After completing the 3.5-mile mission to excavate the first section of the Bromford Tunnel, linking North Warwickshire and Birmingham, HS2’s giant tunnel boring machine (TBM) Mary Ann is being stripped down ready to take on her next tunnelling adventure.
The first stage in the process to disassemble the 1,600-tonne machine saw the TBM’s 8.62-metre diameter cutterhead being lifted into the Birmingham skyline by a giant 700-tonne crawler crane.
The cutterhead, which weighs a whopping 120 tonnes, was expertly lifted out of the 22-metre-deep tunnel portal at Washwood Heath in north Birmingham in just 90 minutes. The operation took place on Friday, 30th May 2025.
A team of 15 engineers will spend the next three months dismantling the 125-metre-long machine, next to the portal in Washwood Heath, before it is returned to the German tunnel boring company Herrenknecht.
The giant machine, which spent 652 days and nights working underground to excavate the first bore of the Bromford Tunnel, is expected to be refurbished and adapted ready to meet the technical requirements of its next tunnelling mission.
TBM Elizabeth is currently boring the second section of the Bromford Tunnel with breakthrough expected later this year.
