Last week a TBM, named Dame Whina Cooper in honour of the Maori rights champion, arrived in Auckland after a voyage of more than 9000 km  from its factory in southern China.   The machine which will be used to excavate the rail tunnels for New Zealand’s largest ever transport infrastructure project arrived in sections on board the BBC Orion and will now be trucked to the City Rail Link site in Mt Eden for reassembly.  

 The project is planning an open day in December to allow people a close-up look of the machine that will help transform the way they can travel around the city. Further details of the open day will be announced next month.   The Link Alliance - the group of New Zealand and international companies building the substantive tunnels and stations contract for CRL Ltd – will use the TBM to excavate two 1.6-km-long tunnels from Mt Eden to the CBD to link with the tunnels already dug from Britomart Station.  

Work will start later this week on the excavation of the first 51 m of the tunnel at Mt Eden. The excavation of the cavern and trench provides room for the TBM to be fitted into position to take over the tunnelling.  

For further information please click here and nz/15 for the tunnelbuilder archive, and also click this link  https://www.cityraillink.co.nz/. 44/20.