City Rail Link’s (CRL) tunnel boring machine (TBM) is as busy as ever as it progresses upwards to 42 m below the surface of Auckland, travelling toward Mercury Lane as progress on the momentous project continues.
The TBM has been powering away beneath NZ’s surface, excavating the second 3.45 km underground rail tunnel and removing dirt and rocks to the surface. However, the TBM is doing more than excavation.
The machine has also been busy installing precast concrete panels to line the tunnel walls.
Once it reaches its destination, which is anticipated to happen by mid-July 2022, the TBM will have travelled 840 m from the Link Alliance Maungawhau (Mt Eden) Station construction site, placed 519 segment rings and removed 74,000 tonnes of soil.
The CRL is New Zealand’s largest transport infrastructure project in the nation’s history and is continuing to expand.
The CRL is a 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail link up to 42 m below the Auckland city centre. The goal of the project is to transform the downtown Waitematā Station (Britomart) into a two-way through-station that better connects the city’s rail network.
The tunnels will connect Britomart with a re-developed Mt Eden station on the western line. Additionally, two new underground stations, Karanga a Hape and Aotea, will open up central city access.
The project allows the rail network to have at least double rail capacity.
An ambitious $4.4 billion project, the CRL will double the number of people within 30 minutes of central Auckland which is the country’s largest employment hub. When fully operational 54,000 passengers an hour will CRL stations at peak hours. This is the rail equivalent of an additional 16 lanes of road or three Auckland Harbour Bridges.
More than 2,000 jobs have been created for the project, the complexity and innovation of which will upskill the workforce and benefit future generations.
To see any progress on the City Rail Link project, visit the project’s social media.
For more information on the City Rail Link, visit their website.
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