Passenger Trains > Elsie & Soyeon Begin L.A. Purple Line Work

Tunnel boring machines Elsie and Soyeon are starting their tunneling work this week on the L.A. Metro
Purple line extension along Wilshire Blvd.  The TBM's each weigh 1200 tons and come in at 450' long.
They will move in parallel along the twin tube route with Soyeon moving a little ahead of Elsie.  The initial
dig will move east from Wilshire/La Brea to Wilshire/Western after which they will be disassembled before 
moving to the western section.

Of course, they already have their own Twitter account and Soyeon has reported in the past 24 hours that
she is moving along at a rate of 4 inches a minute.  From today's metro-magazine:

http://www.metro-magazine.com/rail/news/731677/l-a-metro-begins-tunneling-on-first-section-of-purple-line-extension



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/18 16:44 by milepost20.

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That's interesting that they are drilling west to east, I would have thought the drilling would have just headed west across both phases of the planned extension.  Wonder what the reasoning is and if it has to do with budgets and timing.  Still, seems like a lot of extra money and time to drill east, take them out, move them to the next spot, and drill again.

Nathan

atsf121 Wrote:
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> That's interesting that they are drilling west to
> east, I would have thought the drilling would have
> just headed west across both phases of the planned
> extension.  Wonder what the reasoning is and if
> it has to do with budgets and timing.  Still,
> seems like a lot of extra money and time to drill
> east, take them out, move them to the next spot,
> and drill again.
>
> Nathan

Because it is a government project.

Becasue they don;t have enough room at Wilshire and Western to launch from without digging the equivalent of an additional station.  But YMMV.

jst3751 Wrote:
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> atsf121 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > That's interesting that they are drilling west
> to
> > east, I would have thought the drilling would
> have
> > just headed west across both phases of the
> planned
> > extension.  Wonder what the reasoning is and
> if
> > it has to do with budgets and timing.  Still,
> > seems like a lot of extra money and time to
> drill
> > east, take them out, move them to the next
> spot,
> > and drill again.
> >
> > Nathan
>
> Because it is a government project.

so true!  It's only other people's money, so who cares how we go about this, right? ;)

At 450 feet long plus the area needed to retrieve and haul off the muck and deliver the new tunnel liners they have to be away from the currently operating Wilshire/Western Station.
By going east, their only impact will be when they arrive at the wall at the end of the existing bore, and they will be taken out in pieces.
Maybe somebody can explain how it would work going east to west without long duration impacts to the present tunnel.

cabanillas Wrote:
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> Becasue they don;t have enough room at Wilshire
> and Western to launch from without digging the
> equivalent of an additional station.

Thanks for the explination.