My Name Is Jeffie!

City Rail Link’s latest tunnel boring machine has been named Jeffie after a hugely popular CRL social media naming contest. More than 30,000 people from as far away as the UK, USA, Europe, the Philippines and Afghanistan participated in the naming contest run in just under a week. The most popular name by far was Jeff.

Thousands of people voted Jeff based on the popular meme “My Name is Jeff” which was a line used by the character Greg Jenko in the 2014 action comedy film 22 Jump Street. Traditionally such machines adopt a female name so Jeffie, an aligned feminine name will be used. Jeffie was a popular girls name in the early 1900’s.

Naming digging equipment after women is said to be a tradition that dates to the 1500’s when miners prayed to St. Barbara to keep them safe underground.  Saint Barbara is the patron saint of armourers, artillerymen, military engineers, miners and others who work with explosives because her legend associated her with lightning. Popular runners-up were Bora the Explorer and Bessie.

The tunnel boring machine will shortly begin work in Mt Eden to divert a section of an existing stormwater pipe in preparation for the redevelopment of the Mt Eden train station. The contract was awarded to the March Bessac Joint Venture who were represented in the final naming decision. Thanks to everyone who participated and provided an impressive number of excellent suggestions.

Source:

• cityraillink.co.nz

City Rail Link – Cut & Cover Construction

Alice breaks into daylight!

The longest road tunnel in New Zealand is one step closer to completion after Alice the boring machine broke into daylight in Auckland this afternoon.

The milestone marks the end of Alice’s 10-month long, 2.4km underground journey from Owairaka to Waterview.

It also marks the completion of the first of the twin tunnels that will connect Auckland’s southwestern and northwestern motorways as part of the New Zealand Transport Agency’s (NZTA) Waterview Connection project.

The tunnel bored by Alice is the 10th largest in diameter in the world, and the longest road tunnel in New Zealand.

Once opened in early 2017, it will carry three lanes of southbound traffic up to 40m below Avondale and Waterview in west Auckland.

The tunnel – part of a 5km, six-lane motorway link from the Great North Rd interchange at Waterview to Maioro St in Mt Roskill – is a key part of the long-awaited Western Ring Route.

NZTA Auckland highways manager Brett Gliddon said the tunnel’s completion was a significant milestone for the $1.4 billion project.

“This is a fantastic achievement.”

Mr Gliddon said the breakthrough was completed safely and ahead of schedule.

“It is a huge engineering feat for New Zealand, one that is attracting worldwide attention.”

Alice will now be turned around to bore the northbound tunnel. However, turning around the 90m-long, 3100 tonne machine and reconnecting its cutting head and three trailing gantries was not expected to be completed until early next year, when tunnelling on the second tunnel could commence.

The machine’s second run, from Waterview to Owairaka, was expected to be completed in about October next year.

About a year of work would then be needed to complete the mechanical and electrical fit-out of the tunnels, including completing ventilation buildings at both ends and constructing 16 cross-passages to connect the tunnels.

The entire project – which also involves building surface connections to the existing motorways, 9km of new cycleways, new community amenities such as walkways, playgrounds and skateparks, and planting some 150,000 trees and shrubs – was due to be completed in early 2017.

The Waterview Connection was one of five projects to complete the Western Ring Route as an alternative to State Highway 1 through central Auckland and across the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

It has been prioritised by the Government as one of its roads of national significance.

Source

• NZ Herald
• Photo: NZTA

Alice nears daylight

It feels like riding some sort of subterranean paddle steamer on a voyage back from the centre of the Earth.

But at a top speed of 8cm a minute, it would have taken us more than 5000 years to get there and back on a giant tunnel-boring machine called Alice.

Luckily, the 88m-long machine – which the Transport Agency imported from China for $55 million to dig twin tunnels to connect Auckland’s Southwestern and Northwestern motorways – has only 300m or so to go before emerging at Waterview early next month.

Although it is thrusting forward at a rate of 20m to 24m a day, engineers are reluctant to commit themselves to an exact date, given the sensitive pressure adjustments needed as the assemblage nears the surface. Despite the roar of 24 engines powered by 22,000 volts of electricity to turn the machine’s giant 14.46m cutting head with its almost 300 tungsten cutting tools at a rate of just under two rotations a minute, an almost total lack of vibration meant it would have been impossible for anyone on the surface to guess its exact position.

Behind us as we visit the 14.46m cutting face of the first tunnel yesterday, about 18m under Great North Rd, stretches a 2.1km cavern of lined concrete curving back to Alan Wood Reserve in Owairaka, from where the giant ground-eater pushed off in November last year.

Also reaching all the way back is a conveyor belt carrying about 3000cu m a day of soft rock liquidated to a toothpaste-like consistency to be loaded on trucks and dumped at an industrial development site over a disused Wiri quarry.

The air is fresh, courtesy of a massive 2.5m-diameter ceiling intake pipe, and the tunnel is well illuminated by fluorescent lights guiding us to the boring machine.

Not even diesel fumes from a shuttle carrying a 100-tonne payload of 10 concrete sections for the machine to line the tunnel as it goes can foul the air, although there is a dank alkaline smell reminding us to avoid contact with corrosive wash water under our feet.

After being driven most of the way in, we are electronically tagged through a gate to ensure there are no more than 40 people in the tunnel at a time. We are guided on foot the rest of the way on the flat surface of a concrete culvert being laid to carry power and other services before the $1.4 billion motorway link from Maioro St in New Windsor to the Northwestern Motorway at Waterview opens in 2017 with three traffic lanes each way.

Even the culvert – described as a “tunnel within a tunnel” – is a roomy 3.5m wide by 2.5m high. The 40-person limit is to ensure salvage chambers on the machine can provide at least three days of air to their occupants in an emergency.

Once on board the three-decked machine, the roar of 24 motors turning the mining head with its almost 300 tungsten cutting tools at almost two rotations a minute makes conversation difficult. A giant screw rising at 45 degrees from an earth-holding chamber behind the cutting head is dropping grey slurry looking like a bubbling geothermal mud pool on a conveyor belt as the machine’s operator, cocooned in a control room, adjusts balancing pressures to keep the tunnel face stable.

Tunnel construction manager Iain Simmons says the machine has a pushing force of 30,000 tonnes, yet only about 5000 tonnes is typically needed “so he [the operator] has to be really careful”.

But despite the din and massive power, there is no vibration, which is just as well given that the machine has tunnelled directly below the Mt Albert Pak’n Save supermarket and Oakley Creek at depths of up to 45m.

Mr Simmons says pressure will have to be eased off as the machine edges its way to the surface. He is blase about the prospect soon of breaking through a portal built in a trench next to Waterview Primary School and an embankment which will lift traffic to a three-level interchange for which support structures are already towering 20m above the Northwestern Motorway.

For him, that will simply signal the start of four months of maneuvering the tunnel-boring machine around in a tight trench so it can start digging its way back to Owairaka  to complete the second of a pair of 2.4-kilometre tunnels needed to link the Southwestern and Northwestern motorways, and complete the region’s 47-kilometre western ring route alternative to State Highway One.

Once the machine is fully under way on its return journey, after a two-phase turnaround operation, the Transport Agency’s Well-Connected contracting alliance will begin drilling 16 cross passages between the main tunnels to provide motorists with escape routes in emergencies.

Although the second tunnel is expected to take only until about next September to dig, there is plenty to be done – including building venting towers at both ends – before the full 4.8km Waterview Connection – half of which will be surface motorway – opens in 2017.

Source:

• Mathew Dearnaley
• NZ Herald
• Photos: Jason Oxenham & Dean Purcell

Waterview Project-Time Lapse Video

A time lapse video of the Waterview Project including the construction of Alice the TBM.

Source: YouTube: Waterview Connection

 

Mammoth tunnel-borer moved to site

Roads near Auckland’s $1.4 billion Waterview motorway project had to close to enable delivery of part of a giant tunnelling machine that has arrived from China.

The New Windsor entry point to the Southwestern Motorway and a section of Sandringham Rd Extension were closed for five hours from midnight as the part is trucked from the waterfront, where 97 containers into which the $54 million tunnel-boring machine was packed for its voyage from China are being unloaded.

Transport Agency contractors will spend three months reassembling the 2300-tonne machine with its 14.46m-diameter drilling head in a deep trench at Alan Wood Reserve, before the first of two 2.4km motorway tunnels are drilled.

Sandringham Rd had to close so a culvert can be reinforced to take the extra heavy load.

Source:

• NZ Herald
• Mathew Dearnaley

Major Infrastructure plans for Auckland

The Government will push major roading projects In Auckland including a wider southern motorway, upgraded roading to the airport, and a freight corridor in Manukau before it begins work on the City Rail Link and a second Waitemata Harbour Crossing, Prime Minister John Key has revealed this afternoon.

Mr Key confirmed that Government would back Auckland’s three top transport priorities – the City Rail Link, another Waitemata Harbour crossing, and the Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative (AMETI), which includes the East-West Link.

“These three projects are all identified as the highest transport priorities in the Council’s Auckland Plan,” he said. “They have a price tag of around $10 billion and they are projects that need to be planned for over a long period of time.”

The harbour crossing will be twin tunnels under the Waitemata – the option of another bridge has been ruled out – and construction was expected to start between 2025 and 2030. Auckland Council would begin protecting land for the development in December once the alignment of the crossing had been finalised.

Mr Key said construction of the City Rail Link would not begin until 2020 unless employment levels in the central city climbed by 25 per cent and annual rail trips hit 20 million a year.

“We will consider an earlier start date if it becomes clear that Auckland’s CBD employment and rail patronage growth hit thresholds faster than current rates of growth suggest.

“I realise 2020 is not what the Council leadership is wanting, but while we may differ on timeframes, there is clear recognition by the Government that the project will be needed to address access to the Auckland CBD and improve the efficiency of rail.”

Total rail trips are around 11 million a year.

Mr Key confirmed that the Government’s “next major focus” for Auckland would be the AMETI project, which is already underway but was not scheduled to be completed for 20 years.

“Given the importance of the area, delivering these projects over 20 years is simply not acceptable.”

Government has asked the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) which parts of AMETI could be accelerated with additional funding.

“As you know, the area between Onehunga, Mt Wellington and East Tamaki is home to a number of industrial and logistics businesses that make a critical contribution to the Auckland and national economy.

“About as many people are employed here as in the CBD and there is considerable potential for more growth.

“However, the transport links in and out of this area aren’t up to the job.

“Truck drivers have told us they can get stuck in congestion at any time during the working day and a seven-minute trip between Metroport and the Onehunga wharf can take as long as 40 minutes.”

The $2.6 billion project included a $1.1 billion East-West Link, a road between Mt Wellington and Onehunga.

Government also planned to fast-track three NZTA projects:

– A motorway-to-motorway link between the Upper Harbour Highway and the Northern Motorway at Constellation Drive

– Widening of the Southern Motorway between Manukau and Papakura

– Upgrade of the State Highway 20A link to the airport to motorway standard

These developments were designed to reduce congestion, capitalise on the benefits of the Western Ring Route, and improve access to the airport.

Mr Key said: “Under current funding assumptions, construction of these projects may be up to 10 years away from starting.

“But the Government is not prepared to wait that long.”

Government will consult with NZTA on how to bring these projects forward, and will provide additional funding to make this happen.

The transport package did not mention rail to the airport, which was no longer one of the highest priorities for the Auckland Council.

It has not yet been made clear how Government will source its funding for its share of these projects, but the Prime Minister has confirmed that some of the $2.86 billion rail link could be paid for with proceeds from asset sales.

Source:

• NZ Herald
• Isaac Davison