TBM Phyllis arrived at Cypress Street near the future Arbutus Station on March 20, completing her journey from the tunnel portal at the future Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station. TBM Elsie is following behind on her parallel path after launching from the future South Granville Station on March 5, and is expected to complete her journey this spring. 

For the final two breakthroughs at Cypress Street, TBMs Phyllis and Elsie are breaking into a specialized pressure chamber. That’s because the TBMs are specially designed for the ground conditions along Broadway, which are mostly bedrock. Near Arbutus, however, the soil becomes softer than the rest of the Millennium Line extension’s route. Once the TBMs have successfully broken through, the pressure chamber will then be taken away to allow the final tunnel liner rings to be installed.

Once both TBMs have reached Cypress Street, they will have together installed more than 4,500 concrete tunnel liner rings and constructed more than 3 km of tunnels each. The total length of the underground portion of the project, including the stations and tunnels built using other construction techniques, is about 5 km. Both TBMs will be dismantled within the excavation and the components will be removed by crane. The TBM parts will then be taken away by truck.  

Click here and ca/38 for tunnelbuilder archive. Visit https://www.broadwaysubway.ca and https://www.ghella.com/. 13/24.