The delicate operation required one of the largest cranes in Europe to lift the 550t TBM named Elizabeth down into a 40m deep shaft.

The team at Limmo Peninsula, adjacent to Canning Town station, will shortly repeat the operation with sister machine, Victoria.

Elizabeth will start tunnelling later this year, travelling under the River Lea towards Canary Wharf.

Work has started to prepare Crossrail’s Canary Wharf station to receive Elizabeth, with workers breaking out the hard concrete at the tunnel eyes to allow for the machines to easily enter the station next year.

Both tunnelling machines will receive maintenance while in the large station box, before continuing their journeys toward Whitechapel, Liverpool Street and Farringdon.

Andrew Wolstenholme, Crossrail’s chief executive said: “This is a significant milestone for Crossrail’s progress in east London. Elizabeth and Victoria will construct Crossrail’s longest tunnel section – 8.3 kilometres between Canning Town and Farringdon.”

A smaller crane will lift the 10 gantries that form the back-up trailers of the tunnelling machine and carry the materials to support the tunnelling effort. The assembly of the tunnelling machines and their gantries will be completed underground creating two 148m long tunnelling factories.

After both machines and their gantries are safely in the shaft, a large conveyer system will be constructed to take the earth from the bottom of the shaft onto nearby ships.

Works are also being completed on the River Lea to construct a jetty to berth ships that will take 1.2 million tonnes of earth to Wallasea Island to create a new RSPB nature reserve as well as a facility to dock barges that will bring 120,000 concrete segments from Chatham in Kent to line the tunnels.

In total eight tunnelling machines will construct a total of 21km of twin tunnels under London.