Metro goes down London’s newest rail tunnel that’s 100ft underground

Metro went behind the scenes to see how the high-speed trains will travel into London’s new mega rail hub currently under construction.

London is being transformed underground as part of the HS2 works, with giant tunnels built to connect the sprawling Old Oak Common railway station to the line before its final leg to Euston.

One of the recently completed excavations is the breakthrough between Old Oak Common and the 1,181 ft (360m) tunnels from the crossover box, creating an 8.8-mile connection to the West Ruislip tunnel, with the final blocks pushed out Jenga-style last month.

Metro toured the London-bound tunnel near Old Oak Common with Rail Minister Lord Hendy, located a stone’s throw away from the upcoming hub.

Going into the freshly excavated HS2 tunnel in London was a dizzying experience (Picture: Metro) Two London double-decker buses could easily fit through the tunnel (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

It will combine the high-speed, Elizabeth line, Great Western Railway and Heathrow Express services under one giant roof.

After entering through the unassuming-looking shaft on Victoria Road in North Acton, the first gigantic tunnel box opens up.

At around 98 feet underground, the first thing to greet visitors is not a digger as you’d expect, but the figure of St Barbara perched on the wall inside a small wooden house.

St Barbara, the protector of tunnelling workers (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

She is the patron saint of tunnelling and has to oversee all work, a remnant from the times tunnelling was a highly dangerous job.

One HS2 worker told Metro that unless a blessing ceremony is held before works, tunnellers will refuse to start.

While the saint stems from Christian tradition, workers from all backgrounds ‘demand a ceremony happens before any tunnelling,’ he said.

While the high-speed rail is often associated with high-profile delays and the ballooning budget, workers making it happen are clearly proud of the scale and what has been achieved so far.  

Everything is immaculately organised at the multi-billion-pound worksite, with the biggest danger coming from tripping while looking at your phone, and there are reminders even for that.

Metro toured the London-bound tunnel leading to Old Oak Common mega station (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

All work in the tunnel has been paused for us to take a sneak peek, giving outsiders the rare opportunity to see the scale of the engineering that will transport millions of people by 2039.

Walking through the echoing structure not designed for pedestrians is a dizzying experience before we reach light at the end of the tunnel, Old Oak Common.

In this final stretch before the platforms, HS2 trains will have slowed down to a fraction of the 200mph top speed they can reach in places like the Colne Valley Viaduct.

The walls have been covered with waterproofing and sprayed concrete before the rail and cables will be laid in the coming years, plus an emergency cut-through from the tunnel.

Two 1,181 ft tunnels are the final stretch from North Acton’s Victoria Road Crossover Box to Old Oak Common (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

‘No one else will be walking down here in normal circumstances,’ HS2’s senior communications manager Clive Green said.

The Rail Minister, who led us down the freshly excavated tunnel on his first visit there, said he is struggling to take in the scale of the 2,788 ft (850m) underground section of the mega-station stretching behind him.

The Old Oak Common station alone could fit the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa.

He told Metro: ‘The scale of it is so great. It is a station that is nearly one kilometre long.

We reached the six high-speed rail platforms at Old Oak Common, which will come under a massive roof housing HS2 and conventional rail platforms in a separate section. Three UK’s largest cranes have been drafted in to lift the roof into place next year (Picture: Metro) A GCI visual of what the Old Oak Common station will look like above the ground when completed (Picture: HS2 Ltd)

‘All of us are having real difficulty getting our heads around it.  

‘When we looked at the Cross Rail tunnels when they were built, we thought they were big, but these are enormous and the trains are going to carry loads of people. The scale of it is unimaginable.  

‘This will be the largest station built in Britain at least for 100 years.’  

The Rail Minister continued: ‘These works are extraordinary.

Rail Minister Lord Hendy said he is confident that HS2 will open on schedule after the recent reset of the project under the government (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams) The Victoria Road Crossover Box in North Acton (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

‘It’s been a long time coming and it has been a difficult project, and this government has had to reset it.

‘But if you look at the scale of what is being delivered here, you can perhaps see that it is well worth doing.

‘We are going to finish it, and when we’ve finished it, it is going to transformtravel to Birmingham, to the north of England and Scotland, and it is going to transform this area of London to create growth, jobs and homes.’

A visual of the Old Oak Common area (Picture: HS2 Ltd)

To make space for the six high-speed rail platforms at Old Oak Common, more than 1 million tonnes of London clay was removed on a conveyor belt and loaded into trains, a process that removed 75,000 lorries from roads.

Dave Lock, HS2’s project director, told Metro: ‘The material was transported via rail to other beneficial use around the country.’

He said all the materials used in the tunnels are a far cry from what was used during the 1920s when many Tube lines were built, when no waterproofing was available.

‘Without the waterproofing, the concrete would crumble over time,’ he explained.

But with the current materials, the tunnels are set to last beyond 120 years.

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