Mission Accomplished- Tunnelling completed
Meet the big Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) which had excavated our twin City Rail Link tunnels.
The TBM was named by public vote after Māori rights activist Dame Whina Cooper.
FINISHED: Then Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, Dame Whina Cooper’s daughter Hinerangi Puru Cooper and CRL Chief Executive Dr Sean Sweeney at the final breakthrough
The machine completed the first tunnel just before Christmas 2021 and was then dismantled, returned to Maungawhau Station and reassembled to excavate the second tunnel.
The TBM then arrived on its second journey to the Te Waihorotiu Station construction site early evening 14 September 2022.
At the final breakthrough, Francois Dudouit, a project director for the Link Alliance, the consortia of companies building the CRL, says the swifter finishing of the second tunnel had reflected operational improvements and efficiency gains.
He says :"I'm absolutely delighted at the performance of 2,000 people who have brought their very best to this important project.”
Media release on TBM breakthrough
City Rail Link chief executive Dr Sean Sweeney said the major achievement of boring twin 3.45km tunnels up to 45m below ground of New Zealand’s largest and busiest city was completed under the most challenging construction conditions.
“Building an underground rail network has never been attempted in New Zealand before,” says Dr Sweeney.
“To have achieved what this team of 2,000 people have in the face of a global pandemic, multiple lockdowns, restricted Covid-working conditions and multiple other challenges is nothing short of extraordinary.
“There is so much more to do on the CRL project but the final breakthrough is an appropriate moment to pause and reflect on the extraordinary job our people have done in building these twin underground tunnels,” he says.
“These tunnels are the cornerstone of the country’s first rapid transit rail network and will enable a transformational change in our biggest city.”
Key achievements during the tunnel boring phase include:
Completion of the tunnel-boring phase of the City Rail Link project, comprising two 3.45km tunnels
The TBM travelled more than 3.5 kms, placed 1067 segment rings and removed 130,000 tonnes of spoil during the boring of the twin tunnels (each 1.6kms long from Maungawhau/Mt Eden Station to Te Waihorotiu Station, formerly Aotea)
More than 64,200 cu m of concrete used to build the City Rail Link tunnels – the equivalent of 25 Olympic-sized swimming pools
The Dame Whina Cooper tunnel boring machine weighs 910 tonnes is 130m long and has a diameter of 7.15m
It cost €7.15M, with shipping costing an additional €0.6 million (NZ$13.5M at the time) Francois Dudouit, project director for the Link Alliance, the consortia of companies building the CRL, says the swifter finishing of the second tunnel reflected operational improvements and efficiency gains.
“I’m absolutely delighted at the performance of our team of 2,000 people who have brought their very best to this important project,” says Dudouit.
“Everyone understands we are building the future of public transport in Tāmaki Makaurau and it will leave a lasting legacy for all its people.”
Now the tunnel boring is complete, Dame Whina Cooper will be dismantled and lifted above ground. It will then be transported to the port for shipping back to its manufacturer, Herrenknecht. Parts of it will be repurposed.
What happened to the TBM?
The TBM was dismantled and moved in pieces to the Ports of Auckland and transported back to its German manufacturer called Herrenknecht.
The machine had arrived in kitset pieces from that company’s factory China in late 2020.
The company deconstruct the machine and re-use suitable parts on multiple TBMs in the future. Every TBM has a full circle lifecycle. But our job isn’t done We then need to put in the infrastructure such as tracks and signals ready for the trains.
The route
Learn more about our big machine
The TBM had three jobs:
Excavating the tunnels
Removing tunnel spoil
and installing concrete segments to line the tunnels
Specialist German manufacturer, Herrenknecht built the TBM at its factory in Guangzhou, China. Herrenknecht earlier designed and built Alice, the TBM used to construct Auckland’s Waterview motorway tunnel.
Commonly asked questions
TBM looks huge. How long was it? 130 metres (a rugby field is up to 120 metres long).
Who built it? A German tunnel machine company, Herrenknecht, at their Chinese factory.
Is it the same TBM that was used for the Waterview tunnel? No but the TBM for the Waterview Tunnel was also built by the same company at the Chinese factory. TBMs are built for specific jobs.
How much does the TBM cost? $13.5 million.
How fast did it travel? 32 metres a day.
What about the spoil? Where did it go? Up to 1,500 tonnes of spoil was excavated each day..
Cleanfill was disposed of at the Three Kings Quarry in Mt Eden. All other spoil – managed or contaminated – was trucked to various disposal sites at Mercer in Waikato.
Did the TBM also line the tunnel walls? Yes, besides excavating the tunnels and removing dirt and rocks to the surface, it installed precast concrete panels that will line the tunnel walls.
How many people were in the TBM? Up to 12 people.
At one stage, it went under the southern motorway. If you’re on the motorway could you have felt it? No. This is because it is what is called an Earth Pressure Balanced TBM. This means it controls and balances the pressure of the earth it excavates which stabilises the tunnel face and reduces any possibility of settlement occurring.
When the TBM reached the Te Waihorotiu Station (Aotea) area, did it turn around again? No, the TBM was dismantled and returned to Mt Eden in sections then reassembled again to excavate the second tunnel.
What happened when CRL was finished with it? The TBM was dismantled and moved in pieces to the Ports of Auckland and transported back to its German manufacturer called Herrenknecht.
The machine had arrived in kitset pieces from that company’s factory China in late 2020.
The company deconstruct the machine and re-use suitable parts on multiple TBMs in the future. Every TBM has a full circle lifecycle. But our job isn’t done. We then put in the infrastructure such as tracks and signals ready for the trains.
What hours did it work? 24/7.
Who chose the name? Dame Whina Cooper was chosen after a nationwide competition for a name of a ground-breaking woman. Dame Whina at the age of 80, led a land march from Northland to parliament and devoted her life to fighting discrimination.
Why call the TBM something? Traditionally, TBMs are given female names in honour of Saint Barbara, the patron saint of miners and those who work underground. This tradition is said to bring good luck to the work ahead.
What sort of rock did it encounter? The expected ground conditions for the TBM alignment is East Coast Bays Formation rock of the Waitemata group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Auckland_Region
How the TBM works
Earlier news of its journey
TBM moving through the tunnel cavern
26 July 2022
How's this for a tight squeeze!
Here you can see our 7.15 metre diameter tunnel boring machine (TBM) squeezing tightly through the Karanga- a-Hape Station (Karangahape) mined tunnel cavern.
We are moving the TBM on rails through the 230 metre tunnel cavern, from Mercury Lane to Beresford Square, after it broke through into the station a few weeks back on 15 July.
Tight? In some places, there is less than one centimetre of clearance for the machine. It has taken a complete team effort to ensure the smooth move.
Our Building Information Management (BIM) and survey teams have worked meticulously with our TBM and station construction teams to guarantee that the measurements and drawings they're working off are accurate.
It’s like the old builders adage ‘measure twice, cut once’, only on a larger scale.
So where is the TBM this morning?
It's now near its relaunch position underneath Beresford Square. Soon, we will bore from Karanga-a-Hape (Karangahape) to Te Waihorotiu (Aotea), where the TBM will have its final breakthrough in the construction of the City Rail Link tunnels. The countdown is almost on.
Second Tunnel breakthrough at Karanga-a-Hape Station
15 July 2022
The City Rail Link has achieved another significant project milestone with the tunnel boring machine, Dame Whina Cooper, breaking through at Karanga-a-Hape Station today as it bores the final second tunnel toward Te Waihorotiu (Aotea) in midtown.
The breakthrough represents good progress on construction of the 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail link up to 42m below the Auckland city centre, says chief executive Dr Sean Sweeney.
The tunnel boring machine’s journey to Karanga-a-Hape Station (Karangahape) from Maungawhau/Mount Eden Station took three months and demonstrated the project’s continued advancement.
“Boring of the second tunnel only began at Maungawhau/Mount Eden Station on 26 April and Dame Whina Cooper is slightly ahead of schedule by arriving at Karanga-a-Hape Station (Karangahape) today,” Dr Sweeney says. “Given everything that’s happened over the last two years, it’s particularly pleasing to see us meet our objectives on this section of the project.”
The completion date for the CRL project is currently set for late 2024. Over the past two years, the impacts of the pandemic have been substantial and are still impacting all construction projects. CRL is currently calculating the cost and time impacts and will share these as soon as possible.
To reach the breakthrough point at Karanga-a-Hape Station (Karangahape), Dame Whina Cooper travelled 900m, placed 526 segment rings and removed 74,000 tonnes of spoil.
Over the next two weeks, the tunnel-boring team will push the machine forward through the 230-metre Karanga-a-Hape Station ) tunnel cavern to the Beresford Square site. Hundreds of workers have worked around the clock at Karanga a Hape Station since November 2019 to prepare for the breakthrough and to build what will be Aotearoa New Zealand’s deepest train station.
Once at Beresford Square, the tunnel boring machine will undergo maintenance, including replacing the teeth of the cutterhead, before embarking on the next part of its journey travelling beneath Pitt and Vincent Streets through to Te Wai Horotiu Station. Its breakthrough into the midtown station is expected this Spring.
A national competition saw New Zealanders choose the name of the tunnel boring machine. The names of thousands of ‘ground-breaking Kiwi women’ were entered in the competition and Dame Whina Cooper was chosen the winner, with the support of her surviving whanau.
Throughout her life Dame Whina Cooper worked tirelessly for the rights of Māori and her name is synonymous with the mana and reputation she earned as a woman of influence and significance for Māori and for Aotearoa.
‘Kia Mataara’ is a phrase gifted to the project by Dame Whina Cooper’s tamāhine (daughter), Hinerangi Cooper. It recognises the four TBM breakthroughs and means to be alert, to observe, or to witness. Dame Whina Cooper spoke the words herself in an address to her supporters in her 1975 hīkoi to Parliament.
TVNZ’s Seven Sharp explores our first bored tunnel
16 June 2022
TBM heads for midtown
26 April 2022
The Dame Whina Cooper TBM has been launched from 110 metres within a mined tunnel at Maungawhau Station on its way to midtown via the Karanga-a-Hape Station.
This is the second and final tunnel for the new City Rail Link.
The TBM will reach midtown around Mayoral Drive sometime in spring. It can travel up to 32 metres a day. Thanks to everyone for getting us to this exciting day.
You can also see here the screw conveyor turning and catching the first spoil.
Every day, the machine will remove about 1500 tonnes of spoil from the tunnels. The TBM is not just excavating the tunnel and removing tunnel spoil. It is also installing concrete segments to line the tunnel. The tunnels will all up contain about 64,200 cubic metres of concrete.
TBM transported back to Maungawhau Station from the Te Waihorotiu Station
16 February 2022
This is the front shield of our Dame Whina Cooper Tunnel Boring Machine - all 145 tonnes being transported from the new midtown Auckland CRL Te Wai Horotiu Station back to the Link Alliance Maungawhau Station construction site.
Its huge size meant a huge effort was needed to move the front shield. You can see the 104 wheeled trailer being towed by the lead truck. Another is supporting the move from behind. The front shield is one of six pieces of the TBM’s shield that needs to be returned to Maungawhau Station above ground.
The machine’s back up gantries move themselves back to Maungawhau Station through the completed tunnel. They do this in a way not dissimilar to how a caterpillar moves!
Christmas cracker! Dame Whina Cooper comes to town
21 December 2021
City Rail Link’s Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), Dame Whina Cooper, broke through into the Te Wahorotiu Station in central Auckland today, marking the end of its epic underground journey for the project and for the city.
“Our aim was always to get into central Auckland before Christmas and here we are – pleased and proud at what a committed Link Alliance team of contractors has achieved in some pretty testing times. It’s been a hard year but a better rail network for an international city like Auckland is getting closer,” says City Rail Link Ltd’s Chief Executive, Dr Sean Sweeney.
Transport Minister Michael Wood, Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, Dame Whina Cooper’s whanau and CRL workers welcomed the TBM as it cut through a concrete protective wall into Te Waihorotiu Station at the end of tunnelling that had started at Maungawhau/Mount Eden Station in May.
The Crown and Auckland Council are CRL’s Sponsors, and both Minister Wood and Mayor Goff recognised the significant progress made by the project despite the pandemic.
“It’s great to see Dame Whina Cooper finish its journey – a positive milestone that is an exciting Christmas delivery for Auckland,” Mr Wood says. “CRL will form the heart of linked-up high-capacity rapid transit network for the city.”
Mr Goff describes the Te Waihorotiu Station (Aotea) breakthrough as remarkable.
“While we continue to face challenges due to the pandemic, we are making good progress on delivering this essential infrastructure. Once complete, the CRL will be a game-changer for the region, doubling train capacity, reducing journey times and carrying the equivalent of up to 16 extra traffic lanes into the city at peak times,” the Mayor says.
Dr Sweeney describes the breakthrough as the “icing on CRL’s Christmas cake” after a year of significant advances - re-opening the city’s restored Chief Post Office, connecting to the Albert Street section of tunnels, mining New Zealand’s deepest station at Karanga-a-Hape, re-locating the huge Huia 2 watermain at Mt Eden, and navigating through a Covid-19 pandemic.
“This breakthrough is a great morale booster for a dedicated team working at times under stressful conditions. It gives us great confidence going into the second half of the project next year,” he says.
“Covid is responsible for a lot of disruption. CRL Ltd and the Link Alliance are now assessing the impact of that disruption on construction timetables and costs. We’ll have a clearer picture next year. What is important today is that the Link Alliance has progressed a vital piece of Auckland’s transport infrastructure.”
During its seven month-long journey, the TBM multi-tasked – cutting into the earth, removing spoil to the surface, and installing the concrete panels that line the tunnels.
Following centuries-old mining tradition, the TBM’s name recognises a woman of significance and mana – for CRL it is Dame Whina Cooper. Today’s breakthrough occurred less than a fortnight after the Māori champion’s day of birth in 1895.
Dame Whina’s son, Joseph, says the breakthrough reflects in many ways the impact his mother made on Māori and all people living in New Zealand/Aotearoa.
"Kite matau nga iwi te kopura marama i tera moka o Te Kauhanga Raro – we the people can see the light at the end of the underground sacred passageway,” Mr Cooper says.
The breakthrough marks the end of the first of two underground journeys for Dame Whina Cooper.
The front section, known as the shield, will be lifted out in sections and transported back to Maungawhau/Mount Eden Station. The shield’s supporting sections, or gantries, will move back through the newly excavated tunnel to Maungawhau Station and reconnected with the shield for the TBM’s second drive to Te Waihorotiu Station (Aotea) next year.
A completed CRL connects a redeveloped Mt Eden station directly with Auckland’s main station at Britomart. Two underground stations along the 3.45-kilometre route – Te Waihorotiu Station (Aotea) and Karanga-a-Hape Station (Karangahape) – will make it easier to access the central city for work and pleasure.
CRL progress: One “lady” on the move again, two others “retired”
10 November 2021
Dame Whina Cooper, City Rail Link’s (CRL) Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), has started the second leg of its four-stage journey below Auckland streets for the country’s largest transport infrastructure project.
The TBM’s 785-metre-long drive from Karang-a-hape Station) to Te Waihorotiu Station in the heart of Auckland’s midtown is planned to finish early in the new year.
The TBM completed its first leg – 860 metres from CRL’s Mt Eden site to Karangahape - last month.
“We’re very happy to be on the move again for Auckland,” says Francois Dudouit, Project Director for the Link Alliance, which operates the TBM. “Our teams above and below ground have adapted successfully to working in a covid environment and arriving safely for breakthrough at Aotea is our new goal.”
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s recent five-week-long covid lockdown delayed the TBM’s planned September breakthrough at Karangahape. Tunnelling accelerated when lockdown restrictions eased and its Karangahape arrival was well ahead of its rescheduled time.
The 130-metre-long TBM ‘pushed’ its way 223 metres to the northern end of the Karangahape Station cavern to resume its work – cutting into the earth, removing spoil along a conveyor belt, and lining the tunnel with concrete panels.
Dame Whina Cooper’s resumed mahi (work) from Karangahape coincides with the “retirement” of CRL’s two other hard working “ladies”.
Two roadheader machines - one named Dame Valerie Adams to honour our world and Olympic athletics champion and the other after New Zealand aviation pioneer Jean Batten – have ended their work excavating Karangahape’s two platform caverns. The job was completed with the last breakthrough from the caverns into the ‘box’ where the Mercury Lane entrance to the station is being built.
“This is a job very well done,” says Francois Dudouit. “Construction like this - building a station 35 metres below ground in a busy city – is something New Zealand has not seen before.”
Karangahape will be the country’s deepest railway station. It stretches below the Karangahape Road ridgeline with entrances at Mercury Lane and Beresford Square.
Together, Jean Batten and Dame Valerie Adams excavated and removed approximately 84,000 tonnes of sandstone.
Temporary support within the platform caverns and connecting cross passages or adits has so far involved the installation of 7,000 rockbolts and spraying 6,000 m3 of shotcrete.
Large machines like roadheaders and TBMs working underground are traditionally named after women of significance.
At Aotea, Dame Whina Cooper will be dismantled underground and returned to Mt Eden in sections, reassembled and then excavate the second rail tunnel in 2022.
Breakthrough! Karangahape welcomes Dame Whina Cooper
17 October 2021
Auckland’s City Rail Link (CRL) is today celebrating a mighty milestone with its powerful Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), Dame Whina Cooper, breaking through into the Karangahape Station construction site at the end of its 860-metre-long journey from Mt Eden.
CRL workers 32 metres below ground at Karangahape welcomed Dame Whina Cooper as the TBM breached a 100-millimetre-thick protective wall of concrete into the station cavern.
“Despite all the curve balls, complications and challenges covid keeps throwing our way, we’ve arrived – it’s a positive, exciting and significant arrival,” says City Rail Link Ltd’s Chief Executive,
Dr Sean Sweeney. “Aucklanders can’t see it, but far below their streets a railway that is going to change their lives for the good is rapidly starting to take shape.”
Dr Sweeney says breakthrough success is tempered by Covid’s continuing consequences for New Zealand’s largest transport infrastructure project.
“It is very clear, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone, that the pandemic has had serious impacts on our project costs and construction timings” he says. “Assessments are underway now so that we have a much clearer picture of the extent and depth of covid’s effects on us.”
New Zealand’s recent five-week-long covid lockdown delayed the TBM’s planned September breakthrough. CRL’s main contractor, the Link Alliance, continued to operate the TBM during the lockdown, well below full capacity, to stop earth settling around it. Tunnelling accelerated when lockdown restrictions eased.
“Great collaboration, planning and old-fashioned hard labour from all our teams below and above ground helped us regain some of that momentum lost to the lockdown – we’re at Karangahape in great shape well ahead of our rescheduled time in November --a real bonus,” says Link Alliance Project Director, Francois Dudouit. “The TBM was running sweetly at a rate higher than planned during its drive under Spaghetti Junction on the motorway.”
Covid-related health and safety protocols curtailed larger breakthrough celebrations. The TBM operators did mark their arrival with a symbolic gift for Karangahape Station workers - a hard hat representing the Link Alliance’s commitment to achieve industry-leading standards in health, safety, and wellbeing. The hard hat bears Dame Whina Cooper’s portrait.
Significant milestone - the 500 metre mark
01 October 2021
Auckland’s City Rail Link (CRL) is today celebrating a significant milestone, 35 metres deep under the city’s streets.
The project’s big Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), Dame Whina Cooper, has reached the 500-metre mark on the first leg of its 1.6-kilometre-long journey from Mt Eden into central Auckland.
“This is fabulous news for the project, and for Auckland too,” says City Rail Link’s Chief Executive, Dr SeanSweeney. “It’s giving everyone a lift – there’ a lot of dedicated work behind this - and we’re telling Auckland we’re not going to be stopped by all the challenges the pandemic keeps throwing our way.”
The TBM is currently below Symonds Street in Auckland’s uptown district. It is operated by CRL’s main contractor, the Link Alliance. “ Arriving at the 500-metre mark is an important target for tunnellers everywhere,” says Link Alliance Project Director, Francois Dudouit. “Getting there so soon after the level four lockdown ended is a great achievement and demonstrates the persistence and hard work of our teams above and below ground to get the tunnels built.”
Dame Whina Cooper began tunnelling CRL’s southbound tunnel in late May. During the five week-long Covid lockdown, the TBM continued to operate, well below full capacity, to reduce the risk of becoming trapped by the pressure of the earth around it. “We were well prepared to ramp up our work once the lockdown ended,” Mr Dudouit says.
Covid-related health and safety protocols are observed while tunnelling continues at pace operating 24hours a day, 7 days a week.
Teams are working 12-hour shifts – one team of 12 on the TBM and another 12 above ground, with many others supporting the operation.
Dame Whina Cooper will soon pass under the Auckland motorway network’s Spaghetti Junction on its path towards the next important destination – CRL’s Karangahape Station. Arrival there is planned for the end of the year. The final leg of the TBM’s first drive – Aotea Station in central Auckland – will be completed early in the new year.Dr Sweeney says the pandemic has impacted the tunnelling programme.
“Since March 2020, and not including Auckland’s latest ongoing level 3 alert, CRL has endured 205 days of lockdowns or restricted working conditions under Levels 4, 3, 2.5 and 2. By anyone’s reckoning, 205 days is still an awful lot of disruption,” he says. “But very importantly, no-one at CRL has lost sight of how important the project is for Auckland and the big changes it will bring to the people who live and work here.”
TBM starts operation
27 May 2021
The Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), Dame Whina Cooper, has started its historic and transformational journey below Auckland’s skyline to excavate the City Rail Link tunnels – New Zealand’s first underground railway.
“Progress over the first initial metres is cautious but steady while our crews bed down getting used to the machine and conditions underground,” says Francois Dudouit, Project Director for the Link Alliance. “Happily we – the project team and wider Auckland - have plenty to celebrate. When the work’s done, Dame Whina Cooper’s legacy will be a world class railway for Auckland, and travelling around the city will never be the same again.”
Tunnel excavations have started from City Rail Link’s Mt Eden site. Its first destination is the Karangahape Station, 830 metres away. From there it bores on to the Aotea Station in central Auckland – a total journey for the TBM of 1.6 kilometres - to join the section of CRL tunnels already built from the Britomart transport hub.
After Transport Minister Michael Wood and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff ceremonially turned on the TBM for the first time earlier this month, final commissioning checks, which included excavating the first few metres of tunnel, were completed successfully.
“It’s not unlike getting a new car – we have a bespoke TBM built just for the soil conditions in this part of Auckland and we needed to make absolutely sure everything is working properly,” Mr Dudouit says. “We are not ready to ‘put the foot’ down just yet and we’ll take the first stages pretty slowly at first.”
The TBM will travel at an average of 15 metres a day and with a top speed of 32 metres a day, operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at peak. Next week, tunnel excavations will ramp up when the TBM starts operating 24 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Underground, the TBM has three tasks: cutting the spoil, removing the spoil by conveyor built to the surface, and installing the concrete segments - 14,735 in total – that will line the twin rail tunnels.
Dame Whina Cooper is 130 metres long it will not completely disappear underground until the end of June. It will breakthrough at Karangahape this spring, and at Aotea towards the end of the year. The TBM will then be moved back to Mt Eden and will start boring the second tunnel next year.
TBM switched on
07 May 2021
On this date, the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), Dame Whina Cooper, was switched on, ready to bore at the project’s Link Alliance Mt Eden site by Transport Minister Michael Wood and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff pressing the start button.
Final checks are now underway before the TBM starts cutting into Auckland soil in mid-May, excavating the first of the two rail tunnels that will completely change the way people can travel around Auckland.
Transport Minister Michael Wood described the launch as an “exciting milestone” for New Zealand’s largest ever transport infrastructure project – “one,” he says, “that is helping our economic recovery and supporting jobs.
“Building infrastructure like the City Rail Link is part of our Covid-19 economic plan - this project is providing real jobs and opportunities for thousands of Aucklanders. It’ll give us a step-change in our public transport and cultivate a diverse and highly-skilled workforce,” Mr Wood says.
The Transport Minister was joined by Dame Whina Cooper’s whanau, Auckland Iwi, the city’s Mayor Phil Goff and City Rail Link workers at the launch celebration.
Mayor Goff welcomed the launch of the TBM.
“When complete, the City Rail Link will transform rail travel in Tāmaki Makaurau. It will carry up to 54,000 people an hour, moving the equivalent capacity of three Auckland Harbour Bridges or 16 extra traffic lanes into and through the city at peak times,” he says.
“The official start of tunnelling represents an important milestone on Auckland’s journey towards providing a world-class, 21st century transport network.”
Alongside CRL’s contribution to Auckland’s future, mining tradition also had a significant role at the event.
One tradition involved breaking a bottle of champagne on the TBM to mark its official launch. Father Christopher Denham, the Dean of Auckland’s Cathedral of St Patrick and St Joseph, also blessed the TBM and the teams who will operate it – an acknowledgement to St Barbara, the patron saint of miners and others who work underground.
OFFICIAL LAUNCH: Father Christopher Denham, with (from left) Mayor Phil Goff, Transport Minister Michael Wood and CRL CEO Dr Sean Sweeney
The other significant woman acknowledged this morning was Māori rights champion, Dame Whina Cooper. Big underground machines, by tradition, carry the name of a influential woman. New Zealanders helped the project chose Dame Whina Cooper as a fitting name for its TBM.
City Rail Link Ltd’s Chief Executive, Dr Sean Sweeney, congratulated workers for reassembling and commissioning the TBM after its arrival in sections from China last year.
“A lot of work hours in some pretty demanding conditions have got us here today. Dame Whina Cooper will have its first encounter with some real dirt very soon, an encounter that shows the project remains on track despite the challenges thrown up by covid in the past year or so,” Dr Sweeney says.
The TBM will be operated by the Link Alliance, the group of New Zealand and international design and construct companies responsible for CRL’s main stations, tunnels and rail systems contract.
The first 50 metres of tunnel at Mt Eden have already been mined to provide room for the front sections of the 130 metre-long TBM.
Dame Whina Cooper will excavate 1.6 kilometres under the Central Motorway Junction and Karangahape Road into central Auckland to connect with the CRL tunnels already built from the Britomart Station.
The TBM has three busy jobs as its crawls below Auckland. excavating spoil, removing spoil by conveyor belt from the tunnel, and lining the tunnel walls with concrete segments.
The TBM will complete the first tunnel towards the end of the year. It will then be returned to Mt Eden in sections and prepared for its second tunnel drive next year.
The $4.4 Billion CRL project, sponsored by the Crown and Auckland Council, will make the city’s rail network more efficient. Trains will be able to run more often , more quickly and carry more people, and it will double the number of people living with 30 minutes train travel of central Auckland – New Zealand’s biggest employment hub.
Public day
In December 2020, 5000 Aucklanders obtained tickets to see the TBM up close at the Mt Eden construction site.
TBM blessing
Our Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) was blessed by Dame Whina Cooper’s daughter, Hinerangi Puru Cooper, and her wider whanau at the Mt Eden construction site in December 2020.
They were joined by Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson, Transport Minister Michael Wood, the city’s Mayor Phil Goff, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and other Auckland Iwi who sit on CRL’s Mana Whenua Forum, and community, transport and CRL representatives.
The TBM was named by public vote after the famous Māori rights champion.
CRL CEO Dr Sean Sweeney said: “Dame Whina’s legacy is one of determination and the importance of working together, values that fittingly apply to this project and our journey ahead to build a world class railway for Auckland.
Hinerangi said she was honoured and humbled to be present at the unveiling.
BLESSING: From left, Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, Dame Whina Cooper’s daughter, Hinerangi Puru Cooper and deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson
