The Purple Line Extension Transit Project will be welcoming the last two TBMs which will join the Section 1 TBMs Elsie and Soyeon and the Section 2 TBMs Harriet and Ruth in Los Angeles.
The TBMs, manufactured in Germany, will come by way of ship, through the Port of Long Beach, and the other would be delivered to the Port of San Diego. Both TBMs will be assembled inside the Westwood/ VA Hospital tail track launch shaft located on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Campus. The TBMs are anticipated to start their tunnelling journey Winter 2021.
The Section 3 TBMs will start to dig two parallel tunnels from the VA Hospital Campus in Westwood/UCLA and head east towards the Westwood/UCLA Station.
The TBMs will start roughly one month apart from each other. The twin tunnels will be approximately 4,103 m (2.55 miles) long. Each tunnel is about 6.86 m ( 22.5 feet) in diameter. There’s about 4,88 m (16 feet) of soil separating each tunnel.
The TBMs will link with the Section 2 tunnels in Century City/Constellation Station. The TBMs will then be disassembled in the tunnel, transported back to the Century City tunnel shaft, hoisted to the surface and hauled away.
Art and Naming contest for the Section 3 TBMs
There is currently an Art and Naming contest to honour the two machines before they are put to work. Winners will receive prizes and countywide recognition. Deadline for entries is July 30, 2020.
Click here to enter the Art Contest and here for the Naming contest and also visit https://www.metro.net/projects/purple-line-extension-tbm/.
Breakthrough on Purple Line Extension Los Angeles – Section 1
On 04/04/2020 TBM Elsie (1,000 t weight, 121.92 m length) reached the Wilshire/Fairfax subway station near the La Brea Tar Pits for the Purple Line Extension Section 1. The TBM originally started at the Wilshire/La Brea station in October of last year. The TBM tunnelled about 18 m per day, worked five days per week, 20 hours a day and it took about five months to tunnel from Wilshire/La Brea to Wilshire/Fairfax. The TBM is now resting approximately 21.34 m below the busy Wilshire Boulevard. The Purple line Metro’s second TBM Soyeon is expected to reach Wilshire/Fairfax in about eight weeks.
The underground soil conditions in this area of Los Angeles represent some of the most challenging for the entire project: a unique combination of soils and geologic conditions, including tar sands and methane gas. The Metro’s TBMs are pressurized, closed-face machines that minimize ground settlement during excavation. The tunnel is lined with precast concrete segments that are bolted together to form a ring. Segments are also gasketed to make the joints between segments water- and gas-tight.
The EUR8.54 Billion (USD9.3-billion) Metro Purple Line Extension is a 14.5 km underground subway project that will extend the Metro Purple Line from its terminus in Koreatown to Westwood/VA Hospital in West Los Angeles. Section 1 is expected to be completed in 2023, Section 2 in 2025 and Section 3 in 2027.
Click here, click here for a video and click us/41 for tunnelbuilder archive. For more information on the Purple Line Extension Project visit www.metro.net/purplelineext and https://thesource.metro.net . 15/20.
