After completing the 3.5-mile (5.8km) mission to excavate the first section of the Bromford tunnel, linking North Warwickshire and Birmingham, HS2’s giant TBM Mary Ann is being stripped down ready to take on her next tunnelling adventure.

The first stage in the process to disassemble the 1,600-t machine saw the TBM’s 8.62-m diameter cutterhead, which weighs 120 t, lifted out of the 22-m-deep tunnel portal at Washwood Heath in north Birmingham in just 90 minutes by a giant 700-t crawler crane.  The operation took place on Friday, 30th May 2025. The 125-m-long machine will be dismantled in the next three months, before it is returned to  Herrenknecht in Germany.

The giant machine, which spent 652 days and nights working underground to excavate the first bore of the Bromford Tunnel, is expected to be refurbished and adapted ready to meet the technical requirements of its next tunnelling mission.

TBM Elizabeth is currently boring the second section of the Bromford Tunnel with breakthrough expected later this year. 

For further information click here and uk/65 for THE tunnelbuilder archive. Visit https://www.hs2.org.uk/. 23/25.