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Victoria Line Speed Upgrade with Balfour Beatty – Walthamstow Crossover

Over the weekend of 21 / 22 August 2015 we worked with Balfour Beatty Rail and London Underground on the Victoria Line Speed Upgrade. We pumped approximately 300 m3 of concrete to secure the new crossover that transfers northbound trains to the southbound line for their return journey. The new crossover increases the Victoria Line capacity from 24 to 36 trains/hour.

Static pumps delivered overnight prior to the pour.

We used two Putzmeister BSA2109HDE static concrete pumps to pump the concrete. In addition, we supplied a Putzmeister BSA2110HP D4 static concrete pump as a backup pump and to be used for the water washout. Three 500m long concrete pipelines were installed in the tunnels, as was an RV10 rotary distributor used for placing the concrete in the crossover cavern.

Two electric static pumps and generator in position.

First load of concrete being pumped into line number 1 at 05.30.

500 metre pipeline – through Walthamstow Central station to tunnels beyond.

Installing pipelines 1 & 2 in the southbound tunnel. Pipeline 3 in northbound.

Grout to lubricate the pipeline being pumped ahead of the concrete.

Placing concrete in the crossover cavern using an RV10 placer.

Concrete being placed using an RV10 manual placer.

The sun is rising over Walthamstow Central station as pumping commences.

Working through the night using electric pumps & super silenced generator.

Our customer emailed us the next day with the following message; “I just want to pass on my thanks to all of you who were in involved with the concrete pour at Walthamstow. This was always going to be a challenge, working in a constrained site to tight time-scales. Thank you all for working so well together & please pass on my appreciation to your workforces.”Once we had finished the concreting, there were another 8 days set aside for the completion of the works: installation of the power, signalling etc. In the event, the contract was completed two days early and the trains were soon running through to Walthamstow Central again.

Cleaning the pipeline using our water washout system.

Water washout – concrete collected in skips for disposal.