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Another major milestone has been achieved on the Crossrail project. Tottenham Court Road station has been transferred to London Underground. This is the third central London Underground station on the Elizabeth Line to achieve this status after Farringdon in March 2021.
Mott MacDonald has been working with Crossrail as part of an integrated team for over ten years. More recently Mott MacDonald led the Plateau 2 team who played a major part in testing and integrating the station with the route way contracts to ensure the station was ready to be brought into use.
Credit: Crossrail Ltd
The Plateau 2 team is the lead station integrator responsible for the testing, commissioning and bringing into use the ten central stations on the Elizabeth Line. The team are active across the stations programme to ensure stations, routeways, signalling and telecoms contracts work together.
When operational Tottenham Court Road station will be used by a forecast of 170,000 passengers a day. The Elizabeth Line will run more than 60 miles from Reading and Heathrow in the west through central tunnels across to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.
Mott MacDonald’s global rail systems professional head, John Bettles, who led the Plateau 2 team said: “I’m very proud to lead the Plateau 2 team which has co-ordinated the final testing and bringing into use of the Crossrail stations. These have been challenging sites to commission with interlinked complex digital station systems and the collaborative spirit we have fostered across the programme has been pivotal in helping to bring Tottenham Court Road station into use on our planned date.”
As the industry prepares to celebrate the 200th anniversary of rail in the UK, Tony looks back over his career in the sector and sets out his vision for the future too.
Rail geek. Role model. Mother. Mott MacDonald rail director Suzanne Mathieson is all three in equal measure and each have shaped her rail career, while also driving her to deliver greater impact too.
Creating the right working culture and capabilities on London’s Elizabeth line before, during and after it went into operation has been recognised with a prestigious new award from the Institute of Asset Management.
The first trains have now crossed the new Clifton railway bridge near Penrith in Cumbria, marking the completion of one of the most complex rail-over-motorway bridge replacements undertaken in the UK.
Mott MacDonald has been appointed by Iarnród Éireann to lead the CONNECT rail project, an ambitious national programme set to transform Ireland’s intercity rail network and accelerate the country’s transition to net zero.
An enormous boring machine being used to dig HS2’s Birmingham approach tunnels has broken through, marking the completion of major tunnel excavation between London’s Old Oak Common and the West Midlands.
The three-year partnership will support London St. Pancras Highspeed in delivering its long-term vision to be the most sustainable transport option across the UK and Europe and the world’s leading high-speed rail experience.
HS2 has completed a major river enhancement in Warwickshire, which at 749m is the most significant realignment of a natural river on the project.
Mott MacDonald will help Transport for London (TfL) drive forward its vision to be a strong, green heartbeat for the city, following its appointment to the land referencing lot of the Property Development and Consultancy Framework.
HS2’s giant tunnelling machine Mary Ann broke through on 9 May 2025, marking the end of her mission to excavate the first bore of what will soon become the longest railway tunnel in the West Midlands.
Mott MacDonald is providing consultancy services for two critical elements of the case for investment for Clyde Metro, following its appointment to Stage 2 by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) in collaboration with Glasgow City Council on behalf of the Glasgow City Region.
The milestone appointment will support the transformation of the North of England’s economy by providing efficient rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres.
Plans for East West Rail (EWR) — which will connect Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge — continue to progress at pace after the government committed to delivering the railway in full in the Autumn Budget.
Suzanne Mathieson, rail director at Mott MacDonald, has been selected by Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Steve Rotheram, Liverpool City Region Mayor, to join them on the new Liverpool-Manchester Railway Partnership Board (LMRPB).
Focus on place-making, accessibility and economic drivers means that the new Liverpool Baltic station, which is expected to start construction this year, will be much more than just a new stop on a railway line.
SWR originally approached our nature services team for support with mapping sensitive ecological receptors on the network for efficient planning of routine railway verge maintenance
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