The Mayor of London and the Secretary of State for Transport today revealed the giant 1,000 tonne tunnel boring machines that will carve Crossrail’s tunnels under the capital.
The first of eight enormous machines, each 150 metres long and weighing 1,000 tonnes, will begin their journey to the Royal Oak Portal in west London from where, next week, they will start tunnelling 6.4 km (four miles) east to Farringdon via Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road.
Over the next three years, eight tunnel boring machines will construct a total of 21km (13 miles) of twin-bore tunnel under the capital.
More than 50 UK companies are supplying materials and services for the construction of Crossrail’s western tunnels between Royal Oak and Farringdon.
The first tunnel boring machine will be named Phyllis after Phyllis Pearsall who created the London A-Z. She walked 23,000 streets and a total of 3,000 miles to compile the map.
The second tunnel boring machine will be named Ada after Ada Lovelace who was one of the earliest computer scientists.
They were among the three winning pairs of names as voted by the British public.
The other winners were Victoria and Elizabeth and Sophia and Mary – these names will be used to name the next four tunnel boring machines.
