The Anonymous Widower

Phyllis And Ada To Be Buried Alive

This headline from a magazine, seems like something consistent with Halloween.

But it’s not!

The headline actually is from the Crossrail update on the back page of this month’s Modern Railways. It tells how, the two tunnelling machines; Ada and Phyllis, will be left in the ground rather than recovered. The two machines are named after Ada Lovelace and Phyllis Pearsall respectively.

This does seem to be a pity, especially, as they cost ten million pounds each, but getting some of them out will be a very difficult, dangerous and expensive job. I also suspect that there isn’t much of a second-hand market for specialist tunnelling machines, which generally seem to be built for a particular set of conditions and sizes. Crossrail are actually using two different types of machine for their project. There’s more about the tunnelling here.

October 30, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Construction, Crossrail, Engineering, Trains