The Anonymous Widower

Are Londoners The Tunnel Kings?

I was born in 1947 and it was in the early 1960s, that I started to develop an interest in engineering, which eventually led me to study Electrical Engineering and Electronics at Liverpool University.

Like most Londoners, I was a frequent user of the Underground and for six or seven years, I took the Piccadilly Line many days between Oakwood and Southgate to go to Minchenden Grammar School. Often, after school, I would go on to my father’s print works near Word Green tube station.

But not memories of London’s tunnels were so memorable at that time. One day, we were driving to see my Uncle Bert in Broadstairs and we were held in the Blackwall Tunnel for an hour or so because of an accident.

Perhaps, this is why I can remember a black-and-white video of digging the Western Tunnel of the Dartford Crossing so vividly. But as Raymond Baxter probably explained to BBC viewers at the time, it dug using a Greathead shield under pressure to keep the water out. It was probably the last tunnel dug under the Thames using methods, that would have been familiar to Victorian engineers.

This British Pathe video shows some of the construction of the Western tunnel.

This paragraph from the Wikipedia entry for the Eastern Tunnel describes its construction.

Construction was approved in April 1971, with an initial expected opening date in 1976. Work was delayed due to a lack of funds, which was resolved by EEC funding granted in 1974. The second tunnel opened in May 1980, allowing each tunnel to handle one direction of traffic, by which time the joint capacity of the two tunnels had increased to 65,000 vehicles per day. Connection of the crossing to the M25 was completed on the northerly Essex side in September 1982 (Junction 31), and to the southerly Kent side in September 1986 (Junction 1a)

The tunnels may be inadequate in terms of capacity, but they have certainly done a reliable job for sixty and forty-three years respectively.

There are other tunnels under the Thames, that have been built in my lifetime.

• Thames Cable Tunnel – 1970 – National Grid’s 400 kV cable.
• High Speed One – 2007
• Dartford Tunnel (East) – 1980
• Dartford Tunnel (West) – 1963
• Dartford Cable Tunnel – 2004
• Docklands Light Railway Tunnel – 2009
• Elizabeth Line Tunnel – 2014
• Millennium Dome Cable Tunnel – 1999
• Jubilee Line Tunnels – 1999 – Planned by Artemis
• Blackwall Runnel (East) – 1967
• Isle of Dogs Jubilee Line Tunnels – 1999 – Planned by Artemis
• Docklands Light Railway Tunnel – 1999 – Planned by Artemis
• Deptford Cable Tunnel –
• Jubilee Line Tunnels – 1999 – Planned by Artemis
• Victoria Line Tunnel – 1971
• New Cross to Finsbury Market Cable Tunnel – 2017
• Wimbledon to Pimlico Cable Tunnel – 1996
• London Power Tunnels  – 2018, 2011

There are also these tunnels, which don’t go under the Thames

Bank Station Expansion And New Southbound Northern Line Tunnel – 2022

• Elstree to St. John’s Wood Cable Tunnel – 2005
• Heathrow Rail Tunnels – 1998
• Lee Tunnel – 2016
• Limehouse Link Tunnel – 1993
• Lower Lea Valley Cable Tunnels – 2008
• Northern Line Extension To Battersea – 2021
• Piccadilly Line Extension To Heathrow – 1975-2008
• Thames Tideway Tunnel – Estimated completion in 2025 – Tunnelling ended in 2022.
• Thames Water Ring Main – 2010

Note.

1. The date is the opening date.
2. I am pleased to see that at least some projects were planned, with the software, I wrote in a Suffolk attic.

In my lifetime, at least 27 substantial tunnels have been completed, a very large proportion of which have been on time and on budget, with the possible exception of the Heathrow Rail Tunnels, which collapsed.

So Why Has London Got A Good Record On Tunnelling?

In Millicent And Ursula Prepare To Go Tunnelling, I describe my visit to the Tideway Open Day today to see the tunnel boring machines; Millicent and Ursula before they went tunnelling.

On that Sunday morning, I also chatted with the engineers and tunnelers.

• All had worked on at least one of London’s previous tunnels.
• One had worked on the Second Dartford Tunnel, the Channel Tunnel and Crossrail.
• A couple said, that after the Tideway finished, they would be off to High Speed Two.

Is London’s good record on delivering tunnels safely and on time and on budget, a case of lots of experience and practice makes perfect?

If it is, we should definitely think hard about how we handle large projects.

Wind Farms

Many have been constructed this way.

• The grid substation and connection to the grid is built.
• The foundations of the turbines are installed.
• The turbines are erected.
• All the turbines are commissioned.

This sequence or something like it can be applied to onshore and offshore wind farms.

• Most jobs are repeated many times by specialist teams using purpose-built cranes, ships and other equipment.
• Bigger wind farms, just need more repeated operations.
• All operations are generally in a small geographical area.
• I suspect specialist software has been built to project manage, the building of wind farms. If it hasn’t, I have my ideas.

Project management should be relatively easy.

January 31, 2024 Posted by AnonW | Energy, Transport/Travel | Artemis, Blackwall Tunnel, Dartford Crossing, Docklands Light Railway, Jubilee Line, Minchenden, Oakwood Station, Piccadilly Line, Project Management, Sewage, Southgate Station, Tunnels, Victoria Line, Wood Green Station | Leave a comment