Network Rail has reached a milestone on the Crossrail project in London.

Engineers building the new dive-under at Acton have reached structural completion and the development is on schedule to open in 2017.

The project involved over 34,000 tonnes of earth being excavated from the five-metre wide site. In addition, more than 1,400 piled foundations have been installed as well as 730 metres of track.

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Work is now underway to install electric overhead wires before the first test trains use the underpass at the end of this year.

Matthew Steele, Crossrail Programme Director at Network Rail, said: "This is another great achievement as part of Network Rail's work on the Crossrail programme. Constructing the dive-under while trains continued to operate on either side of the worksite has been a massive engineering challenge. We will now work to ensure that the final elements of the dive-under are put into place so that trains can begin to use it from the start of 2017."

The full Crossrail route is scheduled to open in 2019.

(LM/CD)