Project : Covered Ways 12 & 58 Kensington High Street, London

Client : London Underground Limited

Covered Ways 12 & 58 are parallel structures that carry Kelso Place above the District Line between Earls Court and High Street Kensington, and the Circle Line between Gloucester Road and High Street Kensington. Both structures failed to meet LUL’s statutory obligations under the 1968 Transport Act for minimum load bearing capacity and required strengthening.

LUL and Mowlem invented an ingenious beam system that enabled the ageing covered ways over the Circle Line and District Lines to be made safe without affecting the buildings above.
This novel technique enabled installation during the short overnight engineering period of 3hr 15mins each evening. The aerofoil beam solution had a very shallow depth and did not impact upon the tunnel's 'structure gauge'. This avoided lowering the track.

Beam installation overnight substantially reduced railway closure time and reduced future track closures by about two weeks in ten. The aerofoil beam concept itself reduced the track-lowering requirement by some 60%, saving LUL about £800k.