Welcome to September’s issue of T&TI. We’ve certainly got a mammoth issue for you this month. Not only does the main issue include our regular North American supplement (taking the issue size to over 80 pages), but it also comes with our 40+ page Channel Tunnel Rail Link Section 2 supplement.
Add to this a focus on the UK’s other current projects and topics, reports from Panama and the Czech Republic, technical reviews on both ground consolidation and steel fibres, and you can see how we’ve ended up with one of our biggest monthly outputs for years. Hopefully this mirrors the current buoyancy of the international tunnelling market!
Of particular interest in this modern age of large scale urban tunnelling projects will be coverage of the UK’s two most talked about projects. Firstly the possible future construction of London’s long awaited Crossrail tunnel (see p22) and secondly, the current construction of the city’s CTRL Section 2 tunnels. These so called “mega-projects” involving the boring of many kilometers of large diameter tunnels through ground virtually bursting with existing infrastructure and never far enough below the busy city streets, will always draw close scrutiny, and often cynicism. But as if to prove a point, at the time of writing, the CTRL 2 London Tunnels were on budget and schedule to produce 20km of twin bore tunnel, with minimal disruption to the city, at a rough cost of £20M (US$31M) per km.
Compare this to the cost of building East London’s 1.8km long ‘Limehouse Link’ cut and cover tunnel in the early 1990’s and the achievement becomes all the more impressive. Construction started in 1989, but the tunnel, linking the city with London’s then up and coming Docklands business region, was not opened until May 1993 at a cost of £255M (US$400M) or about £140M (US$220M) per km of tunnel!
Thankfully things have progressed over the last 10 years and hopefully the current successes of the CTRL construction teams, using cutting edge tunnelling technology, can continue. Not only will it lay a few ghosts to rest, but also, vitally, it will add considerable weight to the case of those that argue that Crossrail is the only realistic solution to one of London’s most severe transport problems.
Tris Thomas
