An Arup Gateway to Europe

I’ve been a bit slow on the draw…er…“write”, but last week was a big one for my London-based design company, Arup.

Almost as soon and the Chunnel Tunnel between England and France was opened, people realized that it wan’t exactly the best set-up travelling at 180mph from Paris to the Dover coast, only to craw through the 100-year-old railway network of England on the way into central London. Arup basically just paid some of its top thinkers to just dream up the best way to extend this high-speed line into central London. At considerable cost and risk, the company suggested a method to the government, and they agreed. 18 years and 2.7million Arup man-hours later that dream is a reality.

A huge part of this project was totally renovating the historic St Pancras Station to accept the 400m long Eurostar trains, and you can see a great BBC slideshow about this process here. We’re excited to experience the new line and station first hand in February on our upcoming trip to Brussels!

Below are 2 posts from an internal Arup Blog about the opening, if you’re interested in reading more.

------------------------------------------------------

“Queen opens Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) and St. Pancras Station Today”

2hrs 3mins 23seconds.

That’s how long the inaugural journey from Paris to London took on 6 September 2007. The new St Pancras station in London, and the Eurostar service that will run this route, is officially opened today by the Queen. Regular service will commence on 14 November from the new station to the centre of Paris and Brussels, running at speeds of up to 200mph.

The result of more than 1600 Arup staff and 2.7million Arup man-hours.

A Grand Opening Summary

Last night the new St Pancras International station played host to the opening celebrations of both the station itself and High Speed 1, with the Eurostar service.

It was a phenomenal celebration of an amazing engineering project, delivered on time and on budget, which Arup has been involved in for the past 18 years. St Pancras International will now be seen as one of the world’s greatest stations. For the evening it was transformed into an event venue to accommodate 1000 guests, including the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, Lord Heseltine, John Prescott, and a full house of other dignitaries.

Her Majesty the Queen reviewed the arrival of two Eurostar trains and the first ‘Bullet’ train - the high speed domestic train linking Ashford and Ebsfleet to London, and providing a seven-minute ‘Javelin’ service between Stratford and King’s Cross ready for the London Olympics in 2012.

The occasion was highly appropriate for us, because of the thousands of Arup staff who have worked as part of the Rail Link Engineering (RLE) services and also the ‘maverick group within our extraordinary company’ (quote from ‘The Right Line’ book by Nicholas Faith, which tells this story and to be launched at the House of Commons on 3 December) that created this project; the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

The Master of Ceremonies last night was Timothy West, who acted the part of William Henry Barlow, civil engineer, who in 1863 designed the original station. We were reminded that this famous train shed arch spans 240ft and is over 100ft high at its apex. On its completion in 1868 it became the largest enclosed space in the world.

And now, nearly 160 years later this space has been transformed into probably one of the finest stations in Europe, and possibly the world - an icon has been reborn.

But, to me, this transformation was due to the brilliance of individual Arup engineers and, those individuals, working as part of the RLE and Union Railways North, should be hugely proud of their achievement. As should all Arup staff. Of course, I personally was also hugely proud of that ‘maverick group’ - the project creators. We often fail to acknowledge their role when great engineering achievements are being celebrated.

A wonderful day for Arup.