HS2 Names Giant Tunnelling Machines Ready for 4.5 Mile (7.24km) Drive to Central London - Video – Heavy Lift News
4 Dec 2024

HS2 Names Giant Tunnelling Machines Ready for 4.5 Mile (7.24km) Drive to Central London – Video

Engineers have begun assembling two giant tunnelling machines that will dig the las 4.5 miles (7.24km) of underground high-speed railway – carrying HS2 trains to Euston Station in the heart of London.

Weighing an incredible 1,250t, each of the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) will launch from an underground box at one end of the project’s Old Oak Common station. They are expected to take around one and a half years to reach the railway’s final southern terminus at London Euston.

 

Sprayed concrete lined tunnel from where Euston TBM Karen will launch to construct HS2’s Euston Tunnel

 

As well as taking passengers closer to central London, the extension to Euston will create additional capacity on the new high-speed line, allowing more services to run to more destinations across the Midlands and the North.

Arrival of the line into Euston is also expected to trigger a transport-led regeneration of the area – unlocking opportunities for thousands of new homes and jobs.

In keeping with tradition, the TBMs have been given female names after prominent women in history. One machine is called Karen after Karen Harrison, the first female train driver in the UK who was based out of Old Oak Common depot. The second is named Madeleine, after Madeleine Nobbs, the former president of the Women’s Engineering Society.

 

Euston TBM Madeleine pushed into launch tunnel preparing to begin constructing the Euston Tunnel

 

The unveiling of the TBMs – the final set to be launched for the railway between London and the West Midlands – marks another significant milestone for HS2.

It comes on the day that Mark Wild joins HS2 Ltd as the company’s new chief executive. Mr Wild, former CEO of Crossrail, will help oversee the project’s transition from a major construction programme to a working railway, with a renewed focus on controlling costs.

The two 190m-long TBMs were manufactured by world-leading tunnelling experts Herrenknecht AG in Germany and were transported to Old Oak Common in pieces before being reassembled on site. This summer, the HS2 team lifted the machines into the underground station box using a 750t crane. They are now being reassembled at the eastern end of the station, ready to bore to Euston.

The cutterhead of the machine, which has been optimised to cut through London clay, is 8.53m across with the inner diameter of the tunnel set to be 7.55m.

 

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Featured Title photograph

Rail Minister, Lord Peter Hendy, and new HS2 CEO Mark Wild at Old Oak Common East box where the Euston TBMs are being prepared

 

 

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