TBM Media Releases
07 December 2020
“Thank you Auckland” says CRL after ‘boring’ day!
The City Rail Link (CRL) and the Link Alliance are thanking Aucklanders for their support after Sunday’s successful Boring Day Out event.
Thousands of people visited CRL’s Mt Eden construction site to see up close the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) named Dame Whina Cooper, and the start of mining for twin rail tunnels that will run under central Auckland.
“I want to thank everyone who came along – to see so many smiling faces reiterated the support for our work and the engineering skills behind it,” says Francois Dudouit, Project Director for CRL’s Link Alliance.
“The City Rail Link is Auckland’s’ project after all, and it was great to open the construction door a wee bit to give people a sneak peek of our work to bring big transport changes to the city.”
The Link Alliance is responsible for the largest package of work for the $4.4 billion project – completing the tunnels and stations and installing the systems needed to operate the new line safely. It will operate the TBM, which will start excavating the tunnels into central Auckland next April.
TBM’s traditionally are named after an influential woman to honour St Barbara, the patron saint of miners. New Zealanders voted for CRL’s TBM to be named in honour of Māori rights champion, Dame Whina Cooper.
Last Friday, Dame Whina’s daughter, Hinerangi Puru Cooper, led official celebrations to unveil and bless the TBM.
20 November 2020
CRL’s “Boring Day Out” a sell out
Aucklanders have now snapped up all 5000 free tickets to get up close and personal with City Rail Link’s Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM).
Tickets to the “Boring Day Out” event were available online from 10am on Thursday, 19 November, and had sold out by Friday afternoon.
At the event on 6 December attendees will get to see the TBM – named after Māori rights activist Dame Whina Cooper – as well as the portal where the machine will start its underground journey next year.
“We’re so proud to be delivering a project that will bring massive benefits to Auckland and we’re pleased as punch at the huge level of support people have for the work we’re doing,” says Francois Dudouit, Project Director for the Link Alliance which is constructing CRL for City Rail Link Ltd.
“We knew that a lot of people wanted to get a sneak peek at our mechanical star, but we are thrilled by the huge demand when tickets did become available. Thank you!”
CRL’s “Boring Day Out” tickets available Thursday
18 November 2020
People wanting a close-up look at City Rail Link’s Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), Dame Whina Cooper, can get their “Boring Day Out” tickets on-line from 10am tomorrow, Thursday, 19 November.
Tickets are free and will only be available through the iTicket booking agency at, https://www.iticket.co.nz/events/2020/dec/boring-day-out
A total of 5,000 tickets will be issued based on first-come first-served. People can have a maximum of five tickets each.
The Link Alliance is hosting the “Boring Day Out” on Sunday, 6 December, at its Mt Eden construction site. There will be 10 visiting sessions – the first entry is at 9am and the last at 6pm. People will need to nominate the time they want to come when booking tickets.
Because Mt Eden is a live construction site and people’s safety is a priority, visitor numbers will be restricted to 500 for each session.
The walk is 600 metres long and starts at the site entry on Ngahura Street, near New North Road.
Health and safety will be a priority on the day, says Francois Dudouit, Project Director for the Link Alliance which is constructing CRL for City Rail Link Ltd.
“We welcome everyone who wants to take an admiring look at Dame Whina Cooper, but before booking their tickets people should be aware of the conditions of entry in place to help them have a memorable time,” Mr Dudouit says.
“While the walk is flat and we are suspending work for the day, Mt Eden remains a construction site and care will be needed walking around it.”
The TBM is being reassembled on site and its huge front section, known as the shield, will be on display. The shield and its cutter head will do most of the heavy excavation below Auckland.
People will also see the southern tunnel portal where Dame Whina Cooper will start its underground journey next year to complete construction of the two CRL tunnels.
Mr Dudouit says there is strong interest from Aucklanders wanting to see the TBM and he reminds people to check the conditions of entry that will be listed on the iTicket website.
Event information:
There will be 10 visiting sessions on 6 December. The first entry is at 9am and the final one at 6pm. Visitor numbers will be restricted to 500 for each session.
Tickets are free and people can book up to five tickets per person.
People with wheelchairs, mobility scooters, prams/pushchairs and walking sticks are welcome.
Entry to the Mt Eden site will be via Ngahura Street near New North Road. Parking on site is limited to people with mobility parking permits.
People are encouraged to use public transport to travel to the event. They can plan their trip online using Auckland Transport’s Journey Planner at www.at.govt.nz. Bikes, scooters, skateboards, and other wheel-operated transport with the exception of mobility scooters, will not be allowed inside the event.
Although bikes and wheel operated transport equipment isn’t allowed in the event site, we also encourage people to ride your wheels! Our friends at Bike Auckland are providing their Bike Valet Service for the day.
Closed toe and flat shoes must be worn, and people should be prepared for dust and loud noises.
No food or drink is allowed but people are encouraged to support local businesses before and after the event.
The event is weather dependent and may be cancelled if Covid-19 alert levels change. Everyone must sign-in to the event using the Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 tracer app or by physically signing in.
Haere mai! City Rail Link welcomes early Christmas “gift”
21 October 2020
City Rail Link’s latest “employee” – the tunnel boring machine (TBM) known as Dame Whina Cooper – has arrived in Auckland after a voyage of more than nine thousand kilometres from its factory in southern China.
The machine to excavate the rail tunnels for New Zealand’s largest ever transport infrastructure project arrived in sections on board the BBC Orion and will now be trucked to the City Rail Link site in Mt Eden for reassembly.
“It’s a bit like getting a very early Christmas present,” says Francois Dudouit, Project Director for CRL’s Link Alliance. “Every part of the tunnel boring machine was neatly boxed away or bundled up in protective wrapping, and while we may know exactly what we’re getting there’s still plenty of excitement to come opening up everything and putting it all together again.”
City Rail Link Ltd’s (CRL Ltd) Chief Executive, Dr Sean Sweeney, says the TBM’s arrival signals an important transition for the project.
“A lot of our work until now has focussed on getting ready for the heavy work ahead. The building blocks are in place and the arrival of Dame Whina Cooper marks a symbolic crossover from those enabling works to the complex and hefty job of finishing our tunnels and stations – construction is ramping up quickly,” Dr Sweeney says.
Dame Whina Cooper also arrives with a Christmas dividend for Aucklanders. The project is planning an open day in December to allow people a close-up look of the machine that will help transform the way they can travel around the city.
“It’s a chance for us to say, ‘thank you’, for the fantastic support we get from the community, and to explain the work of the project’s very clever mechanical star and the big changes it is going to bring to Auckland,” Dr Sweeney says.
Further details of the open day will be announced next month.
Over the next few days a small convoy of trucks will transport the TBM from the port to Mt Eden, where it will be reassembled and retested before it starts tunnelling next year.
“The TBM was thoroughly tested before leaving China, but there will be further checks on site. It is very advanced technologically and we want to make sure we have a concrete-solid machine in place and ready to do the job it has been specifically designed for – operating in Auckland’s unique soil conditions to build CRL’s rail tunnels,” Mr Dudouit says.
The Link Alliance - the group of New Zealand and international companies building the substantive tunnels and stations contract for CRL Ltd – will use the TBM to excavate two 1.6-kilometre-long tunnels from Mt Eden to the CBD to link with the tunnels already dug from Britomart Station. The TBM has been designed to also remove tunnel spoil and install concrete segments to line those very tunnels.
Work will start later this week on the excavation of the first 51 metres of the tunnel at Mt Eden. The excavation of the cavern and trench provides room for the TBM to be fitted into position to take over mining.
TBM tunnelling is due to start next April. Before then, mining conventions will be observed when the reassembled TBM is blessed and formally named Dame Whina Cooper. Big machines working underground are traditionally named after inspirational women. Earlier this year New Zealanders voted for the TBM to be named in honour of the Māori rights champion, Dame Whina Cooper.
When tunnel excavation starts people will be able to keep track of Dame Whina Cooper’s progress. An on-line link will measure the TBM’s journey below Auckland in real time.
Haere mai! City Rail Link welcomes early Christmas “gift”
21 October 2020
City Rail Link’s latest “employee” – the tunnel boring machine (TBM) known as Dame Whina Cooper – has arrived in Auckland after a voyage of more than nine thousand kilometres from its factory in southern China.
The machine to excavate the rail tunnels for New Zealand’s largest ever transport infrastructure project arrived in sections on board the BBC Orion and will now be trucked to the City Rail Link site in Mt Eden for reassembly.
“It’s a bit like getting a very early Christmas present,” says Francois Dudouit, Project Director for CRL’s Link Alliance. “Every part of the tunnel boring machine was neatly boxed away or bundled up in protective wrapping, and while we may know exactly what we’re getting there’s still plenty of excitement to come opening up everything and putting it all together again.”
City Rail Link Ltd’s (CRL Ltd) Chief Executive, Dr Sean Sweeney, says the TBM’s arrival signals an important transition for the project.
“A lot of our work until now has focussed on getting ready for the heavy work ahead. The building blocks are in place and the arrival of Dame Whina Cooper marks a symbolic crossover from those enabling works to the complex and hefty job of finishing our tunnels and stations – construction is ramping up quickly,” Dr Sweeney says.
Dame Whina Cooper also arrives with a Christmas dividend for Aucklanders. The project is planning an open day in December to allow people a close-up look of the machine that will help transform the way they can travel around the city.
“It’s a chance for us to say, ‘thank you’, for the fantastic support we get from the community, and to explain the work of the project’s very clever mechanical star and the big changes it is going to bring to Auckland,” Dr Sweeney says.
Further details of the open day will be announced next month.
Over the next few days a small convoy of trucks will transport the TBM from the port to Mt Eden, where it will be reassembled and retested before it starts tunnelling next year.
“The TBM was thoroughly tested before leaving China, but there will be further checks on site. It is very advanced technologically and we want to make sure we have a concrete-solid machine in place and ready to do the job it has been specifically designed for – operating in Auckland’s unique soil conditions to build CRL’s rail tunnels,” Mr Dudouit says.
The Link Alliance - the group of New Zealand and international companies building the substantive tunnels and stations contract for CRL Ltd – will use the TBM to excavate two 1.6-kilometre-long tunnels from Mt Eden to the CBD to link with the tunnels already dug from Britomart Station. The TBM has been designed to also remove tunnel spoil and install concrete segments to line those very tunnels.
Work will start later this week on the excavation of the first 51 metres of the tunnel at Mt Eden. The excavation of the cavern and trench provides room for the TBM to be fitted into position to take over mining.
TBM tunnelling is due to start next April. Before then, mining conventions will be observed when the reassembled TBM is blessed and formally named Dame Whina Cooper. Big machines working underground are traditionally named after inspirational women. Earlier this year New Zealanders voted for the TBM to be named in honour of the Māori rights champion, Dame Whina Cooper.
When tunnel excavation starts people will be able to keep track of Dame Whina Cooper’s progress. An on-line link will measure the TBM’s journey below Auckland in real time.
On its way! TBM passes big factory tests
20 August 2020
New Zealand’s largest transport infrastructure project is celebrating a significant milestone – Auckland’s City Rail Link (CRL) has formally accepted ownership of its big Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) after extensive factory tests in China.
“The successful factory assessment tests and the handover of the TBM to the Link Alliance is a very clear and strong indication that the CRL project can meet critical milestones in a Covid-19 world,” says Dr Sean Sweeney, Chief Executive of City Rail Link Ltd.
The tests were conducted on the fully constructed TBM by the German manufacturer, Herrenknecht, at its factory at Guangzhou in southern China.
“The TBM successfully underwent more than 500 tests to make sure everything works as it should. There is now great excitement that we are ready for the next step – to bring the TBM to Auckland,” says Francois Dudouit, Project Director for CRL’s Link Alliance.
Rigorous checks tested the TBM’s three big jobs underground: excavating the tunnels, transporting tonnes of excavated spoil to the surface, and installing the thousands of concrete panels that will line the tunnels.
“It is a unique, world class machine – an underground factory – purpose built to carve its way through Auckland’s sticky soil,” Mr Dudouit says. “Just about everything that moves was tested to make sure it can do the transformational job it’s been designed for.”
The TBM will be used by the Link Alliance - the group of New Zealand and international companies building the substantive tunnels and stations contract for City Rail Link Ltd - to excavate two tunnels side by side between Mt Eden and central Auckland to connect with cut-and-cover tunnels already constructed from Britomart Station.
The Link Alliance describes the TBM as big by international standards for rail projects. The revolving cutter head at the front of the TBM is 7.15 metres – slightly taller than one of Auckland Zoo’s adult giraffes – weighs 910 tonnes – that is roughly the equivalent of nine blue whales, the largest animal ever known to have existed – and at 130 metres stretches the length of a rugby field.
The TBM is now being dismantled and will be shipped in pieces to New Zealand. It is due to arrive in October. The arrival has been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic which forced the closure for several weeks earlier this year of the factory in China.
The TBM will be reassembled at CRL’s Mt Eden site, where it will undergo further testing and be officially blessed for safe journeys before it starts the first of its two excavation drives next April. Both tunnels are one-point-six kilometres long and each TBM drive will take about nine months.
Mining tradition will be observed before the start of tunnelling when the TBM is formally named after an inspirational woman. Earlier this year New Zealanders voted for the TBM to be named in honour of the Māori rights champion, Dame Whina Cooper.
The Naming Announcement
06 May 2020
City Rail Link’s Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) will share the name of one of New Zealand’s most inspirational leaders, Dame Whina Cooper, a woman who spent most of an illustrious life leading the fight for social justice and land rights for Māori.
Dame Whina Cooper’s name topped a nationwide poll ahead of internationally recognised Antarctic scientist, Dr Margaret Bradshaw, and the world’s first elected openly transgender mayor and Member of Parliament, Georgina Beyer.
“The project is both proud and honoured that our TBM will carry the name of a woman of such mana – Dame Whina Cooper,” said City Rail Link Ltd’s Chief Executive, Dr Sean Sweeney.
“We were looking for the name of a New Zealand woman who inspired - brave, compassionate and fearless - and all those outstanding leadership qualities are well and truly represented by the very remarkable Dame Whina Cooper.” Dame Whina’s family welcomes their mother’s new association with a project that will bring many changes to the Auckland she had called her home for many years.
“Mum was very much a people person,” says Dame Whina’s daughter Hinerangi Puru Cooper.
“She had so much energy and was heavily involved in community projects across Auckland. But to us she was just mum.” Dame Whina was born in 1895 at Panguru, Northland, and died in 1994. She began her first campaigns for Māori as a teenager before moving to Auckland in 1949 where she was identified as one of the “100 Makers of Auckland” in a book featuring influential people who helped develop the city.
Dame Whina was the first president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League and played a significant role in improving Māori living conditions across New Zealand.
In 1975 aged 80, she led a land rights march from the Far North to Parliament. She was made a Dame in 1981 and was awarded the country’s highest honour, the Order of New Zealand, in 1991. Dame Whina, Dr Bradshaw and Ms Beyer were the shortlisted finalists selected from more than 300 women’s names nominated by New Zealanders.
Around 3,500 participated in the competition with Dame Whina Cooper securing just under 50 per cent of the final total vote.
“I am grateful to all New Zealanders for their support and their nominations and votes, particularly at a time when we were all grappling with a pandemic. I would also like to thank Dr Bradshaw and Ms Beyer for allowing their names to be considered for our TBM.” Dr Sweeney said.
Tradition dictates that a TBM must have a woman’s name - a sign of good luck and safety for the project ahead and an acknowledgement to Saint Barbara, the patron saint of those who work underground.
CRL’s TBM is due to arrive in kitset sections from China in October.
It will be reassembled at the Link Alliance project site at Mt Eden. The newly named Dame Whina Cooper TBM will be blessed before the Link Alliance starts the first of two 1.6-kilometre underground excavations from Mt Eden to the Aotea Station in the central city to connect with the twin tunnels already built from Britomart Station and under Albert Street.