By rosebell
On Sunday, May 25, TBM Caroline that is a 9.48m diameter cutterhead, front and middle shield, weighing 850 tonnes, were retrieved from below ground at the Green Park Wy site in Greenford, west London using a large gantry crane by engineers working on HS2.
Digging over than 1.2 million tonnes of earth and installed 4,217 tunnel rings, TBM Caroline finished the 8km drive from West Ruislip in April, arriving in an underground reception chamber.
In order to constructing part of the Northolt Tunnel that is a 13.5km tunnel being built by four TBMs that is due to take HS2 trains from Old Oak Common Station to the outskirts of the capital, this machine was used and it has been named by a local school after the astronomer Caroline Herschel.
While TBM Sushila, as the first machine to arrive at Green Park Way was removed in March, the date of commissioning TBM Emily was February last year, and TBM Anne launched in April l2024, are building the eastern section of the tunnel from HS2’s Victoria Road Crossover Box just outside the Old Oak Common station site.
The responsibility of building the route through London is up to HS2’s London tunnels contractor, Skanska Costain Strabag joint venture (SCS), which totally involves 20.7km of twin-bore tunnels, including the Northolt Tunnel and the Euston Tunnel, which will eventually take the railway from Old Oak Common station into HS2’s central London terminus at Euston.
