HS2 engineers have installed the final roof segment on the 700-metre-long Burton Green tunnel in the West Midlands.

The 16-metre-wide twin-box-shaped tunnel will carry high-speed trains beneath the village of Burton Green, near Kenilworth. The internal wall separates trains travelling north to Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland, and south towards HS2’s two London stations in Old Oak Common and Euston.

Now structurally complete, engineers and ecologists will turn their attention towards the tunnel’s 500-metre-long ‘green roof’, to ensure the structure blends into the natural landscape.

Once fully complete, the Kenilworth Greenway will be reinstated close to its original alignment. It will run above the new tunnel to provide a link from Balsall Common to Kenilworth, via Burton Green, for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders.

Tim Akers, design manager from the Mott MacDonald/SYSTRA Design Joint Venture, said: “A range of techniques were incorporated into the design to enable construction through this narrow corridor within the village. The end result will be a railway within a landscape, where the original character of the Kenilworth Greenway and ecological connectivity to the wider landscape are restored over the buried tunnel.”

HS2’s construction partner, Balfour Beatty VINCI (BBV), is now working on the final elements of the tunnel, including the escape walkway to the south of the tunnel and the application of fire-proof protection to the upper tunnel walls.