Assembly of the 66-metre high tower crane comes a week after the completion of the station’s new taxi rank. Two more cranes will go up in due course.
The taxi rank had to move to make way for the remodelling of the station. The next step paving the way for construction of the new HS2 terminus is the demolition of One Euston Square and Grant Thornton House, which stand above the entrance and exit to Euston’s old underground taxi rank.
Expected to take around 10 months to complete, their removal will be the biggest change to the Euston skyline for almost fifty years. HS2’s early works contractor, a joint venture of Costain and Skanska (CSjv), working with demolition subcontractor McGee, are stripping out the interiors and erecting the scaffolding that will support acoustic screening around the buildings.
The screening will cover the two 1970s towers, with 93% of the material from the building set to be recycled or reused. The deconstruction itself will happen floor by floor, with waste material removed via the building’s lift shafts.
HS2’s London programme director Rob Carr said: “HS2 will transform Euston, delivering much-needed extra capacity and better journeys for the 44 million people who use the station every year. We are already hard at work, delivering essential pre-construction work, including archaeology, utility diversions and of course, the demolition of the two Euston towers.
“The opening of the new taxi rank and the delivery of the project’s first tower crane is a significant milestone for HS2 and I would like to thank everyone involved in making it happen.”
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