By: Rebecca Smith
We've crossed the halfway mark for the year's countdown to the Elizabeth Line launch and new images have been released to show the progress made at the new Tottenham Court Road station.
The station will be at the centre of the capital's new railway, which will run from Berkshire and Heathrow in the west to east London and Essex in the east.
Europe's largest infrastructure project is now in its final phases, with the new trains being tested in the tunnels and stations being fitted out with architectural finishes.
The £14.8bn project is facing rising cost and schedule pressures, but TfL has said the line will still open in stages from December.
Read more: Crossrail’s coming: Here’s when the Elizabeth Line will open in December
(Click or tap on the images to see them in full screen)
Tottenham Court Road station has a new plaza, and the new Elizabeth Line station had the construction of 234m long platforms, banks of escalators, and a dedicated entrance at Dean Street to serve the expected 200,000 customers who will use the station every day.
Transport for London is taking over the first completed infrastructure from Crossrail Ltd, and said today that 96 per cent of contracts for the railway have gone to companies within the UK, supporting the equivalent of 55,000 full-time jobs.
Sir Terry Morgan, Crossrail chairman, said the construction of the new railway is "one of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Europe".
Among the companies involved are Independent Glass, which created Tottenham Court Road's bespoke architectural glass panels, AJ Wells & Sons which has created the station's iconic signage along with the Elizabeth Line roundels, and GRC which produced the concrete platform cladding.
Mark Wild, London Underground and Elizabeth Line managing director, said:
The Elizabeth Line will redefine our city for a new generation.
At Tottenham Court Road, our staff are busy preparing for a 50 per cent increase in passengers each day, which has been made possible through extraordinary feats of civil engineering and an impressive supply chain that stretches from Inverness to the Isle of Wight.
Read more: Here's how the Elizabeth Line will affect other travel in London
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