Delivering the Emirates Air Line, London, UK: north and south stations

Abstract

The Emirates Air Line provides a low-emissions, quick, direct and fully accessible link between the north and south sides of the River Thames in London, UK, and is the easternmost pedestrian crossing of the river. The route runs from Emirates Victoria Dock station (north station) on the north side of the Thames to the Emirates Greenwich Peninsula station (south station), constructed on remediated brownfield land. The cableway runs between the two stations over three major steel towers and two subsidiary ‘compression' towers positioned just in front of each station. This paper – one in a series of four that describe the delivery of the Emirates Air Line project – describes the challenges that were faced in the design and construction of the stations and the compression towers. These challenges included construction of the north station over water in the Royal Victoria Dock, the design of the south station in very close proximity to the alignment of the proposed Silvertown tunnel, coordination of the station structure with the complex mechanical and electrical equipment required for the operation of the cableway systems, and construction of the compression towers to the very tight installation tolerances and operational deflection limits mandated by the specialist subcontractor.