Kawasaki TBM Breaks Through CTRL Tunnel to King's Cross StationA Kawasaki Heavy Industries tunnel boring machine broke through at King's Cross in London on 27th January, 2004 completing ahead of schedule the first of a pair of tunnels on the longest drive of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Section 2. The 8.1 m-diameter EPB machine, nicknamed Annie, has taken 17 months to cut through the tunnel, which is part of contract C220, from Stratford in east London. The 120 m-long, 1,100 tonne machine had to drill through about 792,000 tonnes of soil. The machine successfully passed under London Underground's Highbury and Islington metro station on Victoria Line without disruption. Annie's twin Bertha is due to hole through the second and parallel bore later this year. The contractors are Nishimatsu and Cementation Skanska.The tunnel is part of the high speed rail link between the Channel Tunnel and a new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras station. Five of the eight tunnels of Section 2 are now completed or ahead of schedule. The 39 km second section of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link runs from north Kent to St Pancras. Passenger services are due to start running in 2007. The first 74 km section of the link from Folkestone to north Kent opened to passenger traffic in September 2003 with trains running from London's Waterloo station. The £5.2 billion project will reduce journey times from London to Paris from two hours 40 minutes to two hours 15 minutes. Click uk/21. Visit www.ctrl.co.uk and www.khi.co.jp/products/plant/index.html 07/04.