The Costain-Skanska joint venture has commenced work to create a tunnel portal at Royal Oak outside Paddington station in west London, UK, as part of the ВЈ16bn ($24bn) Crossrail route.
The work involves the creation of around 200m-long and 27m-deep diaphragm walls on either side of the route, which will be dug underneath the city.
Bulk excavation over the length of 200m for track laying will commence soon, which will be in close proximity to existing, live London Underground and Network Rail railway lines and the A40 Westway.
Work on the diaphragm walling is planned to be completed before December this year and Royal Oak is due to be completed in June 2011.
The Crossrail network will offer a high-frequency rail route starting at Maidenhead to Abbey Wood in southeast London, and is expected to open in 2017.
