Engineers working on HS2’s London tunnels began lifting the last of four giant tunnelling machines to the surface over the bank holiday weekend.
The first part of ‘Anne’ – including the 9.11m diameter cutterhead – saw the light of day for the first time in 16 months as it was lifted out of a shaft at Green Park Way in Greenford, west London, on Sunday 24th August.
Weighing a total of 1,700 tonnes and stretching for around 150m, the huge Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) must be lifted out of the shaft in sections using a giant gantry crane.
It is one of four TBMs which have now completed the excavation of the 8.4-mile-long Northolt tunnels between West Ruislip and the new station at Old Oak Common.
Launching from West Ruislip and Old Oak Common and meeting in the middle, the four machines excavated more than 4 million tonnes of London Clay and installed almost 100,000 concrete segments to form the tunnel walls.
Anne is named after Lady Anne Byron, an educational reformer and philanthropist who established the Ealing Grove School in 1834 – England’s first co-operative school which provided education for working class children in west London.
A selection of images of the removal are available for download: HS2 News and Information - Media gallery
Learn more about our incredible TBMs here: The latest milestones in our year of tunnel progress
