The excavation of four new customer passageways at the Kennington Underground station has finished on schedule, marking the end of tunnelling work on the London Underground’s Northern Line Extension (NLE).
On 16 September, the Kennington station platforms were successfully handed back to London Underground Limited at 05.35am, marking the completion of NLE’s tunnelling work.
To enable these vital elements of the network to be completed, a 16-week closure of the Bank branch at Kennington station began in May. Throughout this time, a team of 177 workers used innovative engineering solutions and traditional mining techniques to excavate almost 2,000 tonnes of spoil by hand. Additionally, timber and steel supports were installed to strengthen the structure of each customer passageway. In total, around 900 tonnes of concrete and 500 spheroidal graphite iron (SGI) ring segments were used to create the new structures.
Mark Wild, LUL Managing Director said, “Brilliant to see the cross passage work at Kennington completed on time. Very impressive teamwork and well done to the construction team who have been world class.”
Luis Rallo, FLO Deputy Project Director, said
“This has been a huge effort from everybody involved. Having a set timeframe for the works presented a challenge, but the team has demonstrated the great success that can be achieved when we work towards a single goal together. The completion of tunnelling is a huge milestone for all of us and a big credit to our team.”
Following this construction work, the final fit-out of the passageways will continue behind hoardings in a live station. Once the four additional passageways are completed, transfer between different branches of the Northern line at Kennington will be quicker and easier.
Major tunnelling finished over Christmas and the extension was connected to the existing Northern line for the first time. Now that civil and tunnelling is being completed, the project is working towards delivering fit-out, track and systems ahead of commissioning.
Ferrovial Agroman UK’s Northern Line Extension project, alongside JV partner Laing O’Rourke is extending London Underground’s Northern Line to Battersea. This development will regenerate the surrounding area and help create 24,000 jobs, 18,000 homes, and reduce journey times to the West End or City to less than 15 minutes.
