Development of two different station designs a comparison of Paddington and Farringdon Stations

Summary

Crossrail Central includes the construction of eight new underground stations and one new surface station linked together by 21km of new twin bore tunnels. This paper describes some key design features of two of the underground stations at Paddington and Farringdon, both of which have been designed by URS. Both stations are to be constructed on constrained sites in central London adjacent to historic buildings, and they are both key interchange stations which have to address many of the same design issues. However there are major differences in their layout and forms of construction. The aim of this paper is to explore the reasons for the different solutions and to show that they are appropriate and cost-effective. It is hoped that this broad overview will be of assistance to designers when considering similar rail projects at feasibility stage. The paper also shows that, despite the fact that the two stations are more than 3 miles apart, they are inextricably linked by the planning and programming of the tunnelling operations.

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