Today I was very privileged and honoured to be invited down to the tunnel to have a look around and take some photo's.
I was shown round "Betsy" who is 1 of 3 Liebherr R944 Tunnel Excavators. She was used to dig out the Southbound tunnel. All 3 tunnel excavators were made purely for this project and are completely bespoke.
Once inside the tunnel you get a real perspective of the shear size of the project and what a fantastic job Balfour Beatty and all the other contractors have done. Not only in actually digging the tunnels and surrounding areas but making it a very safe working environment, they have gone nearly a million man hours accident free, to minimise disruption to locals residents and in keeping us informed and updated on progress thus far.
To be inside the tunnels was just amazing and to all of you who have said it does not look big enough - trust me it is!
Work inside the both tunnels continue furiously day and night and you can really see why. I got to go through one of the many cross sections between the 2 tunnels that will be used in case of emergencies.
The tunnels are due to be filled in up to road level in the near future, using spoil and muck from the Hazel Grove cutting. They had to dig about 5 - 6 feet lower than required in order to install drainage, power cables and safety systems. Also every few hundred yards they have air quality monitoring stations to make sure the air in the tunnel is safe to work in.
"Betsy" is going to be on display outside the main compound entrance for a limited time and is well worth stopping off to have a look at her. She is a phenomenal piece of machinery, seeing her close up, you can really appreciate what a huge effort diggin the tunnels were. I can honestly say that once this project is completed and opened it is going to make a massive difference to Hindhead and the quality of life in Hindhead.
I must say a massive massive thank you to everyone at Balfour Beatty who made my visit today possible and made me feel so welcome.
Keep on diggin............
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4 comments:
Thanks for putting these pictures up. Great to see them
No worries mate.
I could not pass up the opportunity of actually going through through both tunnels and not taking some pics!
I had some more but they were too blurry!
Cheers glad you like them
Gummy
Great pics. Thanks.
How far ahead of schedule are they?
Hi there,
As far as i know they are pretty much on time. They are ahead of schedule with somethings and slightly behind on some others.
To be honest though they are on time which is great considering the weather we have had over the last week or so!!!!!
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