Mammoth "Metal Moles" Tunnel Deep Beneath London

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that the first of eight highly specialized Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM), each weighing nearly 1,000 tonnes, is being positioned at Royal Oak in west London where it will begin its slow journey east. It will carve out a new east-west underground link that will eventually run 73 miles from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west, to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. Described as 'voracious worms nibbling their way under London,' the 150-meter long machines will operate 24 hours a day and move through the earth at a rate of about 100m per week, taking three years to build a network of tunnels beneath the city's streets. Behind a 6.2-meter cutter head is a hydraulic arm. Massive chunks of earth are fed via a narrow-gauge railway along the interior of the machine, which is itself on wheels, as the machines are monitored from a surface control room which tracks their positions using GPS. Hydraulic rams at the front keep them within millimeters of their designated routes. 'It's not so much a machine as a mobile factory,' says Roy Slocombe, adding that the machine is staffed by a 20-strong 'tunnel gang' and comes with its own kitchen and toilet. Meanwhile, critics complain that the project is a peculiarly British example of how not to get big infrastructure schemes off the ground, because almost 30 years will have elapsed from its political conception in 1989 to its current projected completion date of 2018."

Comments

Mind you, if they run into voids, we're in trouble

[Salgak1]

....as anyone who's seen the beginning of "Reign of Fire could tell you.....

GPS?

[Duvzo]

GPS?? Underground? Cool, so my scuba GPS is just around the corner too then.

Re:GPS?

[hey!]

From TFA:

The machines are monitored from a surface control room which tracks their positions using GPS.

So this would be more like having GPS in your dive boat than having GPS underwater.

Re:GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I read it as the control room uses GPS to track the machines, ie the machines relay back their position to the control room, which is itself calculated using GPS.

It's a valid point - how the hell could GPS be used to track something beneath the ground when mine struggles if it isn't mounted right on my windscreen?

Re:GPS?

[hawguy]

GPS?? Underground? Cool, so my scuba GPS is just around the corner too then.

Unless your SCUBA activities consist of walking around above the water level, I don't think you're going to find a GPS based solution to help you - water attenuates the signals too much.

However, if you're underground, there are a number of companies that can sell you GPS repeaters that will help you navigate even when you can't receive any satellite signals directly:

http://www.vialite.co.uk/gps_band_overview.php
http://www.leica-geosystems.us/en/GPS-Machine-Guidance_1939.htm

Re:GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure they know where the surface control room. It's the position of the machine that needs monitored, not the stationary control room.

Re:GPS?

[Edzilla2000]

So they track the control room? In case it starts moving around??

Re:GPS?

[garyebickford]

I don't know the specifics of this, but from my former work in an oilfield services company, I know that oil well drilling systems can track their own position within a few inches. One example from about 30 years ago was a set of wells drilled under an estuary in the UK. The gov. allowed the drilling company a one-acre island to do all the drilling from. They drilled down about a mile, then branched off into 10 separate holes that were drilled horizontally, following an oil seam that at times was only one foot high. The longest horizontal hole was about 10 kilometers (34000+feet, 6.6+ miles) long. Here is another reference, including info on a new well system on the North Slope that extends even farther - two miles down, then over 10 km horizontally, then back down another km or two so they can use an existing oil processing facility.

Drilling systems are among the most sophisticated technological marvels going - they include seismic signalling, mass spectrometry, neutron activation analysis, nuclear magnetic resonance, gamma ray spectral analysis, and other really geeky stuff. The bit knows where it is geographically and where it is relative to the geological structures that it is following. The computers that sit 10 feet behind the actual bit meet tougher specs than military or aerospace - 1000 G shock, very high pressures (I forget the PSI), 400 degree F temperatures. Cooling is accomplished by the drilling fluid that is going past the outside of the drill string. Truly oil well technology is the perfect geekly combination of extreme "big heavy dangerous machines" plus extreme high tech.

Re:GPS?

[hey!]

So they track the control room? In case it starts moving around??

That was the sense I got. These are *civil* engineers, after all. My wife once visited the Fundy Tidal Power Project. It had a million dollar visitor center, but the engineers still worked in white trailers.

The impression I got was that they were going to communicate with the device from the surface near the tunnel face rather than from the tunnel mouth or bore holes. They only way GPS would make sense in this situation is if they used acoustic methods to locate the actual boring machine from a movable station.

Re:GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the dude who wrote the article added the term GPS after an engineer says "we track it's location, kinda like an acoustic GPS" or another other of the 1000 phrases the clueless journalist could misinterpret. Just saying we're working awful hard to figure out what magic technology they have when there are at least two humans communicating here which is more than likely the source of said magic.

Re:GPS?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Sometimes a white trailer is the right tool for the job. I've worked with civil engineers for years, and the ones I've worked with were pretty full-on professional. If a job needs a white trailer, that's what they trot out. If the job needs a million dollar visitor centre, then that goes into the spec.

It's probably worth mentioning that there's GPS, and then there's GPS. The sort that we are used to ("In 400 metres, exit ramp, on left, to Proposed Western Freeway"*) depends entirely on trig between orbiting satellites, another more sophisticated type augments that with intertial guidance systems. If you can read the RF from the satellites, you can use the former - and that depends on a combination of antenna design and how much (generally metal) is in the way that might soak up the radio frequency energy before it gets to the box. To a point, you can make up a lot of signal strength with a higher-spec antenna.

The latter type of (what's erroneously, but conveniently called GPS), the inertial guidance system, measures and sums accelerations and gives you a vector -- sort of like summing the movements of a small mass in an enclosed box over time. These can use accelerometers and gyroscopes to add up quite small movements and tell a computer in summary that it's gone this far, in this direction, over this interval of time. If it sounds complex, you're right -- but the technology has been available since the advent of the ICBM.

The Wikipedia entry on the subject is really quite good -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_guidance_system -- worth reading (warning, there is a lure and fascination in these things, especially when you get to laser gyroscopes...)

And as much as I like my little Garman Nuvi (*yes, it really did give me that direction once) it wouldn't be the GPS of choice for locating a major piece of underground tunnelling kit.

Re:GPS?

[ZeroExistenZ]

I don't think you're going to find a GPS based solution to help you

If the guy wants scuba GPS, get him his scuba GPS and become somewhat creative:

• Make a small floating GPS-receiver which floats and follows you and tracks your location (by your sonar pattern fe.) add some sonar panels.
• Attach GPS-receiver to snorkel, only update GPS location when you come to the surface for a low-resolution path of your adventures
• etc.. I'm sure egineers in this forum can come up with another 100 approaches

Re:GPS?

[jo_ham]

Yes, it's really cool what they can do with INS these days, considering that back in the 60's for Apollo they strapped one into a plane and relied on it to fly coast to coast in the US and it was accurate all the way. These days the precision is even higher.

Re:GPS?

[dingram17]

All a GPS repeater tells you is where the repeater receiving antenna is. Only good for rough positioning, but still very good for timing. This is why they are used in hangars and bus tunnels -- near enough is good enough.

TBMs are generally navigated by laser surveying instruments. This is a real example of the surveyor's craft, and even in ancient times (i.e. pre laser) tunnels generally met in the middle.

Re:GPS?

[j_sp_r]

For safety, sometimes you need to tag a flag along while diving, so boats know you're down. You can easily add an receiver in the flag.

Re:GPS?

[mk1004]

However, if you're underground, there are a number of companies that can sell you GPS repeaters that will help you navigate even when you can't receive any satellite signals directly:

http://www.vialite.co.uk/gps_band_overview.php http://www.leica-geosystems.us/en/GPS-Machine-Guidance_1939.htm

Nope, sorry, the first link is for a system that allows you to place an antenna and receiver in different locations so that the receiver can get the time signals--not positioning data--in places where you can't get a GPS signal. Useful, for example, when you need to have tier-1 or 2 time accuracy w/o connection to an NTP server. Actually, you can get positioning data, but it'll be the antenna's location. The second link uses GPS for surface equipment, with a local transmitter to increase the accuracy of the positioning data. The local transmitter is at a fixed, known location and reduces the positioning error for each receiver.

From what I've read about other tunneling equipment, they use lasers to figure out the distance and direction of the equipment, and the laser equipment at the start of the tunnel is in a known location.

Re:GPS?

[multiplexo]

That's really cool. You know, one of these machines would make a really cool hideout for a James Bond villain. The only things you'd need to add to make it perfect are a prominently labelled self-destruct switch and a pool full of sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads.

Re:GPS?

[Internetuser1248]

GPS?? Underground? Cool, so my scuba GPS is just around the corner too then.

Actually yes. I think that could be made to work for positioning systems.

Re:GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

GPS Receivers that get their signal via a repeater will essentially always report the location of the outdoor antenna. The extra signal delay is common across all satellites and will therefore manifest as a receiver clock offset. This is not so useful for indoor navigation.

Re:GPS?

[Bender Unit 22]

Lasers are used underground to determine the location. If there are turns, mirrors are used.

Re:GPS?

[squidflakes]

I've done some contracting work for a driller on both the tech side and the bio/environmental side. I was flat out amazed at the amount of tech that went in to the drilling heads. Truly, it is the industry that marries blue collar "fuck it, hit it with a hammer" practicality and blue sky dreamer sci-fi technology.

A bit OT, but this is why I'd love to see the US start investing in geothermal energy. We've already got the gear and the know-how to drill holes of just about any size to amazing depths, quickly, accurately, and with a mostly reasonable safety margin. So, instead of sinking six shafts and pressurizing a huge area to extract gooey black sludge, why can't we sink six shafts, pump in water, and pump out high pressure steam?

Re:GPS?

[g0bshiTe]

Don't forget most of London sits on top of chalk, I'm sure this 30 year lapse from planning to execution may have had something to do with difficulties arising from the first few tubes being dug out.

Re:GPS?

[Zinho]

I'm with you; I'd rather see hydrocarbons used as lubricants/raw materials for manufacture than burned as energy. Which makes my job at Halliburton somewhat ironic, but life's funny that way.

The good news is that energy companies (and energy service companies) are eying the alternative energy market as an exit strategy from oil-as-energy. Halliburton does geothermal well cementing, and is trying to advance the art so the wells and plants can be more productive. Challenges include seismic instability, high permeability of the rock layers (you pick places where there are lots of natural fractures), and balancing the need for insulation/strength/durability of the cement. None of these problems are insurmountable, but making geothermal cost competitive with oil is challenging.

I'm personally surprised that we don't see closed-loop geothermal power systems. It seems like they're all farcture-and-collect style systems. Admittedly, fracture-and-collect exposes the water to more surface area of rock, and the wells are cheaper to drill. On the other hand, the operator wouldn't have to deal with produced sand/salt/corrosives that will invariably result from mingling water with rocks downhole, and there wouldn't be any issue with water losses.* If I had to take a guess, though, no-one does it for the same reason that oil/gas operators in the Rockies don't buy downhole sand control solutions - it's an upfront cost that they have to justify to a beancounter rather than an operating cost they can balance against ongoing profits (cost of doing business and all that...).

*Seriously, who approves these lossy geothermal systems in deserts? When there are crops to irrigate and drinking water needed for houses (not to mention sensitive ecosystems) I have trouble seeing how the water use of (big pdf warning!) nearly a gallon per kWh is practical.

Re:GPS?

[dave420]

Central London is on clay, actually.

Re:GPS?

[squidflakes]

Its good to know that Halliburton et. al. are looking in that direction, but I have a feeling that they are going to milk petrochem for energy until every profitable cent is soaked up while waiting for someone else to take the lead and, of course, the up-front costs. Such is life though, innovation doesn't make much money at first, and there is always some boardroom type that sees the dip on the graph and can't look beyond how many dollars he assumes his stock options are worth now, versus how many they'll be worth when they are actually cashed in.

A bit more OT, I've jokingly called Halliburton/KBR my nemesis for years. When KBR still did road construction around here, they always seemed to close off the places I would go most often. Later, when I was doing oceanic research, Halliburton was the operator on a number of projects that directly affected the species I was studying. Not that they were pumping mud all over baby seals or anything, but the noises from seismic and drilling scare the shit out of squid. Scared squid don't behave like content squid, so your data gets pretty screwed. Even later, I had a contract job doing network stuff on rigs, but then Halliburton put the screws to some of the subcontractors on cost, and that job dried up faster than a puddle of piss in the Sahara.

Re:GPS?

[uninformedLuddite]

Don't you guys have to sacrifice a young virgin for every hole you dig? I read it on the net.

Re:GPS?

[garyebickford]

Seriously, who approves these lossy geothermal systems in deserts?

Interesting point. As I recall (from long before my time), J Paul Getty's oil company was infamous for the cheap, quick and dirty way they drilled, then used the well's natural pressure to grab the easy oil and left, leaving 2/3 of the oil unrecoverable by tech available at the time. I think most oil wells now use injection of water and other materials to maintain well pressure and recover the maximum amount of oil. You would think that geothermal systems would be best done by drilling one well where water is pumped down, and one or more nearby wells where heated water is pumped up, with fracked passages between (or vice versa - many down, one up) - at least in locations where the hot water source is not constantly refilled naturally.

Re:GPS?

[garyebickford]

... or were you talking about basically running a closed loop recirculating system (like the opposite of a radiator)? That would indeed be better.

Re:GPS?

[Brickwall]

Lasers are used underground to determine the location. If there are turns, mirrors are used.

Shark-mounted, no doubt.

Re:GPS?

[Zinho]

... or were you talking about basically running a closed loop recirculating system (like the opposite of a radiator)? That would indeed be better.

This, instead of parallel injection and production wells. What you described in your previous post is the current state of the art.

Re:GPS?

[Zinho]

Its good to know that Halliburton et. al. are looking in that direction, but I have a feeling that they are going to milk petrochem for energy until every profitable cent is soaked up while waiting for someone else to take the lead and, of course, the up-front costs. Such is life though, innovation doesn't make much money at first, and there is always some boardroom type that sees the dip on the graph and can't look beyond how many dollars he assumes his stock options are worth now, versus how many they'll be worth when they are actually cashed in.

You're probably right. My estimate is that we'll keep using hydrocarbons for energy up to the point where alternative energy is cheaper per joule, and I don't see any way of getting around that - no one in the loop is willing to take a moral stand on the issue. Well owners want to sell to whoever pays the highest price, which is generally the power plants. Home owners want to pay the least possible for electricity, and (here in America at least) are not willing to pay the premium for wind/solar. Until alternative energy sources are cheaper than burning oil/gas we'll keep burning the hydrocarbon. I'm just afraid that it'll take a real peak oil scenario to make that happen, raising the price on lubricant oil and everything made out of plastic.

A bit more OT, I've jokingly called Halliburton/KBR my nemesis for years. When KBR still did road construction around here, they always seemed to close off the places I would go most often. Later, when I was doing oceanic research, Halliburton was the operator on a number of projects that directly affected the species I was studying. Not that they were pumping mud all over baby seals or anything, but the noises from seismic and drilling scare the shit out of squid. Scared squid don't behave like content squid, so your data gets pretty screwed. Even later, I had a contract job doing network stuff on rigs, but then Halliburton put the screws to some of the subcontractors on cost, and that job dried up faster than a puddle of piss in the Sahara.

Dude, sorry about your squid. I'm being serious, it's tragic when economic concerns get in the way of good research. The seismic disturbances probably ended when the well came online, but far too late for your project. I'm sure that you and the driller were both on strict time schedules, and that neither of you really had the option to reschedule for the other's convenience. It would do a world of good for the industry to set up an outreach forum for coordination with researchers like you so your time and efforts aren't wasted. Getting it to happen would be like herding cats, though, and making it a government mandate would probably be met with resistance (if not resentment), unfortunately. If you're still in the research field you may want to check with the government agencies managing the leasing and permitting for well construction; there's a chance they would be happy to share with you the relevant schedule info. It would probably be on a state-by-state basis, though, and I have no idea who you'd ask for Gulf of Mexico operations. Good luck with that, and my apologies again for the corrupted research data.

Re:GPS?

[squidflakes]

No worries. When you're doing behavioral research, you have to expect that there are going to be external factors that you can't control. One year, for example, crews from National Geographic and The Discovery Channel were filming for their Blue Planet/Earth series along side our expedition and the size of the camera housings along with their relative inexperience in shallow water caused quite a big disturbance. While the data wasn't exactly what we were looking for, it was still possible to study how squid respond to stress. Similarly, when the seismic boats were firing their charges, we got some good data on the squid's ability to sense low frequency sounds and pressure waves.

As for outreach, it really depends on the people involved. I've done surveys around rigs and found that just talking to the roughnecks gets you pretty far. When they see something other than a crew boat pull up to a rig they tend to get suspicious, especially as there always seems to be one guy spreading rumors about PETA or the EPA or the political party they hate coming to shut them down and take their jobs. A few words about what you're doing and a handshake work wonders. A bankers box full of porn works miracles.

The companies themselves tend to be more resistant, and I can understand some of the reasons. Liability is always a huge concern which goes hand-in-hand with the fear that we're somehow going to cost them more money.

Still, when you're in the field, you have to be prepared for anything. Sometimes you get the data, sometimes you don't, and while it can be maddening having to deal with people who don't get that you're on an incredibly tight budget, that's just something you learn to deal with.

Back on the topic of hydrocarbons, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to slash the price point for alternative energy sooner rather than later. The fact that most alternative energy ideas will at some point require plastics and lubricants seems to be lost on most people who believe that alternative energy means death to the oil industry. Until such a point in the future where magnetic levitation or some other whiz-bang technology makes mechanical friction a non-issue, we're going to need hydrocarbons to work their magic on anything that spins, slides, or reciprocates.

As for a Peak Oil situation, I think we're pretty much there, at least for the easy stuff in the U.S. When companies are looking at shale gas and tar sand projects as having a good enough ROI to develop, and they have, that to me is a bell-weather.

Re:GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "However, if you're underground, there are a number of companies that can sell you GPS repeaters that will help you navigate even when you can't receive any satellite signals directly:"
http://www.vialite.co.uk/gps_band_overview.php [vialite.co.uk]
http://www.leica-geosystems.us/en/GPS-Machine-Guidance_1939.htm [leica-geosystems.us]

Unfortunately, GPS repeaters dont work like WiFi repeaters.

So-called GPS repeaters are usually used for relaying an accurate time reference signal rather to derive a location. If you "repeat" the signal of the original GPS receiver then you will simply end up deriving the location of the original receiver.

To calculate your position underground you would need to combine the data from the original GPS receiver on the surface with another (local) system to derive your location, probably using your original GPS as the reference point - or somehow "spoof" underground GPS repeaters - which is an inordinately complex task. I don't know of anyone who has achieved that.

comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does London's subway system compare to everyone elses? Is this an awesome new thing where they are leaders, or is this catching up to what other cities did years ago?

Re:comparative position?

[Finallyjoined!!!]

How does London's subway system compare to everyone elses?

It's older than any other subway system.... Which would make them the original leader, eh?

Re:comparative position?

[glwtta]

It has more gaps than any other system - you have to constantly mind them.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about the London Underground at all, it is a heavy rail link.

Re:comparative position?

[sixtyeight]

London's system appears to be conveniently bi-directional.

Re:comparative position?

[sixtyeight]

Never mind, Penrith is Australian. Still funny though.

Re:comparative position?

[Noughmad]

It has more gaps than any other system - you have to constantly mind them.

That's why I prefer the Moscow Metro. Because there, the gap minds you.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/pnr/details.html

There is one in the UK, looks like the same type of signage too.

Re:comparative position?

[alex67500]

Sorry, but no, it's in Cumbria, in the North of England. http://g.co/maps/4f64r

And I lost one mod point for you...

Re:comparative position?

[sixtyeight]

Good to know, thank you. We're actually both right. And thanks.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does London's subway system compare to everyone elses? Is this an awesome new thing where they are leaders, or is this catching up to what other cities did years ago?

London's subway is somewhat behind these days. The big problem is that, because it's so old and established, it's very difficult to renovate. There's no cell reception, 3G or air-con. Trains are often small and cramped. Reliability is poor, and lines are often closed (although strikes, and sadly jumpers play a big part in that one). It's also fairly expensive. Compre it to say Shanghai's system and they're miles apart.

Re:comparative position?

[rkww]

The first London subway line opened in 1863, so it's not a new thing. In terms of milage, it's the second largest metro system in the world (ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems) And 45% of its 249 miles are underground. There are some facts and figures here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/modesoftransport/londonunderground/1608.aspx

Re:comparative position?

[91degrees]

This isn't really part of the London Underground. It's a very long mainline railway tunnel.

"The Tube", like most major metropolitan underground systems is extremely overloaded, but actually a pretty good network, and well integrated with the mainline. It has its problems, the main one being expense. It is a major target of investment, mainly because the city depends on it to operate. Many parts of it are pretty old, but this is more a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Re:comparative position?

[91degrees]

The could retrofit air con and phone reception. Air con simply isn't seen as needed for the two weeks a year when the temperatures get too high, and the public dislike the idea of idiots yammering on the phone next to their ear.

The crampedness is because this is a deep tunnel network rather than the cheaper cut and cover (i.e. dig a trench, build on top).

Strikes aren't that common, nor are jumpers. 97% of services run to schedule, which isn't too bad.

Price is a big issue but really that's about it.

Re:comparative position?

[alienzed]

It's easier to mind Gaps in America, here we have Baby Gap's.

Re:comparative position?

[TapeCutter]

Like the US, a lot of our older towns and suburbs are named after English places. It's like they ran out of place names in the 19th century, even the state that Penrith is in is called New South Wales.

Re:comparative position?

[digitig]

That's sort of debatable. The tunnels are too small for it to work as a heavy rail link as defined in European rail standards (as was pointed out at a presentation I was at recently, they could get a European standard-sized heavy rail locomotive through the tunnel but not operate it through the tunnel because there's no room for safe electrical separations). But there's a policy decision for it not to be a metro system, which would allow smaller units. So it's actually neither one nor the other; a heavy rail system that is too light to be a heavy rail system. Say one thing for the British: we can compromise.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

In fairness, there are genuine improvements coming down the line. (Sorry...) These are at least partly driven by a desire not to look like idiots when a few million extra people are around for the Olympics later this year.

New trains with air-conditioning and a walk-through design, as used in underground networks such as those in Paris and Rome, have been rolling out for a year or so. They are replacing one line at a time and due to cover 40% of the network by 2015.

Also, a deal was announced just last week for Virgin Media to provide WiFi access on the London Underground during the 2012 Olympics, though it only covers station areas and not the trains themselves while they are in the tunnels. Its stated goal is to allow travellers to respond more quickly to disruption and avoid the busiest areas (which are almost certainly going to be flooded far beyond capacity at peak times during the Olympics, whatever happens).

The system is still nowhere near the level of, for example, the other European capitals I mentioned, though, and won't get there any time soon.

Re:comparative position?

[neokushan]

You can tell you don't go on the underground much. Even in the height of winter, it gets pretty hot down there. It's pretty far underground though, so I don't think surface temperatures affect it all that much. Still, it makes the train arriving twice as nice, since it often brings a lovely blast of cool air with it.

All your other points are completely accurate, though. It's overpriced and cramped.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

97% of services run to schedule, which isn't too bad.

It's not great, though. With more than a billion passenger journeys taken on the Underground per year, that 97% still represents more than 30 million significantly disrupted journeys, or if you prefer, regular commuters being late to work (or late home) once or twice every month.

Of course, there is only so much even the most hard-working staff could do with the limited resources available, and there is only so much money that can be available without putting fares (or taxpayer subsidy) up to politically intolerable levels.

Re:comparative position?

[ae1294]

Isn't the New York nematic tube system older?

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it began operation in 1863 making it the oldest.
It is part of the largest system in terms of route miles when taken together with the Docklands Light Railway and the London Overground.
It had more stations than any other.
Carries 3.4 million people/day making it the 3rd. Hairston (Moscow and Paris are busier).
Good at tunnels, those Brits .

Re:comparative position?

[jo_ham]

They are actually retrofitting AC systems into the newer rolling stock. It's just difficult due to the size of the tunnels, which places quite strict limits on the size of the train but more importantly, the ability to dump all that waste heat - you can't just pump it into the tunnels as it's already quite warm down there.

You need to be able to use heat exchangers that are very efficient, or cycle the heat out of a transfer medium when the train comes up above ground (as they all tend to do outside of the centre).

Re:comparative position?

[sixtyeight]

Well they did have to import the names from overseas; there was probably a shortage.

Sort of reassuring to know that Australia still had plenty of lag, even in the 1800's.

Re:comparative position?

[dintech]

No, it isn't.

Re:comparative position?

[chill]

No. London's predates New York's by about 41 years. (1863 vs 1904). Glasgow's is dated to 1896, so even the Scots beat the Yanks to this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems

Re:comparative position?

[mug funky]

don't even go into just how many Wellington Streets can be packed into Melbourne. adjacent suburbs all have their own, like it was legally required to have at least one Wellington St, Rd, Pde if you were to be allowed a postal code.

Re:comparative position?

[mug funky]

no way! they've managed to bend spacetime in such a way as to run a train from London to Shanghai and make the distance travelled mere miles?

Re:comparative position?

[germansausage]

No, the smectic tubes are older.

Re:comparative position?

[Patch86]

London's Underground is what is usually considered its "subway" system. It's the oldest in the world, and one of the most comprehensive.

This, however, is something else. This is a mainline railway route which is going under central London. Tube trains (on the London Underground) are small vehicles with an odd cross-section, so that they can go through smaller tunnels, and are powered by "four rail electrification". This new Crossrail line is designed for full-sized intercity trains, with normal overhead-wire electrification. This is part of why it's such a big project.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

Better not. The last thing we need are more anonymous cowards like the GP

Re:comparative position?

[91degrees]

You can tell you don't go on the underground much.

was using on a daily basis for years. Only a real problem in the summer

Re:comparative position?

[91degrees]

Britain has its own concept of heavy rail though, which is a smaller loading gauge than European. As far as I understand, this is a standard tunnel that you could fit any train *currently* running on British tracks.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

And Liverpool's rail tunnels are older still (1829)...

http://www.liverpoolwiki.org/Liverpool's_Historic_Rail_Tunnels

Re:comparative position?

[rtfa-troll]

I think they had been outsourcing name production to the Celts and the Picts for too long. Once those disappeared or lost interest in that, they no longer knew how to produce any more of their own.

Re:comparative position?

[Neil Boekend]

I sure hope they didn't outsource to the Welsh or the Finns...

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easier to mind Gaps in America, here we have Baby Gap's.

Last thing I heard, everything was bigger in America.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Most of the British mainline railway is W6 through W8, which are roughly the size of what a British person would think of as a "normal" passenger train. It's rounded at the top (like trains used to be) which means it's not suitable for 2.9m "high cube" containers now becoming popular in sea freight. W10 fixes that, so key freight routes are, or are being, cleared to W10 (ie somebody comes along and demolishes the local bridges and re-builds them very slightly higher and without rounded arches, then they cross out W8 and write W10 on the chart).

[ You can squeeze a high cube container on a normal W8 route by using special low trucks where the container hangs between the wheels rather than riding above them, but this is not a cost efficient way to transport cargo so you don't want to start doing it at all the time ]

The underground comes in two sizes, both smaller than mainline trains. The sections that run shallow and spend a lot of time in open air are just slightly smaller ordinary looking electric trains. But the deep tunnel underground uses even smaller trains which are very obviously cylindrical so that they fit the naturally cylindrical tunnels of the deep underground.

Nobody intends to use the cross rail link for bulk freight transport. If you've got freight in the West and you wish it was in the East you don't send it through London to get there. So it doesn't matter if the cross rail is less than W10.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

The tunnels aren't european heavy rail gauge, but they are UK heavy rail gauge (which are a fair bit smaller than European gauge).

This means normal UK heavy rail trains will be able to operate through the crossrail network, and therefore allow through trains to operate beyond the crossrail network.

Consideration was given to the construction of tunnels to European gauge, but the markedly higher cost of tunnelling would not yield sufficient extra capacity to be a worthwhile investment.

This is in contrast to the channel tunnel and it's connections, and planned high speed routes to the rest if the UK which are all specified for European gauge, in order to all international through running.

Re:comparative position?

[tehcyder]

I'm surprised your major population centres aren't all named after UK prisons :-)

Re:comparative position?

[tehcyder]

Sort of reassuring to know that Australia still had plenty of lag, even in the 1800's.

Plenty of old lags, you mean.

Re:comparative position?

[tehcyder]

This isn't about the London Underground at all, it is a heavy rail link.

So it's underground London trains rather than London Underground trains?

Re:comparative position?

[digitig]

As it was presented at the rail industry safety group meeting I attended, the issue wasn't that the costs would be excessive, it was that the delays in getting fresh royal assent would be excessive. And that the issue wasn't extra capacity, it was compliance with European free-trade law.

Re:comparative position?

[tehcyder]

In fairness, there are genuine improvements coming down the line. (Sorry...) These are at least partly driven by a desire not to look like idiots when a few million extra people are around for the Olympics later this year.

It doesn't really matter how bad the tube is, because you've always got the options of utilising London's advanced road network, with guaranteed journey times and absolutely no hold ups.

If you're part of the Olympic committee or their sponsors and thus able to travel in special lanes during the Games, that is. Otherwise you sit and stew in your car, travelling at an average speed of 10mph if you're lucky.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pneumatic Subway in New York was built in 1870, but obviously that date is still after London's 1863.

Re:comparative position?

[cthulhu11]

These are at least partly driven by a desire not to look like idiots when a few million extra people are around for the Olympics later this year.

Revamping the menus of thousands of restaurants and getting other businesses to stay open past 5pm must be a herculean task! I wonder if the flashing sign telling people not to piss in the streets will remain.

Re:comparative position?

[dave420]

The new trains have aircon, fyi.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Now, now, be fair. They introduced a congestion charge in order to alleviate overcrowding on London's roads, and it has been highly effective and surely worth every penny that motorists have been charged! Anyone who claims it just moved some peak traffic to different roads or slightly different times of day is clearly deluded, and anyone who says it barely made a difference and the roads have long since gone back to being at least as crowded as before clearly isn't taking into account that they can now reach speeds of up to 12mph in the 50m gap between traffic lights, a full 20% improvement on the figure you quoted. Frankly, I think you're just being absurd and more than a little harsh on the national treasure that is London transport infrastructure.

Re:comparative position?

[ItalianScallion]

Actually, it isn't. In 1844, in the interests of segregating passenger train and road traffic, a rail tunnel was built under the roadbed of Atlantic Avenue, in what was then the independent city of Brooklyn, New York. There is a reply to the OP suggesting that Liverpool has some earlier tunnels than this, but in any case, it would seem that Brooklyn significantly predates the London underground train system.

Re:comparative position?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you either need to do a little more "googling", or get someone else to google it for you.

There are many, many older railway tunnels, as I'm sure you will discover, however the GP's point that the London Underground is the great granddaddy, is valid.

Re:Better that they take 30 and make it last.

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Dunno what point you're trying to make, seems like general gibberish TBH.

Why exaggerate?

[nuckfuts]

From the summary:

the 150-meter long machines...

From the article:

The 140 metre long, fully assembled tunnel boring machine...

At 140 metres, each TBM would just fit just inside the boundaries of a cricket oval.

Was 140 meters not impressive enough, so the submitter had to add 10 meters?

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

TIL 140 metres = 150 meters. It's not just a wonky British spelling.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Was 140 meters not impressive enough, so the submitter had to add 10 meters?

He's a guy - exaggerating a bit about length is reflexive.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Nemyst]

Obviously the submitter is American and did the conversion from British-meters to American-meters.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[rrohbeck]

Just like "Almost 30 years." 2012-1989=?

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends whether you count the 10m mains cable.

Or, it's 140m to 1.5 significant figures, but 150m is accurate to 1.4 figures.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[TheRaven64]

Metres. A metre is a measure of length. A meter is a thing you measure with. A metre meter is a stick one metre long. Damn yanks overloading words, it's as if they're speaking C++...

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like "Almost 30 years." 2012-1989=?

"[...]to its current projected completion date of 2018."

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not overloading; it's just another word they can't seem to spell :P

Re:Why exaggerate?

[AK Marc]

The final "e" sound is pronounced before the final "r" sound, so it seems silly to reverse them when spelled. The US is more phonetic. We don't hold on to antiquity because we find it quaint, but are more practical. If meter and metre are pronounced the same, why is it an issue if some place chooses to spell them the same?

Re:Why exaggerate?

[petsounds]

It originates from the French word metre [accent lost on slashdot], and before that the Greek word metron (to measure). Obviously in French the r is pronounced first. There's plenty of examples of American English taking on archaic spellings or words wholesale from other languages, so I don't think there's much room to boast of American linguistic pragmatism here.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[garyebickford]

Nah, we just like to spell like we pronounce. mee - ter, not mee - tray ( or meh - tray) :)

We would also spell Chalmondeley 'Chumly' - much more efficient. For some reason we still use Worcester, in honor of the Olde Lande, rather than the more common-sense Wooster.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Dr Fro]

The stick 1 meter long is a "meterometer" - something that measures a meter :)

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the British do have a habit of adding on. Come to think of it, why 10 meters, why not 11? I mean, it's like 1 longer.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Common sense would be "Wuster", since that's how Worcester is pronounced.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[neokushan]

Can you explain to me why you pronounce "Aluminium" as "Aluminum"?
And why you spell Sulfer with an f, but Phone with a P?

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like "Almost 30 years." 2012-1989=?

Read it again:

"almost 30 years will have elapsed from its political conception in 1989 to its current projected completion date of 2018"

Re:Why exaggerate?

[mrbester]

If you like Cholmondeley (Chumly), you'll love Featherstonehaugh (Fanshaw)...

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the capital city of Arizona must be 'Feenix', people talk on their 'sell fones' (while driving), geneticists are interested in 'jeens', etc? It's no surprise then that many people think Americans are 'stoopid'!

Re:Why exaggerate?

[zippthorne]

Uh.. What accent? ê? é? è? ë? (ê é è ë)I can't find any resource that suggests there's an accent.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[gmhowell]

Well, the British do have a habit of adding on. Come to think of it, why 10 meters, why not 11? I mean, it's like 1 longer.

They didn't want to steal control panels from their custom amps.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[petsounds]

"ORIGIN late 18th cent.: from French mètre." - Oxford American Dictionary.

[And yes, slashdot didn't actually eat the accent; I was an idiot]

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

The linked BBC article says 150-metre, "Described by Boris Johnson as "voracious worms nibbling their way under London", the 150-metre long machines will take three years to build a network of tunnels beneath the city's streets."

Re:Why exaggerate?

[FormOfActionBanana]

Humphrey Davey called it Aluminum... and some jerk in a British publication reviewed his work and said "Aluminium" sounded more Latin. From then onward... chaos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology

Re:Why exaggerate?

[FormOfActionBanana]

and... Sulfer is not a word.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quoted from the summary: "because almost 30 years will have elapsed from its political conception in 1989 to its current projected completion date of 2018."

I'd say that's almost 30 years...

Re:Why exaggerate?

[garyebickford]

:D

Re:Why exaggerate?

[garyebickford]

Well done! Thanks. For those who don't want to bother going to Wikipedia:

The earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina. The citation is from the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: "Had I been so fortunate as to have obtained more certain evidences on this subject, and to have procured the metallic substances I was in search of, I should have proposed for them the names of silicium, alumium, zirconium, and glucium."[62][63]

Davy settled on aluminum by the time he published his 1812 book Chemical Philosophy: "This substance appears to contain a peculiar metal, but as yet Aluminum has not been obtained in a perfectly free state, though alloys of it with other metalline substances have been procured sufficiently distinct to indicate the probable nature of alumina."[64] But the same year, an anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review, a British political-literary journal, in a review of Davy's book, objected to aluminum and proposed the name aluminium, "for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound."[65]

The -ium suffix conformed to the precedent set in other newly discovered elements of the time: potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, and strontium (all of which Davy isolated himself). Nevertheless, -um spellings for elements were not unknown at the time, as for example platinum, known to Europeans since the 16th century, molybdenum, discovered in 1778, and tantalum, discovered in 1802. The -um suffix is consistent with the universal spelling alumina for the oxide, as lanthana is the oxide of lanthanum, and magnesia, ceria, and thoria are the oxides of magnesium, cerium, and thorium respectively.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

and... Sulfer is not a word.

Yes it is, and a perfectly cromulent one at that.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[toddestan]

#define METRE METER

That's better.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[rubycodez]

But we in the US hold onto the quaint measurements instead of using the metric; but maybe that IS practical as beer makes sense served in pints and fifths are the thing for s wine and hard liquor.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[fake_name]

140 metres will just fit just inside the boundaries of a cricket oval. 150 metres won't fit, making the machines more than one cricket pitch in size.

Now if only I could find out how many library of congresses worth of rock they could move in an hour.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Megane]

That's 140 imperial metres.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Inda]

They're not pronounced the same though.

"re" is a soft sound
"er" is a hard sound

In my neck of the woods, we pronouce both as "ah". Mee-tah. I wouldn't dream of spelling it that way.

Geh off my laand.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Worcester isn't too bad of a spelling, if you divide the syllables correctly: WORCE-ster. Same for leice-ster and glouce-ster.

As for meter/metre, to my ears the American pronunciation would be better spelled "meedr". Unfortunately, this is confusing because "dr" in English is actually pronounced "jr" - e.g. "drive" is pronounced "jrive"

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

the extra ten metres are for the CCTV add-on to the tunnel boring machine.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[drinkypoo]

beer makes sense served in pints

I'd rather have a liter of beer than a pint.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[quenda]

Nah, we just like to spell like we pronounce. mee - ter, not mee - tray ( or meh - tray) :)

No, you pronounce it mee-te, if you are like most British (and all Australians) Unlike most yanks, we are non-rhotic. We drop the final R.
So, metre or meter, it does not really matter.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[rich_hudds]

or Slaithwaite (Slough-ert)

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Boston they drop the R when it's there, and put it back into words where it isn't there. :P "Hahvahd" is a college in Boston. I can't think of an example where they add superfluous Rs but the Kennedys did it often.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[tehcyder]

Common sense would be "Wuster", since that's how Worcester is pronounced.

Wooster is pronounced with the "oo" sounded as in "wood" not "ooh". So Wooster is also pronounced "Wuster"

Re:Why exaggerate?

[tehcyder]

beer makes sense served in pints

I'd rather have a liter of beer than a pint.

I'd rather have a pint glass than a litre glass to drink it from though.

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Zinho]

Too bad Brett Favre (pronounced "Farve") didn't get the memo...

Re:Why exaggerate?

[Brickwall]

I remember as a young lad, raised in Canada and speaking the Queen's English (not "that insufferable American argot", as one of my English masters had it), encountering the word "intrepid". Following the examples of metre (mee-tur) and centre (cen-tur), I pronounced it during an oral reading as "in-tur-pid", which brought the proceedings to an immediate halt.I tried to explain myself, repeating "in-tur-pid, it's right there in the book!" to increasing laughter from my class, but the master was sure I was having him on, and gave me a gating. Such, such were the joys..

"Peculiarly British"

[oldhack]

Wouldn't be British without the whining and moaning.

Re:"Peculiarly British"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they just shout "EX-TER-MIN-ATE" in a high-pitched voice.

Re:"Peculiarly British"

[PolygamousRanchKid]

" . . . well, instead of a Mammoth Metal Mole, we could build this Giant Wooden Rabbit . . . "

Re:"Peculiarly British"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more of a metallic voice than a high-pitched one.

Re:"Peculiarly British"

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what metal they use, but it's certainly not on the bass end.

Re:Better that they take 30 and make it last.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_underground

Britsh Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

they build exciting and reliable sports cars, too

Re:Britsh Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you're talking about TVR. My Griffith performed admirably (when I maintained it according to the manual) until some tit in a Ford Monstrosity wrote it off. A huge shame, since it was both exciting to drive and quite simply beautiful.

Linky. Mine was in pearlescent white/cream.

Re:Britsh Technology

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Heh, it had the same engine as the Ford, but two different outer packages one couldn't imagine :-)

Re:Britsh Technology

[newcastlejon]

The Griffith had a Rover V8 (derived from a Buick engine) as I recall, and since the parent didn't name the monstrosity one could only guess what it used.

I used to have a Reliant Scimitar, which used a 3-litre Ford V6. Could that be what you're thinking about?

Re:Britsh Technology

[Finallyjoined!!!]

I also had a Scimitar GTE, Racing green "R" reg, went like shit off a shovel, except, of course, when the electrickery wouldn't :-)
Just checked & you are right, the Griffith had a V8

Re:Britsh Technology

[newcastlejon]

I was never troubled by Lucas electrics. Having been burned by one too many Lucas-blighted cars I decided to rip out all the wiring and do it again properly.

It was nice being able to turn the headlights on without the smell of burning insulation.

Re:Britsh Technology

[Jeremi]

they build exciting and reliable sports cars, too

Actually it's German technology, the British merely bought a couple (and will sell them back to the German's when they're done with them).

Re:Britsh Technology

[afidel]

Really? Normally for bigger projects like this the TBM's are just crossed at the midpoint and left buried since the cutter head can't fit inside of a finished tunnel and the midpoint is normally somewhere where you can't simply bring a TBM to the surface.

Re:Britsh Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

same with the scimitar gte. Was a Y reg, two-tone-turd coloured. Best thing was you could repair the body with fiberglass :-)

Re:Britsh Technology

[Shotgun]

The picture of the entrance in the article shows two holes. They're using two TBMs. Maybe the plan is to run both all the way through and save the cutter head?

Too slow!

[Anonymous Coward]

100m per week makes for a long commute. *Practical* transport that moves freely underground is still a ways off.

Re:Too slow!

[Tastecicles]

the Crossrail project is talking about a 73-mile East-West network made up of three lines*, which at 100m/week in the tunnel sections will take about three years to dig. What complicates matters is the fact that the Crossrail coachwork will be full height and riding on standard gauge rails - which will make it completely incompatible with the London Underground network, also means that the rails that will need laying will be brand new, on virgin bed - while avoiding breaching existing tunnels! Most of the route will actually be overground, btw - the longest continuous tunnel section will be between Paddington and Canary Wharf.

*Maidenhead and Heathrow to Shenfield and Abbey Wood, with the split beneath Spitalfields just after Whitechapel.

Re:Too slow!

[beelsebob]

I'm not sure how 3 years * 5.2km adds up to 73 miles.

Re:Too slow!

[Anonymous Coward]

The part with the "mostly overground" might help you there. (PS. the tunnel boring metal moles [who came up with this shit, seriously] don't dig the above-ground bit, it has already been done for them).

Re:Too slow!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 8 machines.

Re:Too slow!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure how 3 years * 5.2km adds up to 73 miles.

There are 8 of these devices that each move 100m/week.

Re:Too slow!

[Anonymous Coward]

73-mile East-West network made up of three lines*, which at 100m/week in the tunnel sections, will take three years to dig.....

Re:Too slow!

[Anonymous Coward]

The tunnelled sections are only 22km, which is only slightly more than the 15.6km you get. Using these rough numbers, I suppose that they should be going through about 140m/week rather than 100.

Re:Too slow!

[Andy_R]

It doesn't. The article is horribly misleading about the actual tunnel. The project won't build a 73 mile tunnel at all, it will just join up two existing rail lines that go overground with a new section of tunnel. The total length of the joined lines will be 73 miles, but very little of it will actually be underground.

This is awesome, but...

[psperl]

In what way is this unique? Are these machines in any way superior to the machines used to bore the tunnels for the 2nd avenue subway in NYC or the ones used in the construction of the LHC at CERN?

Seems like this machine might be larger, but is that it?

Re:This is awesome, but...

[ColdWetDog]

Actually, except for the color scheme and the fact that the NYC machine isn't named after the Mayor, they look nearly identical.

Re:This is awesome, but...

[Tastecicles]

it's not unique at all - the design of the TBMs is identical to those used in the Eden (Channel Tunnel) Project, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, others at Orlovski, Niagara, Yucca... only difference being the number of tunnels excavated, the number of TBMs used in each project, and the type of rock chewed through.

Re:This is awesome, but...

[asquithea]

The Eden project had nothing to do with the Channel Tunnel (in fact, needed no tunnel construction at all), and the latter used different types of TBM from each end.

I suspect you've just done the equivalent of equating all types of car as identical, the only difference being the number of passengers carried, type of fuel, and terrain they need to be able to handle.

Re:This is awesome, but...

[Tastecicles]

um... no. And, no. Oh, and no.

The Tunnel boring project was named Eden in its concept phase through planning, the TBMs used in the probe tunnels were identical. Both built by the same company and both designed to chew chalk. When the tunnels met, one TBM was directed downwards and buried, the other was sent off to become one of four TBMs chewing through the Alps for the GBT. About the only thing that needed to be replaced was the cutting head since it was going from chewing chalk to chewing basalt and granite.

Re:This is awesome, but...

[asquithea]

I can find no reference to the Channel Tunnel project ever being referred to as the Eden project, but possibly it's been swamped by the biome complex in Cornwall, which is known by that name. You're welcome to provide a citation, if you have one. (Incidentally, the Eden Project was an engineering challenge in itself, given the difficult conditions found in the clay pit it was constructed in. It's well worth a read on the subject - Wikipedia doesn't have much to say about it.)

w.r.t. the TBMs used in the Channel Tunnel, they weren't all built by the same company, and they operated in different modes. There weren't even just two. More info at http://www.batisseurs-tunnel.com/amicale/doc%20UK/3%20Tunnels%20Tunnel%20sous%20La%20Manche_C%20.pdf

Whitechapel

[Rik Sweeney]

(I'm sure other Londoners will agree with me here)

I'm still baffled as to why CrossRail have decided to add a stop at Whitechapel. The place is a complete dump.

Re:Whitechapel

[datavirtue]

It will not be a dump any longer when the sub-way terminates there.

Re:Whitechapel

[Anonymous Coward]

The place is a complete dump.

To be fair, many people not from London would say the same about all of our illustrious capital.

Re:Whitechapel

[ChumpusRex2003]

Whitechapel already has a station with 3 lines.

In fact, you know that things are strange in Whitechapel, because the underground trains run overground, and the overground trains run underground.

Re:Whitechapel

[digitig]

It has an excellent art galley.

Re:Whitechapel

[hattig]

It's an interchange onto the North-South London Overground network (that at Whitechapel runs underneath the East/West District Line and Hammersmith & City Line Underground lines) that also stops at Whitechapel.

Re:Whitechapel

[tehcyder]

(I'm sure other Londoners will agree with me here)

I'm still baffled as to why CrossRail have decided to add a stop at Whitechapel. The place is a complete dump.

There's some historic pubs there though. Why, if only I'd been born at the time, I could have been one of the several thousand people present in the Blind Beggar the night Reggie Kray shot George Cornell.

Re:Whitechapel

[tehcyder]

Ronnie, sorry. Oh dear, I've probably just transgressed an unwritten law.

Re:Whitechapel

[Brickwall]

Never mind. The fact you were able to type and submit it with your head nailed to the floor displays a certain "stick-to-it" attitude that will do you all right in the end.

Meh.

[hey!]

Call me when they can load one up on a big green supersonic aircraft and deploy it anywhere in the world on a moment's notice.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thunderbirds reference.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, thanks. Marionettes are superior to mere rod puppets.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[Anonymous Coward]

London. On an island, right?

Wrong. Glad to be of help.

Dune

[sixtyeight]

We may as well get all of the Dune references out of the way here in this one thread.

Re:Dune

[Anonymous Coward]

What's that thundering noise underground? Is it a worm? No, it's just a boring machine.

peculiarly British example of how not to get big infrastructure schemes off the ground

It sounds like a worm. Where does it rise above to eat something? No, that was a metaphor, duniot!
Where are the best Asian restaurants located in London, again? I think those vibrations and noise are heading that way. What do you mean? The spice must flow!
What is that nibbling sound? Is it a worm nibble? Yes. Phew! I only get worried when I hear worms hiss.

Re:Dune

[Anonymous Coward]

Was there the sound of crickets chirping in Dune?

Re:Dune

[The Wild Norseman]

What's that thundering noise underground? Is it a worm? No, it's just a boring machine.

A boring machine?? OH MY GOD! They've figured out how to clone Alistair Darling!!

Re:Dune

[tehcyder]

I cant quite place your 'tard - is it American or Scottish?

Re:Dune

[Anonymous Coward]

Prolly a merkin tard, I doubt a scot would use such an appalling characature of english speech. And the phrase "faggot bitches" is also more likely to come from a merkin than a scot.

Re:Dune

[Anonymous Coward]

You brits got your collective asses handed to them by the United States and now you're nothing but our obedient lapdogs. The United States is by far the most powerful and technologically advanced country in the world, the rest of you are just weak little fucking peons on the global stage.

A single nuke from the USA could wipe out your entire little island "country", so suck it you limey bitch. Also, go brush your teeth.

Re:Better that they take 30 and make it last.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

At least the way that this is done, the British err on the side of giving respect to the workers that end up down there instead of the Third World where it is reserved for the despots.

In the third world, despots have their toilets in underground digging machines? That explains a lot.

Nothing 'peculiarly British' about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing peculiarly British about partisan politics resulting in funding taking years to be approved and plenty of NIMBYs protesting the plans!

Re:Nothing 'peculiarly British' about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's particularly British about is is calling it particularly British. No one calls things British quite like the Brits.

Re:Nothing 'peculiarly British' about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing peculiarly British about partisan politics resulting in funding taking years to be approved

That's the thing. I don't think either Labour nor Conservative party have actively opposed Crossrail. It's one of those, we'd like one of those, bloody hell would you look at the price tag, things.

Re:Nothing 'peculiarly British' about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing peculiarly British about partisan politics resulting in funding taking years to be approved and plenty of NIMBYs protesting the plans!

NUMBYs surely?

Not Under My Back Yard.

TBM installation for Crossrail is old news

[Tastecicles]

ISTR reading about this somewhere three weeks ago, it was old news then...

Math?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, they say the network will be built in three years.

8 (diggers) * 0.1km / week * 52 weeks / year * 3 years = 41.6km 73 miles (117.5km)

But then, they said the project would complete 2018... so then it adds up... but still a little unclear.

Re:Math?

[defnoz]

First, they say the network will be built in three years.

8 (diggers) * 0.1km / week * 52 weeks / year * 3 years = 41.6km 73 miles (117.5km)

But then, they said the project would complete 2018... so then it adds up... but still a little unclear.

The underground length is about 22 km, i.e. around 44 km of tunnel (one for each line). 3 years gives enough time for the tunnelling and ancillary work on the underground parts. Once that is done there's still building the stations (including connecting to the underground), laying the track etc, a lot of work on the existing suburban stations required, and aquiring the trains (something the Department for Transport are notorious for; the invitation to tender has only just been released and it's likely to be a touchy issue for the government) - hence the estimated 2018 date.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[ColdWetDog]

Someone hasn't played Jenga, apparently.

Hoping not to disturb your world view overmuch, but there is this interesting concept of reality.

You might try it sometime - it's different enough at any rate.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically every land mass is an island in that it's completely surrounded by water. It just happens that some of them are very large and that island usually has a connotation associated with smaller land masses. Do you honestly think it's all just bits of soft sandy soil under the ground?

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[sixtyeight]

Appreciated, thank you. It all looks smaller on Google Maps, but a 1:1 scale would probably be unfeasible.

Already done in post-Civil war Seattle

[cellocgw]

Boneshaker, anyone?

Re:Already done in post-Civil war Seattle

[Sulphur]

Boneshaker, anyone?

If the rails were laid end-to-end, it would be a big improvement.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[sixtyeight]

People being unnecessarily offensive on the internet or off, alas, does not disturb my present world view.

What kind of transport is it?

[goodmanj]

Ugh, terrible journalism, they've buried the lede. You have to read to the very last sentence to figure out that it's a heavy commuter rail corridor, not a subway, bus, or car tunnel. Maybe this is obvious to British readers, but I found it confusing as hell.

Re:What kind of transport is it?

[6Yankee]

Heavy rail v subway, fair enough. But I would have thought that the "rail" in Crossrail, which appears in bold on the first line, would rule out buses and cars.

Re:What kind of transport is it?

[Canazza]

wasn't particularly obvious as to whether it was a rail line or a tube line. Don't think anyone would have thought it was a road tunnel though.

Re:What kind of transport is it?

[xaxa]

Ugh, terrible journalism, they've buried the lede. You have to read to the very last sentence to figure out that it's a heavy commuter rail corridor, not a subway, bus, or car tunnel. Maybe this is obvious to British readers, but I found it confusing as hell.

Do you mean the BBC article? The project has been going on for a long time with other work (excavating the big underground stations in central London) for ages now, so everyone in London is familiar with it. I think the article was only in the BBC's local news for London. The rest of the country ought to be aware of it -- it was a big expenditure that was definitely not going to be cancelled for any short-term savings, and rail spending has been in the news in other regions of the UK quite a lot recently.

Anyway, it's arguably heavy-rail infrastructure with metro-rail service: [At peak times] "Ten-car trains will run at frequencies of up to 24 trains per hour (tph) in each direction", so that's a train every 2.5 minutes in each direction. London Underground (metro/subway) lines run at between 20-30 tph at peak.

The machine was "parked" alongside the existing railway near my house, I could see it from the train. The size and engineering of it was very impressive.

Re:What kind of transport is it?

[digitig]

It isn't particularly obvious to the project team either, and the European standardisation laws were still an issue last thing I heard (a couple of weeks ago).

Re:What kind of transport is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's crossrail, wtf did you think it was going to be? Horses?

Good on London for supporting public transport

[fantomas]

Good to see London going for public infrastucture development during the recession. Definitely will be great to have a fast Crossrail service and add to the options of moving around London. I was standing waiting for a bus at Angel the other day and I realised all the people sitting in the cars between the two sets of lights in that section could fit into one bus (or a train carriage). Public mass transport got to be the way to go in cities like London. Could you imagine London without the tube? (Mind you it would be great if they could somehow refurbish the old lines, but I guess TfL have that dream as well...)

Re:Good on London for supporting public transport

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several problem with that comparison.

First, the bus wouldn't be going to all the different places those cars will be going. It goes along a fixed route which may or may not be anywhere close to your actual destination.
Second, travelling by bus or train is okay if it's just you, but try carrying anything long or heavy or multiple armfulls of anything at all. There's plenty of rules about objects you're simply not allowed to take on a bus or train.
Third, buses are efficient only during a couple of hours of each day. The rest of the time, they tend to be extremely inefficient since they mostly drive around almost empty. And a big red bus with two people inside takes up much more space and burns much more fuel than a couple of city cars. Much more.

So yes, public transport has it's place but it's not and never will be the solution to London's transport problems. That would be actually reducing the number of journeys which need to be made. But that's a whole different story...

Re:Good on London for supporting public transport

[FunPika]

Well London is lucky in that case, at least your public transportation isn't proposing to increase fares and cut several of its services at the same time (the Massachusets Bay Transportation Authority is doing this).

Re:Good on London for supporting public transport

[dkf]

Good to see London going for public infrastucture development during the recession.

It'd be even better if they weren't leeching money from the rest of the country to pay for it. Let Londoners pay for their own local infrastructure.

Re:Good on London for supporting public transport

[garyebickford]

About 10 years ago I was commuting via the bus for a while, and was curious about the true efficiency. So I took the total amount of fuel that the bus system was reported to use in a year, and divided by the number of passengers and total miles driven (all part of their annual report). My conclusion was that the bus system got about 12 passenger miles per gallon averaged over all their routes and schedules. Unfortunately for most people the real price of taking the bus, besided the bus fare, was the loss of time. My commute took over an hour each way, and could be driven even in bad traffic in about 25 minutes. At the time I was only making $15/hour, so the opportunity cost to me of taking the bus was very conservatively over an hour per day or $15 per day (not even counting the time to walk out to and wait for the bus, and the restriction on my work schedule - the last bus home went by at about 6:30 PM) - enough to buy a very nice car if I wanted to.

Re:Good on London for supporting public transport

[Anonymous Coward]

TfL isn't proposing to increase fares, mainly because they're already increased them – years ago.

I remember stopping off for a few day lay-over coming back from South Africa in 1985 and fares were quite reasonable. (It didn't hurt either that the Pound was on par with the Dollar too.) Even in 2002 they were still quite reasonable IMO.

Have you seen the fares these days?

Re:Good on London for supporting public transport

[Charliemopps]

And there you go... when the government decides market forces aren't smart enough to provide the most economical solution, you can always count on the government to be sure and introduce the least economical solution in its place, and then tax all of its competitors to make sure it "appears" the cheapest solution.

Re:Good on London for supporting public transport

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, and we'll ensure that all the money that London makes for the country is only used locally as well.

Re:Good on London for supporting public transport

[dave420]

You're pretty dense if you think the rest of the country doesn't benefit from London's transport routes. Seriously. Try thinking about it. Or maybe London should just keep all those lovely tourist monies they receive. Muppet.

Re:Good on London for supporting public transport

[Shotgun]

And if you do ride, you will have to sit way to close to the bum that hasn't unzipped to urinate in weeks, the two teenagers that can't afford a hotel room, the cell-phone bound single mom that doesn't understand that I don't want to play with the unwashed heathen even if it wasn't still carrying its breakfast all over its face, and the weird ugly dude that keeps trying to get the attention of my wife and obviously has a genital rash from the position of his hands.

Buy now

[fantomas]

You wait til a superfast train connection stops there. House prices will go up again... Fast connection across London stopping there will mean it's going to go up in the world.

And why are they digging these tunnels?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crappy summary is crappy. Would have been nice to tell us in your wordy summary that it is for a rail project.

Life doesn't begin at conception

[goodmanj]

You can't count the life of a project from the date someone first thought of it. By that measure, the Apollo moon landing project took at least 100 years. You should start counting from the date significant funding began, which in this case is 2010. Not bad, compared to, say, Boston's Big Dig.

Re:Life doesn't begin at conception

[Anonymous Coward]

30 years only seems like a long time to people in their 20s.

Re:Life doesn't begin at conception

[khallow]

You can't count the life of a project from the date someone first thought of it.

If we did that, we'd probably have to go looking back a long longer than 1989 (Wikipedia, for example, traces official proposals for the Crossrail back to 1948, Apollo doesn't go that far back for official proposals, perhaps the early 50s).

You should start counting from the date significant funding began, which in this case is 2010. Not bad, compared to, say, Boston's Big Dig.

You mean "not bad compared to one of the most incompetent public works projects of the past couple of decades in the US"? Eh, that's pretty faint praise.

Re:Life doesn't begin at conception

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I loved the 'peculiarly British' bit. He should have a look at, say, the Eastern Suburbs Railway for example, opened 50 years after it was first planned and 31 years after construction began. I'm sure there are plenty of others, all over the globe.

Re:Life doesn't begin at conception

[Tim C]

I'm 37 and it seems like a long time to me, too.

Re:Life doesn't begin at conception

[steelfood]

Or the Second Avenue subway line. It's been in the planning stages since the Great Depression (1929), and the project actually started work in 1967. That existing piece of tunnel won't even be open until 2016 at the earliest, and the entire project's slated to be completed near the turn of the next century.

I'd say the British are fairly efficient in comparison.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[Sulphur]

Do you honestly think it's all just bits of soft sandy soil under the ground?

No, and I hadn't been trying to give that impression.

Neither do I think that quantities of houses and automobiles are made of foam rubber. If you excavate large swaths of the foundation, island or not, there's going to be trouble.

My parents were homeowners, and the city decided it would pump the freshwater under the neighborhood and sell it. That alone caused significant property damage as the land settled due to the lowered water table. And that was just water; I wouldn't like to think what would happen removing massive amounts of the earth.

Bring land ashore from the North Sea.

Rules Change Re:Whitechapel

[Anonymous Coward]

They had to add the stop because the Alternate Thursday Rule, when applied in conjunction with the Left-Hand Turns Only Method, caused too many people to end up in the middle of the Thames.

Re:Rules Change Re:Whitechapel

[brantondaveperson]

*clap*

A Bave New World, with just a handful of men

[Master Moose]

ARTILLERYMAN: We're gonna build a whole new world for ourselves. Look, they
clap eyes on us and we're dead, right?

So we gotta make a new life where they'll never find us. You know where?
Underground.

Have they ....

[PPH]

... consulted with Professor Quatermass before commencing excavation?

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Re:Tunnelling under London...

[Richard_at_work]

Well, it isn't going to do anything, because they don't want the tunnels collapsing...

This isn't like pumping water, gas or oil out from under the ground - the tunnels need to be servicable and usable after the fact, otherwise there isn't any point in making them, so they get lined with concrete or some other material which keeps them rigid and bearing the weight of the ground above them.

Bear in mind that they've been doing this in London for 200 years or more, what with the London Underground, service tunnels, Royal Mail tunnels, BT telecommunications tunnels etc etc etc. London is criscrossed with tunnels already, 99% of them not having any issue on the surface at all. They've got experience in this.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[sixtyeight]

That's sincerely reassuring then, and I thank you. I hadn't thought they could successfully reinforce tunnels a tenth of a kilometer wide.

Sulfur

[CountBrass]

Some counter points.

Sulfur (the US spelling) is more archaic than Sulphur (the English spelling).

Meter is English, Metre is French (they invented the metric system).

I suppose you would also want all other homophones to be spelled the same way, right, rite, wright, write?

English has never been a phonetic language, neither the UK nor the US version.

Re:Sulfur

[AK Marc]

I suppose you would also want all other homophones to be spelled the same way, right, rite, wright, write?

I made no such claim, however, it would actually help linguistic clarity to have all homophones be homographs.

English has never been a phonetic language, neither the UK nor the US version.

Yes, it was. Old English and Middle English are phonetic, but Modern English has adopted many words never officially in the precursor languages. Bureau is not phonetic, but is an English word, even if it retains its French spelling and approximately French pronunciation. But such adoptions post-date the inception of the language called "English."

Re:Sulfur

[FormOfActionBanana]

Wikipedia says "sulphur" was used in England since the 14th century. It was from the French word soufre.

Re:Sulfur

[Requiem18th]

It was from the French word soufre.

I'm pretty sure it comes from the Latin Sulphuris.

Re:Sulfur

[slashgrim]

From The Chaos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

...

Hiccough has the sound of cup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

Re:Sulfur

[AK Marc]

Written in Modern English, and are you asserting that they would not rhyme in Old and Middle English? Remember, knight used to have every letter pronounced clearly.

Re:Sulfur

[Anonymous Coward]

Spelling "knight" as "knight" also helps to disambiguate it from "daily period of darkness when the sun is above the other side of the Earth". Likewise, the British spelling for "metre" avoids situations an American might find ambiguous, like "Give 'em a meter & they'll take a mile" (huh? How does the gift of an output device that conveys a sense of magnitude enable somebody to steal an intangible one-dimensional object?"). In contrast, "Give 'em a metre, and they'll take a mile" has zero ambiguity -- pedantic, contrived, or otherwise.

It's the same reason why China's replacement of its writing system with the Roman alphabet would create more problems than it solves. Nearly every word in Chinese has multiple homonyms. If they spelled the words alike to remain phonetic, every sentence would be an ambiguous nightmare ("I went to to stores to, to buy to pairs of shoes to wear to the party" vs "I went to two stores too, to buy two pairs of shoes to wear to the party"). If they varied spelling to disambiguate words with identical pronunciations, they'd end up with a language whose orthography was almost completely arbitrary and unpredictable (at least characters have an underlying logic that hints at some bit of meaning, if not ancient pronunciation).

Re:Sulfur

[AK Marc]

Spelling "knight" as "knight" also helps to disambiguate it from "daily period of darkness when the sun is above the other side of the Earth".

And horse is spelled as "horse" to differentiate it from "car". Disambiguation is not a valid goal, and there are no occurrances I'm aware of where words were spelled differently for such a purpose, aside from people deliberately naming new things (inventions, discoveries of metals, etc.). Knight was *never* spelled that way to differentiate it from night. It was spelled that way because it was pronounced "ki-ni-guh-tuh" (run together to be one syllable).

It's the same reason why China's replacement of its writing system with the Roman alphabet would create more problems than it solves.

Yet the adoption of pinyin has worked well and taken off with wide adoption.

You are simply wrong. Your "all to/two/too spelled as 'to'" sentence was completely unambiguous, even if hard to understand (mainly because it's a violation of English, which makes it invalid as a "how easy is it to read this" when we've had many years experience with it otherwise).

Re:How does positioning work underground?

[AK Marc]

There are GPS re-radiators that will allow GPS underground. Based on the wording, it seems like that is something they are doing, but I didn't see the exact method explicitly stated.

Took the Brits only 30 years?

[tomhath]

Pffft, Amateurs. Boston's Big Dig is only 3.5 miles long and it took 35 years from first review to completion.

Re:Took the Brits only 30 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean, "completion"? There's still pieces falling on peoples' heads due to corrupt, shoddy construction, and they're still trying to patch the crap together.

Re:Took the Brits only 30 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah... childsplay. The Second Ave subway in Manhattan was first "planned" in 1929. Actual building started 40 years ago. We're nowhere near done. It's going to be less than 3.5 miles. And after the Big Dig, Boston's underground misadventures are pretty much finished, whereas we've still got City Water Tunnel 3 (of Die Hard fame - my dad worked on it in the early 70's), an East Side Access tunnel (also using the same type of boring machine) and a 7 train extension that together should take us through, say, AD2500.

Re:Took the Brits only 30 years?

[slinkp]

New York's 2nd Avenue subway started construction 40 years ago, after first being planned 83 years ago.
And yes, the project is currently under construction (again).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway#Background

I've seen this before

[phantomfive]

They had these in Ninja Turtles. Can't find a link, though.

Re:I've seen this before

[jquirke]

Transport Modules

30 years? at least It's keeping those men employed

[ben4528]

A job is a job, a 30 years project is a decent job security after all.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[Salgak1]

With properly constructed concrete-and-rebar parts, much wider tunnels could be done. There are, of course, a number of variables involved: depth, size, composition of surrounding rock, etc. A Civil Engineer with a P.E. would be the go-to guy (or gal) for the specific tech details ans math...

Second Avenue Subway has the Brits beat

[pmccormi]

The Second Avenue Subway in NYC was proposed in 1929, began tunnelling in 1972, then stopped in 1975, restarted in 2007. You can see pictures of the tunnel here:

http://www.thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2012/03/contract-one-nearly-done.html

Picture of TBM

Keep in mind these pictures are taken from several feet below the active traffic on Second Avenue.

Re:Second Avenue Subway has the Brits beat

[l00sr]

Also, don't forget New York City Water Tunnel #3, which has been under construction for a respectable 42 years, and is estimated to be completed in 2020.

Re:How does positioning work underground?

[garyebickford]

Yes. Lasers are commonly used. It's not uncommon for two underground boring machines to meet at the center of a ten mile tunnel and be less than a centimeter off.

Brunel

[DaveGod]

The fundamental approach to digging appears to broadly resemble that of Brunel's ideas for digging the Thames Tunnel in the early-mid 1800's.

Re:Boring.

[TeknoHog]

Fixed the subject for you.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[xaxa]

That's sincerely reassuring then, and I thank you. I hadn't thought they could successfully reinforce tunnels a tenth of a kilometer wide.

Um, what?

The tunnel diameter is 6.2 metres, i.e. a bit bigger than the cross section of a train + emergency walkway. The new, underground station platforms will be 250 metres long (wow!) but still only ~18m diameter (my guess from the mock-up video). Presumably they've planned for enough space for most of the "some 1,500 passengers ... carried in each train at peak periods" to get off at a single station.

Tunnelling can cause problems though. For example, London's local Quake II level (see picture) required some special work to avoid the Houses of Parliament collapsing.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Modern engineering can do some quite remarkable things, but for what it's worth, I think you've misunderstood the scale of the tunnels involved here by about an order of magnitude.

It's a cover-up

[JoosepN]

It's actually this guy


I'm at least suspicious about it. It makes a whole lot of sense.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[sixtyeight]

That's sincerely reassuring then, and I thank you. I hadn't thought they could successfully reinforce tunnels a tenth of a kilometer wide.

Um, what?

My mistake. The article brief sizes the equipment at 150 metres, corrected in the comments to 140 metres.

What I'd missed was that they were 140 metres long, not wide. Naturally I freaked.

Thanks for the correction.

Re:Mind you, if they run into voids, we're in trou

[Ghaoth]

Doesn't anyone remember Hobb's Lane in London and Quatermass adn the Pit?

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[xaxa]

There are better pictures on this blog:
http://www.londonreconnections.com/2011/in-pictures-the-crossrail-tbms/
http://www.londonreconnections.com/2012/in-pictures-crossrails-tbms-at-westbourne-park/

(But even after seeing all those pictures, I was still amazed at how huge the TBM was when I happened to see it -- 95% assembled -- from a train on my way into London.)

I Do Hope They've Done Their Homework

[ks*nut]

What's the worst thing that could happen? A "voracious worm" tunnelling near established infrastructure sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Please, someone explain how a surface control room can keep track of a subterranean device using GPS. And then there's that bit under the River Thames...

Just in Time for the Python's New Movie

[ks*nut]

All they have to do is wait for the mayhem to commence!

30 years? We're just as bad in California.

[russbutton]

The San Francisco Bay Bridge had a section collapse in the 1989 Loma-Prieta earthquake. They're building a replacement now and should have it open sometime next year (2013). They'll still have to take down the old bridge and only Jerry Brown knows how long that'll take. It took about 3 years to build it the first time and more than 25 years to replace just half of it.

Still better than NYC

[Zcar]

"Meanwhile critics complain that the project is a peculiarly British example of how not to get big infrastructure schemes off the ground, because almost 30 years will have elapsed from its political conception in 1989 to its current projected completion date of 2018."

How long has NYC been working on the 2nd Avenue line? 75 years? IIRC, they had a bond issue in the early '50s and finally started tunneling in the early '70s, but funding fell through. They started up again recently and currently plan for an opening late this decade for the first segment, 63rd St to 96th St. No word on when the other phases will be funded, extending the line from Hanover Sq. to 125th St., roughly 9 miles total.

Yes, it's a tunnel boring machine

[Animats]

Yes, it's a TBM. That's how tunnels are usually dug today, where possible. There are several types, depending on the subsurface conditions. Crossrail is using mostly "earth pressure balanced" TBMs, which are for soft ground, and, for the section under the Thames out to Woolwich, a "slurry" TBM, for, well, mud. There are other types of TBMs, like hard-rock TBMs, like the ones the Swiss use to grind through the Alps.

For wet conditions, the digging is the easy part, It's propping up the tunnel walls and keeping water out that's hard. The general idea is that air pressure does the job near the face, and just behind the cutting head, ring segments are put into place to build the tunnel wall. In wet ground, the TBM drills a hole slightly larger than the ring segments, so there's never unsupported tunnel wall.

Crossrail only needs 3 years to build the tunnels. That's not bad for 21km of tunnel.

TBMs are so long because they're a construction project in a can. The front end digs. The next section assembles the tunnel rings. Then there's a section where little railroad cars take away dirt and bring up tunnel ring segments. Then there's a part that adds new track sections for the little railroad cars, which run on a two-track line. All this has to be crammed into the tunnel diameter, and it has to continue to work while the thing inches forward.

Out here in California, we recently had a non-TBM tunnel job, at Devils' Slide. This is a road tunnel through an unstable mountain, one that has repeatedly dropped the coastal road into the ocean. The mountain is essentially a big pile of loose shale and sandstone, not hard rock. Digging and stabilizing that involved a lot of steel and concrete. That's one of the worst cases.

The Channel Tunnel was in some ways, not too bad. Most of the route is in chalk, which is easy to drill and reasonably dry.

The second Crossrail TBM, incidentally, is named Ada, after Ada Lovelace.

Re:Yes, it's a tunnel boring machine

[drinkypoo]

Out here in California, we recently had a non-TBM tunnel job, at Devils' Slide.

You say that like it's done. If so, it would be nice if they would open the damned thing, so that I'm not perpetually stuck behind some superannuated fuckbag who can't go around a corner, or some young couple both pointing and staring at the ocean instead of the road.

Re:Yes, it's a tunnel boring machine

[Animats]

You say that like it's done.

Sorry. The tunneling is done. The roadway has been laid. Now it's interior work. Power, ventilation, lighting, interior finish, landscaping, etc. Opening may be in November 2012.

How do they handle nav?

[Walt Dismal]

I've always wondered how the tunnel borers track position precisely when they are underground. GPS depends on adequate reception of satellite signals, which you do NOT get underground. Inertial navigation systems? But those usually need to be refreshed from calibration sources.

I've concluded it's all done by reference to gnomes.

Re:How do they handle nav?

[ledow]

Every few hundred metres, you need a ventilation hole of some kind anyway. London is riddled with historical vertical vent holes - sometimes small, sometimes large. One example had a building put on top of it (near the Embankment, I think) that you used to be able to use to go down to track level for maintenance.

All you have to do is line up correctly to where you want the next one. More interesting is that Shenfield is WAY out of London in Essex, and Maidenhead is technically in Kent, and there's the Thames in the middle of all that.

My first question would be: If we can do this, why can't we just build double-tunnels or bypass tunnels for everything on the Underground so that a SINGLE stopped train on the entire system doesn't bring the whole of the city to a grinding halt (i.e. every single day).

My second would be: Why the hell are we still relying on TWO car ferries (one of which is almost permanently out of action on any given day) at one crossing, and a few bridges to traverse north/south in a major capital city, when we could be tunnelling under the Thames and solving the problem, Belgian-style?

Re:How do they handle nav?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maidenhead is in Berkshire and not very near anywhere in Kent.

I think I have that beat.

[CountBrass]

Demesne, which is pronounced 'domain'!

Uhm.

[CountBrass]

You have heard of the Channel Tunnel haven't you?

They dug from both ends and met in the middle, under much deeper water than the Thames, and were only a centimetre out.

UK is much faster than the US

[maroberts]

Bostons Big Dig was first planned in 1948 and didn't get completed till 2007, which makes the US look quite pedestrian compared to the rapid progress in the UK.....

Re:UK is much faster than the US

[quenda]

Bostons Big Dig was first planned in 1948 and didn't get completed till 2007, which makes the US look quite pedestrian compared to the rapid progress in the UK.....

Sorry, but the Brits and French are the clear winners. The Channel Tunnel took more than a century from first digging to official opening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel#Proposals_and_attempts

Let's hope they don't get lost...

[advocate_one]

like the small one in Gloucester did last year... not only did they lose track of where it was, when they finally restarted it back on the correct path, it cut through a major telephone cable that hadn't been correctly identified on the maps they based the route on... (oh for heck's sake, my google fu is poor this afternoon... it was a major local news topic about it being lost, yet I can't find any of the articles now...)

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Pressure cooking

[squidflakes]

The kitchens on TBMs are pretty neat. Depending on the depth of the dig, the pressure can get quite high, and this renders normal cooking recipes absolutely useless. Anything and relies on gas pressure to add volume will end up flat, so fluffy breads, crusts, and desserts like muffins, cakes, or souffles are right out as are things that use steam for cooking. Anything cooked in water has to be watched as temperatures get much higher and you don't have the cooling effects of boiling to help with regulation.

When I was doing squid research, I got an opportunity to spend some time in an underwater lab. Pressure wasn't much higher than normal (can't remember how many mmHg) but it was enough that cooking was crazy-go-nuts. We ended up eating a lot of cold preparations, salads, and packaged foods.

Fun Fact, beer is fucking lousy at depth. You'd be amazed how much the dissolved gasses and the release of such affects the taste and enjoyment.

Re:Pressure cooking

[quenda]

Fun Fact, beer is fucking lousy at depth. You'd be amazed how much the dissolved gasses and the release of such affects the taste and enjoyment.

But as a bonus, at just 40m or so down, you can get quite drunk breathing the nitrogen in ordinary air.

Re:Pressure cooking

[squidflakes]

Yep, good ole Nitrogen Narcosis. I'm on the susceptible side of the curve and it starts to hit me around 25m. It is really mild, just a general euphoria and sense that I really fucking love scuba diving. 30m and below it gets a bit stronger but I know enough to watch for the symptoms. If I've been at depth for some time or I go below 40m, then it is a lot like being drunk. I'm giddy, and I have the urge to give fish my regulator.

This is why, if I'm going below 40m for any reason or if I'm decompression diving, I prefer heliox or tri-mix. Trimix is a lot less expensive and I can get it mixed with a lower percentage of nitrogen for the same price. I'd really love to try hydrox or hydreliox since hydrogen narcosis doesn't kick in till 300m or so, but there are some dangers in that. One being that a hydrogen-oxygen mix under pressure is ridiculously flammable.

Re:How does positioning work underground?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the start of the horizontal bore, to the machine doing the boring - the empty part of the hole. :) They use above-ground survey methods to make sure of the exact location and orientation of the starting point. Then they start boring in the proper direction, set up the laser at the start point to aim the way they want to go, and the boring machine has a laser receiver on the back end that maintains the alignment within a gnat's eyelash.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Closures

[Anonymous Coward]

Most line closures are because of weekend upgrade works, and have nothing to do with a day or two of strike action that occurs every 2 or 3 years.

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[tehcyder]

Are you just having a really, really bad day, or are are you always this stupid?

Re:Mind you, if they run into voids, we're in trou

[The Archon V2.0]

Sorry, I was too busy thinking of the "stone pigs" under Fallen London in Echo Bazaar.

Five down, two to go.

dig deep

[jcgam69]

I hope the tunnels are deep enough to avoid destroying all of the ancient artifacts still buried beneath London.

no mention of noise

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this will make a lot of noise as it tunnels under office buildings and homes. Its 140 meters long and moves 100m per week, meaning it will be directly under buildings for over 10 days. Maybe it will not carry noise up into buildings, but if it does, 10 days at 24 hours is significant.

Doesn't count

[maroberts]

all delays were caused by the French, Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler.

Ooh, Godwin!!

Re:Tunnelling under London...

[sixtyeight]

A little of both, actually. In case you were sincere:

I'm a political protester living off the grid and on the street. It can be very distracting trying to post from raucous shelters, being jostled and interrupted by rude people every few minutes. It happens wherever I get online from, but shelters are usually worse. I'm malnourished, which impairs cognition quality. And I have systemic candida albicans overproliferation, exacerbated from eating lots of cheap, starchy and near-expired shelter food. Candida overgrowth overloads the body with toxins and gives you the constant equivalent of a hangover, giving a person "brain fog" (they become mentally spacey). All of this, as the alternative to paying one red cent to the federal government and becoming an accomplice to their crimes against humanity, at home or abroad. (If everyone refused to subsidize the government until it shaped up, then it necessarily would. They don't, and so I end up taking a lot of flak for refusing to be a party to it - while society just carries on around me, falling to bits as it goes.)

A margin of patience is appreciated.

Re:Mind you, if they run into voids, we're in trou

[Grishnakh]

Curse you, for reminding me of that horrible movie! That movie was almost as bad as Gigli and Battlefield: Earth.

The Morlock won't like that!

[madhi19]

All that noise and you might just burst a few of their tunnels!

So people are offended when I call out truth?

[sethstorm]

(Flamebait, Troll, Overrated mods)
At least the way that this is done, the British err on the side of giving respect to the workers that end up down there instead of the Third World where it is reserved for the despots.

Apparently someone's offended that the British take the time to do something properly for all involved instead of a despot ordering something to happen and having it come at the unnecessary cost of people or bad long-term consequences.