Hi I'm Darren Kehoe and I'm one of Crossrail's field engineers here on Eastern running tunnels.
We're currently standing here on Limmo Peninsula site, it is a very complex site sandwiched
between the DLR, Jubilee line and the river Lea to my left. Behind me you can see a tally
hut we're going to go in now, sign in, travel 40 metres underground and see where four of
Crossrail's eight TBM's started their long journey. So follow me and lets go have a look.
Hello mate, morning, morning, which drive are you going? G drive TBM please. See you guys later.
Currently we're standing here in Limmo peninsula shaft about 40 metres underground.
Directly behind me you can see the entrance to two of the longest tunnel drives on Crossrail
created by Victoria and Elizabeth last year. Currently they've completed 10 kilometres
of tunnel between them on their journey to Farringdon. They have already broke through
Canary Wharf station, Stepney Green and Whitechapel. They will continue their journey onto Liverpool
Street and Farringdon later on this year. As well as creating two of the longest drives
on Crossrail, right in front of me we've the entrances to two of shortest drives on Crossrail
at only 900 metres long created by Jessica and Ellie which started earlier this year.
These tunnels go from here all the way to Victoria Dock Portal. It may be one of the
shortest drives on Crossrail but in many respects one of the most complex with being in close
proximity to the DLR, Jubilee line, the river Thames and the river Lea. Currently we are
standing inside one of these short tunnels created by Jessica earlier this year. This
is the second drive this TBM has completed after earlier this year completing the journey
from Pudding Mill Lane to Stepney Green where she was dismantled in the shaft, transported
by road all the way over here to Limmo and reassembled here at the bottom of Limmo shaft
to create the journey of 900 metres to Victoria Dock Portal. The process of moving Jessica
from Stepney Green to here took a matter of 3 or 4 months and at 1,000 tonnes and 150
metres long and half a million pieces that was quite a good job well done. Jessica has
now completed her journey to Victoria Dock Portal. Directly behind me her sister Ellie
has now launched and is working 24 hours around the clock to get to the same location as Jessica.
If you follow me in we'll have a look what's going on. As you can see from standing inside
the TBM that it's a very tight working environment despise its huge length and size. There are
about 20 people working in here around the clock 24 hours a day from miners to engineers
to operators to make sure this TBM runs smoothly the whole way to its destination. Right here
now we're halfway down the tunnel boring machine and you see these blue containers that actually
hold grease and lubrication that we pump forward constantly to the mechanical part of the actually
boring machine to keep the friction down and to keep the machine moving very smoothly.
Right here you can see the tunnel segments used to build the tunnel lining. There are
7 of these large segments in one ring and one key piece. The segments are about 3 tonne
each and they'll get built to make an entire ring in the tunnel at a further on stage.
What you can see here is the tool used to lift these segments up. It's a vacuum lifter
so it uses an air pressure gauge that creates a vacuum between this tool and the segment
to lift it up, move it along and onto a magazine which will go into the build area to build
the ring. Currently we're sitting in the shift engineers cabin. He will monitor all the data
for the current ring being excavated including face pressures, grout pressures, grout volumes,
material excavated e.t.c. and he will see if they're in certain parameters for this
current ring. Right now I'm standing right in the heart of the Tunnel boring machine
Ellie. About 15 metres behind me is where the actual cutterhead rotates digging the
ground. To my left we have a large auger called a screw conveyor which removes the soil from
the cutterhead, places it on a large conveyor system right through the tunnel, up the shaft
and removes it off site. Once this TBM Ellie completes her journey at Victoria Dock Portal
in a matter of weeks that will actually complete all the tunnelling on the southeastern spur
of Crossrail. We will have 12 trains running every hour in each direction connecting the
south east all the way through Canary Wharf, the city, the west end and all the way out
to Heathrow and Reading in the west. These brand new trains will vastly improve the journey
times into areas like city centre and the airport. From where I'm standing right now
it'll be up to 15 minutes quicker to get into the city centre and a good 40 minutes quicker
to get all the way out to Heathrow airport. Before all this can happen we still have a
lot of work yet to do here. We still have 3 tunnel boring machines to get to there final
location and we've got to hand back these tunnels to the next contractors to fit them
out ready for these beautiful new trains. I hope you've enjoyed the tour down eastern
running tunnels but I think it's time for me to get back to work.