HS2 has announced that the central part of the green tunnel at Wendover, Buckinghamshire, has been completed. The tunnel, designed to reduce noise and disturbance for nearby residents, measures roughly 1 mile (1.4 km) and is built inside a cutting alongside the A413 to the west of the town. It is constructed from 2 740 precast concrete segments and takes an ‘M’ shape, with separate halves for northbound and southbound trains. The two halves were joined this week, with the final segment installed on Monday 5 October. Teams marked the achievement by signing the segment before it was lifted into position. With the central portion now finished, work will shift to the portals at either end, the floor slab, and the internal fit‑out.
Construction is being carried out by EKFB, the main works contractor for the central section of the route through Buckinghamshire and into South Warwickshire. EKFB is a joint venture of Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and Bam Nuttall. Over 1.2 million cubic metres of mainly chalk was excavated to form the level base for the tunnel; this material was stored on site and is now being backfilled and compressed to distribute weight evenly across the structure. The tunnel will be one of five green tunnels that HS2 will use between London and Birmingham, the others being at Chipping Warden, Greatworth, Burton Green, and Copthall in Hillingdon. The Copthall tunnel was recently completed earlier this summer.
The project also involved specialised equipment: most segments were lifted with a crane, but those installed under the temporary bridge on Ellesborough Road were positioned using a self‑propelled modular transporter (SPMT) with 16 wheels. The overall tunnel programme will see roughly 65 miles (105 km) of tunnels built between London and the West Midlands, with 130 million tonnes of earth excavated, most of which will be deep‑bored tunnels and five shallow cut‑and‑cover tunnels like the one at Wendover.
