Good morning. I find myself in Nine Elms.
Over there there's a construction site taking place
for the extension of the Northern line
on the underground right now.
That is not what I'm here for.
I'm here for a different type of train.
When you've been to all the railway stations in Britain,
it's kind of like, "Yeah, I've been on all the trains."
But then I got an email from a nice chap
at the Tideway Tunnel construction scheme
and he went, "Geoff, we've got a train
that I don't think you've been on.
Fancy a ride?"
I said, "Yes," and you gonna come with me?
Yes. Vicki's here too.
Oh, you're quite low.
That's 'cause you've put me in the road!
You literally said, "Stand here."
Yes, the Tideway Tunnel is a new
25 kilometre tunnel being dug under London right now
to capture and convey sewage and rainwater,
which helps keep the River Thames clean.
It runs from Acton in West London,
where it's 30 metres below ground,
slowly getting deeper with an increased gradient
on purpose until it's 70 metres deep
out at Abbey Mills in East London.
And to aid with the construction, deep beneath London,
they have trains running.
So it was time go and have a ride.
I spy a shaft.
Whoa. (chuckles)
(elevator creaking)
That's quite a shaft. (chuckles)
This is great and all, but where's the train?
We only came for the tr...
Is this it? The train is there!
So you're gonna hop on there.
(Geoff chuckles)
What are you doing with your Thursday morning?
I'm currently 45 metres unground,
which is deeper than most London underground railways
and I'm here with Paul Hallows.
Hello Paul. Morning.
You are the site manager here.
I'm gonna start with the very basic question.
Why is there a tunnel here? What's it for?
This is the central section of the Tideway super sewer.
Basically, the aim of this project is to stop sewage
overflowing into the River Thames, simply as possible.
So, couple of men did this job,
whereas now, when the storm conditions mix
with the foul conditions,
it overflows directly into the river.
Now it'll overflow into our tunnel,
get taken away, and get treated.
We're obviously extremely interested in the train.
So tell me a little bit about the train.
What job does it do? How many trains are there?
So we've got six locomotives.
We always have four below ground,
two on the surface on repair and maintenance.
They're vital for the operation,
the whole tunnelling operation.
Everything that goes into the TBMs
and out of the TBMs travels by train.
So that's the segments, the tunnel rings,
the form, the actual tunnel, all the other materials,
the lubricants, the additive, anything at all,
right down to the toilet.
Everything gets taken in on the train.
Can you see behind me, the segments of the tunnel rings?
And that is one ring's worth.
There's eight segments in total.
Got seven large pieces and then the smaller keystone on top.
So one entire ring is made up of eight sections.
We're just chatting about the track and the train.
So what happens to this track,
once the constructions are nearing the completion,
they lift the track. Yeah.
Where do the locos go? What happens to the track?
So the track will get removed.
It'll go either to another project or it'll go into storage,
it'll get sold on for another project.
This bit of track could end up anywhere in the world
or Europe after this job.
It could end up being used
on another construction project.
Absolutely, yeah.
(horn hoots)
It's train time.
There's no first class.
Appears to be all standard class seating.
(train rumbling)
Okay, that took longer than I expected.
How long were we on the train for?
10 minutes?
It felt more like 20 minutes.
Control room, TBM control room.
So this is where the pilot or operator sits.
He's basically driving the TBM.
Who invented the tunnelling shield, Vicki?
Mr Greathead.
Mr Greathead invented the shield to protect the miners,
so they would be behind, essentially, the shield.
So as they were making progress
they'd be safe from any collapse or anything like that.
And I think, I mean,
my engineering knowledge is minimal
compared to the gentlemen I'm surrounded by,
but I think the Greathead shield is sort of like
the essence of all tunnel boring machines, even today.
Going into the ring build area.
Ooh. Right, I'm ready.
This is actually incredibly cool to see close up. Wow.
At the very front left,
about as far forward as you can see, that's the bulkhead.
So beyond that is the cutting disc.
That will be turning at about 1.6 RPM,
grinding away at the earth.
The earth will drop down to the invert,
be picked up in here.
Inside here is your traditional screw auger,
so it's a flight auger that carries the spoil
back up that way.
Inside this point here, onto a normal conveyor belt,
and then gets carried away to the surface for disposal.
So Paul was explaining that the reason we were able
to go a little bit further towards the front of machine
is that it's paused at the moment.
Because it's progressing and moving forward
they have to keep extending things,
so they're extending the cables
and that's why it's not turning at the moment
and that's why we can get near it.
By the way, behind me, this is Michael,
who's like the media man.
How many times have you been down here now?
How many times you done this?
Oh, countless times. (Geoff laughs)
It's getting longer and longer.
So luckily we've got the train now,
we used to have to walk it.
Every month you come back,
the tunnel's gone a little bit further
and the train takes a little bit longer to get there.
Absolutely, yeah.
That's the longest journey I've done.
It's the first time I've been to Millicent in a while.
It's about 20 minutes, I think.
It's a bit longer than that, yeah.
I think we're on the train- Quite long as is.
Wow, okay, all right.
And we're back on the train.
There's some more people who've joined us. Excellent.
Do you wanna talk about the moquette on the seat?
Oh, here you've got your basic leather moquette.
And that's it. (laughs)
It's getting warm down here.
I think we're about to resurface, aren't we?
Paul's had to dash, so we've grabbed Michael instead.
Can I take my glasses and hats and gloves off now?
Yeah, we're off site now.
Just because we like our trains, do the locos have names?
Do they give them names?
We haven't named these ones, no.
'Cause like you name tunnel boring machines,
they don't name the trains?
No, so the tunnel boring machines are named traditionally
and always after women.
But the trains aren't?
The trains aren't, no.
I didn't ask what the tunnel boring machines
are called here, what are they called?
So we have Millicent, which is the westbound one,
and Ursula, a little bit bigger.
Okay, but also being an underground fanatic,
I fancy, like, flashing up on screen right now
like a graphic showing,
imagining this was like an underground tube line
flashing up the names of the stops, so I might do that.
What would you call this stop here, Nine Elms?
This would be Kirtling Street.
Kirtling street, oh, let's call this one Kirtling street.
Where the TBM was, we we underneath-
Carnwath Road.
So let's call that Carnwath Road.
There's a graphic on screen now.
It's all gonna be completed by when?
2024, in operation. 2024.
So come back in five years.
It will be finished.
Thanks Vicki as well.
This is your camera right now.
Can I put forward the name Vicki
for one of the trains?
You want to name- A train.
Can I... No?
You wanna name- It's gotta have a name,
might as well take the chance.
You wanna name the train Vicki?
Michael's not looking very impressed.
(Michael laughs) He's, no.
(Vicki laughs)