First East Side Access TBM Reaches Grand Central Station in New YorkThe Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced on 2nd July, 2008 that after just eight months, the first of two 200-tonne tunnel boring machines, a Robbins double shield TBM rebuilt by SELI, had completed the 1.6 km-long tunnel built to carry Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) trains beneath the intersection of 63rd Street and Second Avenue to the terminus of what will become a new station and concourse underneath Grand Central station. Visit www.selitunnel.com and www.therobbinscompany.comThe machine was assembled in a rock cavern about 43 metres below the corner of Second Avenue and 63rd Street in Manhattan and began chewing through the rock in October 2007, southwest to Park Avenue and then south to Grand Central on the East Side of Manhattan. Click here.The second machine, a Robbins main beam TBM, was launched about three months after to bore a parallel westbound tunnel. It is scheduled to complete its parallel journey near the end of the summer. When the USD6.3 billion project is completed in 2013, one tunnel will carry Manhattan-bound trains and the other will carry trains going to Long Island. The two 6.7 m-diameter machines have performed satisfactorily considering the tough conditions, averaging 9.8 m/day (double shield machine) and 11.1 m/day (main beam machine). Once the double shield machine has completed its tunnel under Grand Central and on to a storage area at 38th Street, crews will partially disassemble it, take it back to 63rd Street and start an additional tunnel. Altogether, the machines will bore four tunnels under Manhattan until they approach Grand Central. The project will eventually allow future LIRR access to all eight tracks in the new station under Grand Central. Past Grand Central to the storage area, the number of tracks decreases again to four. Now that the machine has reached its destination, excavation will begin on what will become a cavern underneath Park Avenue between 49th and 51st Streets that will connect the newly built tunnel with parallel tunnels which will allow the future LIRR flexibility in accessing all eight tracks in the new station under Grand Central. That work involves intermittent blasting and mechanical excavation that is scheduled to begin in mid-July and last for six to eight months. Workers will next use dynamite to create a chamber deep beneath Grand Central that will become a new station and concourse at Park Avenue and 42nd Street for LIRR trains arriving on the East Side.The East Side Access project will bring Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) trains into Manhattan's Grand Central station. This project will relieve overcrowding at Penn station and save 27 minutes on average off the commutes of Long Islanders who work uptown. The MTA expects the trains to begin running in 2014 and to carry 160,000 people daily.Dragados/Judlau, a 70/30 joint venture between Dragados USA of Spain and Judlau Contracting of New York began boring at 63rd Street in fall 2007. Dragados/Judlau also received the USD734 million contract to blast out two caverns 43 metres below Grand Central to create the three-level LIRR station. When finished, the station will house four platforms with eight tracks and a mezzanine.The East Side Access project also requires work in Queens, including soft ground tunnelling at Sunnyside Yard and reconfiguring Harold Interlocking and the tracks leading to Sunnyside. Pile Foundation Construction Co. continues excavating a USD122 million, 18 m-deep, open-cut hole through which the soft ground boring equipment will begin tunnelling underneath Sunnyside.The MTA anticipates awarding the soft ground tunnelling contract in third quarter 2008. Visit www.mta.info 28/08.