Crossrail's tunnelling giant Elizabeth reaches Canary Wharf

The Crossrail project has celebrated its biggest milestone so far as one of our huge 1,000-tonne tunnelling machines has broken through into the new Canary Wharf station box.

Crossrail's eastern tunnelling machines, named Elizabeth and Victoria, were launched from the Limmo site near Canning Town towards the end of last year to create 8.3km (5.16 miles) of tunnels from east London to Farringdon -- Crossrail's longest tunnel section. A marathon-equivalent 26-mile (42km) section of tunnels beneath central London will be built in total for Crossrail.

Over the past 6 months, both machines have been working round the clock to create the first section of new tunnels beneath the River Lea and east London towards the new Canary Wharf Crossrail station. Tunnelling machine Elizabeth was the first to arrive and has now broken through into the huge Canary Wharf station box 28 metres underground.

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Video released in 2013