With the arrival of two enormous boring machines that will carve the five-kilometer trench for the Broadway subway line in Vancouver, construction is expected to advance significantly.
The two cylindrical tunnel boring machines (TBMs) weigh around a million kg each and are each six metres wide.
The equipment will be launched separately from the proposed Great Northern Way-Emily Carr station location, and it will take a year for the machines to bore their way west to Cypress Street, which is close to the Arbutus terminal station.
The devices are called “Elsie” and “Phyllis” in honour of two significant female figures in B.C. history.
The first female aviation engineer and professional aircraft designer in the world was Elizabeth “Elsie” MacGill, while Phyllis Munday was a well-known mountaineer who started the Girl Guides of British Columbia and the first St. John Ambulances Brigade in the province in North Vancouver.
TBM Phyllis will launch this winter after assembly is finished, while TBM Elsie will soon start tunnelling.
The robots can eat through around 18 metres of tunnel per day, and a crew of eight to twelve people is needed to run them. A conveyor belt will be used to remove the estimated 200,000 cubic metres of soil and rock that will be removed during the project.
Crews will finish building the subway’s underground stations and install its tracks and systems once the boring work is finished.
The final grade of the project will be 5.
Costing at least $2. 8 billion, the Millennium Line will be extended by 7 kilometres from its existing terminus at VCC-Clark Station to Arbutus Station.
The City of Vancouver, UBC, and the TransLink Mayor’s Council are all in favour of a future expansion from Arbutus Street to UBC, but financing has not yet been established.
Meet “Elsie” and “Phyllis”: tunnel-boring equipment for the Broadway Subway is about to begin operation.
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