Rob Holden from crossrail speaks at the annual House of Lords Luncheon

On a day when the weather brought chaos to the rail network in the South East , Rob Holden, Chief Executive of Crossrail Limited came to speak to us about ……..railways!

He made quite clear that he was not a spokesman for the industry and managed to lighten the mood of the audience who had travelled here from places as far afield as Ripon, Weston-super-Mare and Bristol. In fact Dick Seif of URS takes the award for the most distant visitor to the House of Lords this year. He was over from Georgia in the USA.

Rob enlightened us on the main features of Crossrail – it is a relatively short railway at 110 kilometres but it will join the Great Western region with the Great Eastern region, like Thames Link joins the north and south of London and the major benefit for London, apart from providing an additional rail link, is that it will lead to the regeneration of a large area of East London. He likened it to the effect that the Channel Tunnel Rail Link has had on King's Cross and that High Speed One (HS1) was the catalyst for the UK winning the London 2012 Olympic Games. HS1 has lead to the regeneration of Stratford. Rob is highly confident that Crossrail will lead to the future regeneration of Ebbsfleet and the Thames Gateway.

However, the project hasn't been without challenges. Crossrail has had a long history. The project was finally established by an Act of Parliament in July 2008 and it will pass under some of the most congested parts of London. Crossrail's biggest challenge in engineering terms is not to disturb the surface above its route. Twin bore tunnels of 6.0 metre diameter to accommodate twelve carriage trains will pass right under London. The most difficult section will be between Bond Street and Farringdon.

Underground caverns will be created at Bond Street/Hanover Square, Liverpool Street/Moorgate, Tottenham Court Road and Farringdon to create new stations and partnerships have been formed with developers as well as London Underground and Thames Link to facilitate these projects.

£1 billion of work will be awarded before Christmas 2010 and the tunnelling will start late 2011 early 2012. Demolition has already begun at Bond Street.

At its peak, Crossrail will employ 70,000 people across a range of skills and Rob Holden recognises that these are in short supply. That's why they have established apprenticeship schemes and skill training. This will be done through a new training academy.

October's CSR created some doubts about the future of the project and Rob Holden was ready to offer up a £1 billion saving for a longer programme of work but that wasn't asked for and the project will go ahead as planned.

Rob will be back to tell us more on the 16^th February at our London networking breakfast. See event listings for details.