ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area OT: If you need to make a big hole

When you need to make holes for LARGE conduit:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3284949854

Cool I will take two.

A private tunnel from my house to the main highway would be nice.

Is this for real?! Looking at the bidding there seems to have been a lot of administrative cancelations.

Aw gee..... A little too big for the FedEx van, eh?

Wonder why the museum is selling it and why it hasn't been used by the construction company for other tunnel digging projects?

It seems to be too expensive and complicated a piece of machinery for it to have only been used once.

That is only a small part of a TBM machine, namely the cutter head.

The entire machine includes equipment for generating power, moving the cutter forward, laying tracks, evacuating excavated material, and installing concrete tunnel support sections as digging progresses.

The TBMs actually used for digging the main channel tunnel are still underground, AFAIK. As the tunnel is lined with concrete behind the machine as it digs, the tunnel is too small to allow the machine to back out after digging. At the conclusion of digging, the machines were steered off to the side of the main tunnel, and abandoned in place.

For you Chunnel fans:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/chunnel1_tunnel.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/channel.html

Hey I think I was supposed to order one of those! Along with a wire stretcher & some skyhooks!

A tunneling shield was used many, many decades ago to dig the deep-level "Tube" lines of the London Underground as well.

For anyone touring this part of the world, I can thoroughly recommend using the Channel Tunnel. It's much smoother and quieter than either the London Underground or the New York Subway, and very quick.

All the formalities are handled at the boarding end, so if you're going through with your car you just drive off the train at the far end and straight out onto the motorway/autoroute.

Great if you're not a good sailor, like me!