On 29.09.2014 the TBM Alice completed the southbound tube of the 2.4 km Waterview tunnels from Owairaka to Waterview. The tunnels will connect Auckland's Southwestern and Northwestern motorways. At Waterview the TBM is being turned around for the northbound tube, ready to recommence boring in March, 2015.

The TBM is almost 88 m-long and too big to be turned in one piece in a 25 m x 39 m area. The shield and trailing gantries have to be separated and taken one at a time from the completed tube.

The 2,400 t main shield has been successfully separated from the rest of the machine and pushed first onto a concrete cradle and then onto a steel cradle. With the help of hydraulic jacks and 200 litres of lanolin, the team slid the shield across the floor of the Northern Approach Trench on 30.10.2014, putting it in the relaunch position.

This turnaround process will be repeated for backup gantry 1, which contains the TBM operators’ cabin, transformers and pumps which inject grout behind the tunnel lining.  A smaller and lighter temporary gantry, named gantry 2.1, will then be installed behind. Alice will be relaunched in early December to build the first 300 m of the second tunnel. Gantry 2.1. will then be detached and gantry 2 and 3 installed. The entire operation will take approximately five months. Tunnelling will fully resume next March and the final breakthrough, at Owairaka, is expected by September, 2015. Click nz/16 and here for tunnelbuilder archive. Visit http://www.nzta.govt.nz. 46/14.