On 26/04/2022 the Dame Whina Cooper TBM - 130 m-long, 7.15 m-diameter and 910 t-weight – has been declared ready to bore and has been launched from 110 m within a mined tunnel at City Rail Link’s Mt Eden site.  

The TBM, named in honour of Māori champion Dame Whina Cooper, has started excavating the second of two 1.6-km-long tunnels. Its first destination will be the underground station below Karangahape Road before a planned arrival next spring at the project’s Aotea site.   

Dame Whina Cooper is operated by the Link Alliance – the six national and international infrastructure companies delivering CRL’s main tunnels, stations and rail systems contract. The TBM will install 14,735 concrete segments in total for the twin rail tunnels lining.   

The TBM completed its first excavation just before last Christmas and was then dismantled and returned to Mt Eden and reassembled to excavate the second tunnel.

The two CRL tunnels are parallel and run underneath some of the city’s most iconic areas, such as Grafton, the central motorway junction, Karangahape Road and the city centre.   

At peak operation, the TBM can travel 32 metres a day. The CRL will be the country’s first underground railway. Click here and nz/15 for the tunnelbuilder archive updates on the project and also visit https://www.cityraillink.co.nz/. 18/22.