

OK, arm positioning feels a bit low.

And I know this sounds very anal,

but this is the attention to detail that we have to swim in, I'm afraid.

I'm about 75% happy with everything I'm seeing.

Our feet are definitely to the fire at the moment.

Across the floor, Kane's team is working flat out

to assemble the 125,000 components that make up each train.

With the roof, floor and sides of this carriage in place...

..it's time to attach the driver's cab.

OK, it's on the way. Excellent.

This cab unit weighs three tonnes

and contains more than £250,000 worth of crucial electronics.

The electronics control everything,

from the train's speed and doors to its lighting and air conditioning.

A dent or scratch could wreck its intricate parts

and set the train building schedule back.

Just the box behind you there.

We don't have excess cabs in stock,

so he needs to make sure he doesn't scratch it.

Do you want me to help you guide it in, Kells?

I'm trying to let him concentrate so doesn't make any mistakes.

Clear for east, Kells.

Keep it coming.

Whoa!

There's a lot of money being craned there,

so God forbid if something did happen.

Yeah...

A couple of clicks east.

Keep it going.

Nice landing.

There are more than 93 miles of cables

and 43,000 connectors in each train

and it's crucial that they're watertight.

We're starting the water test, Phil.

The tiniest leak could short out a train's electronics

and leave it stranded in a tunnel.

The last thing we want is leaks on the vehicle.

We don't want any water, when it's raining with this British weather,

coming through the windows, doors.

We've got a leak.

Oh, have we got a leak?

We've got a small leak here on this doorway.

So we're going to have to rectify that

before the vehicle can move on to the next stage.

That's the reason we're doing the test,

find the leaks now, rectify them.

Make sure we don't deliver the vehicles with any leaks.

The leak is bad news

and could hold up production of the entire train fleet.

With it being a moving production line,

if we don't eliminate the leaks as quick as possible,

this will become a bottleneck stage

and will stop the rest of the production line from moving.

It's not a deadline that we can afford to miss.

The deadline that everyone on the Crossrail project

is working towards,

from the train manufacturers in Derby

to the station builders in central London,

is now just 23 months away.

In the first phase of Crossrail's launch,

the new trains must be ready to start running overground

from Liverpool Street to Shenfield in Essex.

The fleet of trains and major engineering work

need to be finished before this critical date

for the railway to open on time.

One of the most complex stations that must be completed

will serve passengers travelling to Oxford Street,

the shopping mecca that runs through the heart of central London

between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road.

This is the busiest shopping street in Europe.

Half a million people visit the high-end stores here every day.

It's beneath this iconic street that three years ago

engineers had to guide their digging machines

through the tightest point of the entire route,

known as the Eye Of The Needle,

to excavate the tunnels

for Elizabeth line trains to run through.

The tunnelling machine at the moment

is quite literally above the tunnel crown.

It's tight.

Now, with the tunnels complete,

David Crabtree leads a team of more than 200 workers,

racing to build Tottenham Court Road's massive ticket halls

in time for the trains to start rolling.

Fighting for space with shoppers, buses and taxis

makes this deadline particularly challenging to meet.

I've built railway stations.

I've built roads, motorways, shops, offices, hospitals.

But this is a construction project like no other.

Our station is about the size of an aircraft carrier.

So if you consider constructing an aircraft carrier

in the middle of London, underground,

whilst keeping London going

with all its myriad of people and vehicle movements

all sloshing about,

that's what we've got to do at Tottenham Court Road.

For any engineer, this is a challenging and daunting project.

And it does keep me awake at night.

Just ask my wife!

To build the new station here,

David's team has excavated two huge holes to create the ticket halls,

30 metres deep and 400 metres apart,

removing enough earth to fill 18 Olympic swimming pools.

The ticket halls will plug directly into the train tunnels below

and the existing London Underground Tube services.

Digging vast holes like these in central London is no simple task.

The earth around the edge of the holes is fragile and could fall in,

causing the surrounding shops and buildings to collapse.

So as the team dug down level by level,

they installed 40 massive props

to hold back the earth as they built the station's walls.

Now, with the walls in place,

they face the nerve-racking task of dismantling and removing the props.

This is bottom-up construction.

As you can see here, it leaves us a nice, big, open space,

and that's very useful because the majority of our tunnelling

has been taking place from here,

so we've had to put all these props in place.

However, now we need to get them out,

which is going to be an even bigger challenge.

This is engineering on a very big scale.

Each 35-metre-long prop holds back the weight of 1,500 tons of earth.

As they remove the props,

the walls should redistribute the pressure

down through the station's floors.

At least, that's the theory.

We are about to start removing our first big prop.

And this is one of the moments that we all hold our breath.

We've done lots and lots and lots of calculations and assessments

to make sure that, when we take our prop out, everything is done safely.

But you don't actually know until you actually take it out

what's going to happen.

So we're a little bit nervous.

David's team can't afford to take any risks,

so have set up this special monitoring office

with a bird's-eye view of the ticket hall hole.

Computers here link up to 180 sensors around the props

to alert the team to any potentially catastrophic movements.

With support chains attached to the first prop...

Come up a touch. Now, have a shackle ready.

That's it. Lovely.

..Edel Power leads the team making the first crucial incision.

The very first cut is the most critical.

So we've a lot of different types of instruments

monitoring the movement of the props and the concrete wall

as we are doing this works.

Raw data is downloaded every few minutes

and relayed back to the office.

They use a mix of oxygen and propane heated to 2,500 degrees Celsius

to cut out small squares in the prop.

They cut windows out of it, a section at a time,

just to release the pressure.

It's hot work.

As you can see, my glasses are steaming up.

-I'll give you a call just as soon as I get the reading.

-All right.

What I'm seeing on my screen is a graph of the current load

shown in the props and the level above.

The yellow line here is what we call an amber trigger level.

If we hit that level,

it isn't necessarily a stop work or anything like that,

but it's something we would analyse.

There's then the red trigger level,

and we would stop work if we hit a red trigger level.

The more holes they cut, the weaker this prop becomes.

They hold their breath

and hope that neither the prop nor walls buckle.

The readings have just come in.

There's tiny, tiny changes.

-Hi, Tim.

-Hi there, Edel.

It is OK to continue with the cutting

and I'll keep monitoring every 15 minutes.

-Thanks very much.

-Cheers.

-Bye.

We're just at the last stage

of cutting the final piece now.

You'll just see a slight bow in the steel,

where all the pressure is on the smaller area.

It's gradually gone from a straight edge to a bow out,

which is what it's meant to do,

it's meant to take the pressure out of it as we're cutting it.

I was made to destroy metal.

I am the master blaster!

Guiding the pieces of the prop up out of the hole

through this maze of metal will be like a high-stakes game of Kerplunk.

Knocking another prop out of place

would put even greater pressure on the ones left holding the hole up.

It can't be lifted directly up from the position it's currently in.

So what we'll do is move the prop sideways

until it's clear of any overhead obstruction

and then the crane will lift it out of the basement for us.

Nice and easy now. Nice and easy.

Hold it there one second. Hold it there.

Just up on your hoist now. Up on your hoist.

And now all clear up. Keep it up.

Keep hoisting up.

It takes a painstaking six hours to remove the first prop.

With 39 more to go, this team have their work cut out.

There's now just eight months to go

until phase one of Crossrail launches

with the first trains departing Liverpool Street.

Yeah, these are all really impactful, the colours.

John Hunter has come to the London Transport archives for inspiration,

to help him squeeze the Elizabeth line onto the iconic Tube map,

so that passengers know where to board and disembark.

We know the challenges of putting Crossrail on the map.

It's already quite busy.

So it's always good to return to the roots, back to the original.

The famous London Underground map was designed by Harry Beck

back in 1931.

He used to work in the signal engineering office

-as a draughtsman...

-Right.

-..and during a spell of redundancy in '31,

he started working on this map.

The designs of early London Underground maps

were based on street layouts and geographical locations.

As a result, they were cluttered and spaghetti-like.

More confusing than helpful.

Inspired by the layout of electrical circuit boards,

Beck reorganised the Tube lines vertically,

horizontally and at 45-degree angles.

The map also featured the River Thames.

His striking but simple design

would go on to influence transport maps around the world.

This was really, really radical at the time because, before that,

we had geographic-style maps.

They would have green spaces on there, parks,

and local attractions like museums.

But what Beck did, by moving away from the geographic style,

he could then create this diagrammatic map

-and give everything breathing space.

-Mm.

It conveys information really efficiently.

The balance on the typography is outstanding.

The regularity of the spacing,

-to be that bold in those times, it's quite remarkable.

-Yeah.

Some of the challenges we have today,

particularly around the National Rail interchanges,

were definitely present here.

This problem here, for example, around Euston

is always an issue for me.

I don't know if this reassures you at all,

but Beck found Euston an issue, as well.

He worked on it from 1931 to '59, so...

-Right.

-Quite a few decades trying to work on that issue.

-So I've got 28 years.

-Yes!

As we're going wider, particularly with the Elizabeth line,

we're having to shrink everything down

to fit the same physical product.

So that's going to be a real pressure on the map.

My challenge is to do as equally good a job as Beck did,

but put the Crossrail right at the heart of the Tube map.

In West London, with Crossrail's opening edging closer,

engineers are hard at work

constructing another of the line's ambitious new stations.

It will allow the Elizabeth line trains to plug directly

into one of the world's most famous train stations -

Paddington.

This iconic Victorian station was built over 160 years ago

by one of Britain's greatest engineers -

Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

100,000 people use this crucial hub every day.

It connects to underground and mainline trains.

Building a new station here, without disrupting passengers or services,

creates unique challenges for site manager David Shepard.

Paddington is very important. It's a gateway from the West.

The new station will be a major transport focal point

and I'm sure it'll be very busy when it becomes operational.

We have a finishing date.

We do everything we can to make sure that we finish on that date.

But it's quite a challenge.

To build the Elizabeth line's new station at Paddington,

David's team is digging out a vast ticket hall

260 metres long

by 25 metres wide...

..excavating enough earth to fill 44 Olympic-size swimming pools.

This hall will connect to the completed train tunnels...

..and platforms below ground.

They must install huge sections of brick cladding

to fit out the ticket hall...

..and a spectacular ten-metre-tall steel canopy on top.

Bespoke glass panels will allow light to flow straight down

to platform level.

This is our site here.

We're right in the middle of an urban area that's very busy

and you can see the traffic around us here,

it's nonstop all day long.

Time is money here.

We have to make sure that work stays on schedule.

The construction work and traffic has closed crucial roads

used to deliver supplies to Paddington's businesses.

David's team has no option but to lend a hand

to help keep the station's services running,

adding to the pressure.

We've cut off the short route to the pub,

where we're building the new station

so we need to ensure that they get their barrels in a timely manner.

Punters waiting for their trains would not be happy

if we were unable to make that delivery.

I couldn't imagine how long it'd take if we never had help.

Three hours, three and a half hours.

We get one delivery a week.

And we do need the next week's delivery to replenish that,

because the store's almost empty by the end of the week.

If there are no products, we cannot serve our customers.

The idea is to really keep the station flowing,

keeping the passengers moving.

As David's team fight for both space and time

to dig out the ticket hall...

Whoa!

..they make a unique discovery.

Along this line here, as we go west,

we've uncovered a roadway

constructed of wooden blocks, almost cube-like blocks.

This is one of the wooden blocks,

you can see here.

They've actually been soaked in preservative.

Almost brick shaped, actually.

Another one here.

These are very significant historically.

From the Brunel era. Over 150 years old.

And when the station was fully operational,

it would have been a busy area, as well. Just as it is now.

After constructing his masterpiece in 1857,

Brunel laid this innovative wooden road leading into the station

to absorb the clatter of goods arriving during the night,

so neighbours weren't disturbed.

Very exciting to actually see and handle

these Brunel-era wooden blocks.

See it, feel it, taste it.

As the ticket hall takes shape,

David's team need an idea as inspiring as Brunel's

to help them complete its walls.

Yeah, yeah. We're taking a lot of time. It's a big job, isn't it?

It's a bit of a headache trying to work out how to put these things in.

They must install 103 panels of brick cladding

to face the station's walls.

Each panel weighs up to ten tonnes.

But parts of the wall are undercover

and out of reach for the crane's hook.

Their solution is ingenious.

The team will construct a unique rail system on the walls.

This should allow operators to crane each panel

into the open-top section of the station...

..and then skate it across the wall into position.

The team has a razor-thin window of just seven hours every night

to position their crane on the road...

..so they must remain focused.

We've got Paul on the task and he'll be working the night shift.

He's young and he's talented. It'll be a big test for him.

Fresh out of university, 23-year-old Paul Chambers

is keen to make a name for himself in construction.

Projects like this only come along every 10 or 20 years.

Crossrail seems to be a bit like Top Trumps for construction projects.

Everything's Europe's largest or world's first.

It makes it quite difficult.

The guys have come up with a pretty innovative solution

to installing the panels.

Basically, we're building a railway on its side.

So the panels get dropped in and then skated across the wall

into their final position.

Good.

I can't build this wall unless I close this road.

This is a very busy bit of London

so the logistics for a job like this can be a bit of a nightmare.

You're trying to squeeze a very big train station

into a very small place.

Come back up and I'll get the crane in then.

Spot on.

The crane's on its way down now.

We'll get it set up.

If it's a tug-of-war between you and the crane,

I know who's going to win.

We're now ready to lift the first panel.

The weight's coming on now.

Bring it down now for me, please. Sean, bring it down, please.

Keep it coming.

A little touch more.

Keep it coming, buddy.

Keep it coming.

Looking good, mate.

About a foot to go, Sean.

Keep coming.

A touch more, Sean. That's it.

That'll do, mate. Beautiful.

That is the first panel down on the corbel.

The panel's basically a big J,

so it hooks on to this sort of shelf

and then we can skate it along.

Yeah, I think we'll have a bit of a sweat on by the end of it.

OK.

It's right across now.

The clever rail system gets them out of a tight spot.

This is kind of like a very expensive version of Tetris

or one of those games you have

where you have to get the blocks to line up on your phone.

It's just a bit more complicated cos everything weighs ten tonnes.

Winch it up, Sean, please. Take the slack up.

Squeezing the final piece into position will be the trickiest part.

Come round to the right again for me.

Using panels of bricks prefabricated off-site

makes it faster to build this wall

than cementing the bricks in place one by one

and creates a higher-quality finish.

There's going to be about one centimetre either side of the panel.

But the slightest knock could cause the delicate brick sheet

to crack or shatter.

If you rush it, you'll take corners off every panel near it.

And hold it there.

It looks properly tight.

It'll be a long night getting this last piece into place.

Oh, not fun.

Just one bit in now.

In Derby...

We need to get this door watertight.

The leak's all sorted, Phil.

Spot on.

Kane's team has solved the problem of the leaking train.

We've just ran the water test again. Everything's fine, all passed.

So it's on to the next stage.

All clear.

Bombardier's production line is now working round the clock

to deliver the 594 carriages

that will make up 66 Elizabeth line trains.

Time is running out.

There's less than four months to go

until phase one of Crossrail launches,

with the first train due to depart from Liverpool Street.

They cannot afford to miss this crucial deadline.

The first train must be ready on time.

It's the moment of truth for John.

Does his design measure up?

We're here to look at the 345.

If there's any mistakes, I'll be making them clear.

-Hey, John.

-Hi, Kane, how are you doing?

-Not bad. Yourself?

-Very good.

Good to see the train.

A problem at this stage could spell disaster for the team

and delay the start of passenger services.

-Welcome aboard.

-Thank you very much.

I notice there's a mismatch on the colour here.

Yeah, we've got a slight paint mismatch here

which we're just going to sort.

This rubber, as well,

I notice you've got to trim that off at the end.

Yeah, just the final finishing,

just letting the rubber settle before it's cut.

Let's check these armrests. You've got your armrests to the back.

I've got mine to the front. That's working quite well.

Nice bit of undercut, as well,

which is really useful to avoid too much of the man spreading.

Yeah, no glare in the eyes.

We're going to have a race.

This has come out well.

The important thing for me is, when you look down,

-you haven't got this constant feel of almost like a cage.

-Yeah.

Looking really, really good, Kane. Really, really happy. Impressed.

A few less sleepless nights now, I think, to be honest.

-That's good to hear.

-A fantastic job.

John seemed really happy,

so I'll report that back to the assembly line.

And we've set the benchmark now, at the end of the day.

So we need to make sure we achieve that every single time,

every single vehicle.

After thousands of hours of design and construction work,

this is what the finished Elizabeth line trains will look like.

But before going into operation,

each train must pass a series of rigorous trials.

Engineers freeze them at minus 25 degrees

to check their resilience to winter weather...

..and race them at top speeds to test their handling.

We can't be complacent. This is just the start.

We've got over 500 cars left to deliver.

So the guys just need to keep working hard

and carry on delivering.

100 miles south,

in the heart of London's West End shopping district,

the clock is also ticking for David Crabtree's team

to finish building Crossrail's new station

at Tottenham Court Road before train services can begin.

It's taken over 26 weeks' work to cut and remove the 40 props

supporting the station's walls.

Pull it back a touch.

Now with the props out

and work below ground on the platforms,

escalator shafts and walkways almost complete,

David's team must build the ticket hall's roof on top.

This won't be easy.

There are still

in excess of 200 people working behind me.

We've got to turn what is essentially an empty structure

into a fully-functioning station.

When Tottenham Court Road station is complete,

developers plan to build seven storeys of shopping and living space

on top of the station roof.

The top of the structure must be robust enough

to support this additional weight...

..so Crossrail engineers have had to design a super-strong roof.

They will reinforce it with bundles of cable called tendons,

that will crisscross the roof from east to west and north to south.

Workers will encase these tendons in special tubes,

cover them in reinforcement bars, then pour concrete on top.

Once dry, they will tighten the tendons

to make the roof stronger so it can hold up the extra weight.

The vision is to have this big open-plan ticket hall.

But if you want open plan, then you can't have columns in it.

Our problem is that we have a heavy building going on top of it.

So if we can't put columns in, then we need to have a very strong roof.

It takes an army of workers ten weeks

to weave the 150 tonnes of steel tendons into place across the roof.

Now comes the hard part.

They must entomb the steelwork in 250 cubic metres of concrete.

That's 33 lorries' worth.

They need to lay the concrete nonstop,

to avoid leaving joins that could crack and weaken the roof.

Guiding the constant stream of concrete lorries

through Oxford Street's shoppers and traffic will be a relentless battle.

OK, guys, we know the main activity is pouring that slip.

Any hold-up could wreck the £10 million roof

and delay the launch of passenger services.

Sukhi will be on gate one.

Yeah.

Gary will be on gate two.

30-year-old Marijan Harris is in charge of this crucial stage.

This is my first big concrete site that I've took the lead on.

So it's a little bit nerve-racking.

This will be one of the biggest pours to date that we've done.

It's a huge challenge.

Due to the nature of the pour,

we have to keep delivering concrete efficiently and fast.

Once we start, we can't stop.

The pressure is on Marijan to feed these pumps

with eight lorries of freshly-mixed concrete an hour.

We're going to use two mobile concrete pumps,

which will be set up one on Dean Street and one on Chapel Street.

They are currently getting set up as we speak.

The rest of the people stay behind the barriers, please.

One little slip and something can go wrong

and then it can be going from a good exercise to something very bad.

Each lorry needs to travel two miles from the concrete plant

to reach the site.

We're expecting concrete any minute now,

so I'm just giving you a heads-up.

All right, thank you, cheers.

We've got concrete arrived

and, within five minutes, we're going to get a lorry on the pump.

All right, the first lorry is here. Let's bring it in.

There's no second chances.

So it gets the nerves going, the adrenaline pumping.

Let's get ready to get him out.

So there'll be one there.

He'll be manning the hose. So he'll control where the concrete goes.

The other two there, they hold a poker,

and that ensures an even spread.

How's the concrete?

Good? Nice and wet?

The concrete has a lifespan of just two hours

from leaving the plant before it goes off.

This gives Marijan's team a razor-tight window

to lay each load when it arrives.

Traffic hold-ups make time even tighter.

Traffic marshal, go to gate two, please.

Within one hour, we've got seven loads already gone in

and the eighth one is waiting outside here.

Evening commuters make the fight for space tighter still.

There's a clock ticking.

We've got three lorries waiting in the lorry holding area.

So a little bit of a backlog.

The team up on the roof has their work cut out.

They must make sure

that the concrete pours into every nook and crevice.

Any gaps or bubbles could weaken the finish.

-HE BLOWS WHISTLE

-Can you hold on a second, please?

Thank you. Cheers.

That's the 17th truck that's come in now.

We're halfway through the pour.

To make sure the top of the slab is the right level,

we need to check it with a laser.

-BEEPING

-Very good.

Rush hour gives way to revellers

and Marijan's team fight traffic through the night.

Look, they're causing disruption. Look.

Go on!

Bye, guys!

It takes six days

for Tottenham Court Road's super roof to set.

But is it flawless?

The pour's looking really great.

There's no cracking and a good finish on the concrete,

which is a good result.

To complete their work here,

Marijan's team tighten the steel tendons

that crisscross the roof to double its strength.

-Is that level?

-Yeah.

OK, drop it back down now to ten.

-Good, yeah?

-Yeah.

-Cool.

After five years,

the major engineering work on Tottenham Court Road station

is almost complete

and it will not be long

till this stop is transformed into a super hub,

shuffling 200,000 commuters through its passageways each day,

plugging directly into the Tube's busy Northern and Central lines.

Crossrail's engineers have adeptly woven its train tunnels

between the dense network of buried utility lines and sewers

that keep London functioning.

The completed station, the size of an aircraft carrier,

sits stealthily anchored 30 metres beneath London's busiest street.

A startling black and gold complex

will eventually sit on top of this gateway down to the underworld.

We've got nice apartment blocks, we've got retail units,

we've got offices, we've got a theatre.

All of that should improve the street scene in this area.

So as well as creating a new railway station,

we're also creating a new community.

East to west across its route...

..Crossrail has triggered a wave of regeneration.

The price of homes and office space near the new Elizabeth line stations

has risen by nearly 50% in some areas since work began.

But not everyone wants the kind of new community

that is arriving with the new railway.

The Soho district,

close to Tottenham Court Road

and historically London's entertainment hub,

home to hundreds of restaurants, clubs and theatres,

is evolving dramatically.

Dusty O rose to become one of Soho's most sought-after drag performers,

starting out here in the 1980s.

Soho was a very bohemian, very unique, very individualistic area.

There was a sense of community...

and it's just been ripped out.

Since 2007, more than a third of Soho's venues have shut down,

with more closures threatened.

Crossrail set the ball rolling.

I think the developers saw an opportunity and took it.

Started putting the prices up almost immediately,

squeezing people out.

And there was lots of shops like this,

the small independent retailers, fashion boutiques.

Businesses that made the area unique and special and gave it its flavour.

I would say 90% of them have gone now.

Before, it was the heart of something.

Now, it doesn't feel any different

to any other place in London, really.

At London Underground headquarters in St James's Park,

ahead of Crossrail's launch,

John's team is finalising the updated Tube map design,

squeezing in the new 96km Elizabeth line.

As you can see, we've got the Elizabeth line added to the map.

Initially, everyone, I think, felt

that it should run in a straight line across.

But that was impossible.

So what I've done is change the shape of the Central line

and just added a curve at that end, which I think works really well.

We still have the other lines running where they always have.

This is just shifted slightly.

There's a few other changes, but they're so minimal

that it's not affected the overall read of the map,

which is really important.

I think Beck would be proud of the way you've done this, actually,

cos you followed his principles really nicely

through the way you've run that line through.

Doing a mirror image of the Central line seemed to work

and it gave us symmetry across the map.

I think it's looking good.

There's been a fair bit of manipulation there

to make that work.

It is such a complex network, this map.

Everything is connected here.

The smallest change has the biggest impact.

But generally, most people wouldn't spot

you've done these differences, to be honest.

Now, I might notice, if I really look, that you've changed this.

-But it still functions perfectly well.

-Good.

Fantastic.

In Paddington...

Pull it.

Keep pulling.

Just a touch.

Is that it in, Lee?

Yes!

Brilliant. Well done.

After five continuous weeks of night shifts,

David and Paul's team has finished cladding the walls

of Crossrail's new station here.

I've seen this project when it was a mound of clay in the ground.

Now I'm seeing the shiny bits going in the wall. That's really cool.

It's a proper privilege to be able to see this come to life.

But it keeps on going until we've finally delivered the stations.

I think it's a grand job.

I think Brunel would be very proud of it, yes. Yeah.

I'll just get a photo there.

Now, before Crossrail trains launch,

they must top this station off with an ambitious canopy roof.

Paddington station's design is unique.

It's different from some of the other stations.

It'll be a glass canopy

over about 50% of the area of the actual station itself

letting in daylight.

Paddington's new great glass canopy will stretch 120 metres long...

..and 18 metres wide.

340 tonnes of prefabricated steel will make up its frame.

220 panes of triple-glazed glass will slot inside...

..allowing light to flow through right down to the platform levels.

Creating these bespoke glass panels is a unique challenge.

You know, that can just be...

That whole area can just be selected.

Artist Spencer Finch and architect Richard Brown

are designing a vast artwork

that will be embedded into the glass itself.

The piece is a concept which is based on clouds.

Many different cloud types, that will be stitched together

to create a cloudscape over the station.

I'm interested in different technologies,

different ways of making images, different ways of making pictures.

And I think the glass,

because of it's inherent transparency and translucency,

is really a great medium for doing something about clouds.

The only factory capable of manufacturing such a large quantity

of intricate glass is in Wernberg, Germany.

The Flachglas factory produces up to 10,000 square metres of glass a day.

He's measuring out in the parking lot

to see exactly how big the canopy will be in reality.

30, 30... That's 90.

That can't be right.

It is. That's 90 metres.

From me to the truck...

Wow!

I can't see you, Spencer!

It's, er...shockingly big. It's really very large.

It's good to get the sense of scale here,

in relation to the sense of scale

of the single panels that we're looking at.

So it's useful, in terms of understanding,

really, the enormity of the composition.

We've pre-programmed some images,

which are printed on glass ready for us to look at.

They're going to be hoisted up on a crane against the sky,

so that we can visualise how it will look.

If we don't come to a conclusion that everybody's happy with,

that then delays getting the information

to the manufacturers here.

That's when the serious money comes in.

And, basically, we can't afford to do that.

We're taking it up to ten metres now.

And if ten metres is where one comes out of Paddington station

and walks under the canopy, that's the height you'll perceive it at.

So those cloud images have to be sufficiently definitive enough

that one can perceive there's something there.

Left of 4 and 13.

So that's 50% contrast, versus 75% contrast.

He's wanting this variation in opacity and translucency.

That's the change in the grayscale that I'm most interested in.

The density of 14 is maybe OK.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

14, yeah, it is.

If you imagine this cloud in the sky looking like that,

to me, it looks too big here.

That's like a cloud coming to attack you.

Mm... Yeah. Yeah.

What do you think, Spencer?

Number four seems to be about right,

in terms of balance of the various factors.

So, good. Yeah, good.

With the cloud design agreed, the glass printers can roll.

These machines print tiny dots of ceramic ink onto the glass panes.

Viewed from the ground,

the dots high on the canopy will form distinct cloud shapes.

They heat each pane to over 300 degrees in a special oven

to bake the ink into the glass and strengthen it.

With 220 panels to print, bake and then ship,

there's a huge amount of work to do.

There's now just a matter of weeks to go

until phase one of Crossrail launches

and the first trains start running overground from Liverpool Street.

Engineers across all 40 worksites

face a brutal race to the finishing line.

All across London,

every station is feeling the pressure and is feeling the heat.

The launch is in touching distance.

We're in the home straight now.

With more than 20 platforms to fit out...

Are you ready?

..70 escalators to install...

Two notches up again!

..and ticket halls to paint and furbish...

Whoa! Whoa!

..meeting this deadline will be tight.

The pressure is on workers at Paddington,

who have yet to install the 220 panes

that make up its great glass canopy.

If any one small component is not finished or doesn't work,

then you have nothing at all. It is a huge challenge.

London, Liverpool Street station.

Today is the big day that everyone has been working towards.

The complete Crossrail line

is scheduled to open to passengers in phases over the next 18 months.

But after eight years of construction work,

phase one of operations begins right now.

This is the first train that will run

on the eastern overground branch of the new route.

This is a test run to check how the train handles on the tracks

before it carries its first passengers just a few days from now.

Today, people will be seeing the train for the first time.

It's like Christmas morning.

I get really nervous,

just in case people don't like it as much as I do.

So graceful.

A real testament to everything this project's all about.

I wasn't expecting it to be as quiet as it was.

It seemed to kind of glide into the platform.

It's not like the usual commuter trains we see in London.

But it looks dead exciting.

-And what is it like to drive?

-Quick. It's very responsive.

It's certainly an improvement to what we're used to.

Oh... It's got that new car smell about it.

It definitely feels brand-new.

We really are seeing into the future today.

CHEERING

It's taken the ingenuity of more than 10,000 workers...

OK!

..putting in 100 million hours of labour,

excavating seven million tons of earth...

..and laying more than 1,000 Olympic swimming pools of concrete...

All right, Joe!

..to reach the point where the first Crossrail train

is up and running.

I couldn't be happier.

You can see all the passion,

the care, the thought that's gone in to making it spectacular.

Lots of companies have come together,

designed, built this new railway.

It's a really glowing example of modern British engineering

at its finest, I think.

To find out more about urban infrastructures

and how cities are made,

order this free poster produced by the Open University.

Call 0300 303 3460,

or go to bbc.co.uk/crossrail

and follow the links to the Open University.