The tunnel boring machine took five months to complete the excavation begun at Wilshire and La Brea stations.
Yesterday afternoon the company Los Angeles Subway announced the arrival of one of the tunnel boring machines at the sub station Wilshire and Fairfax, very close to La Brea Tar Pits.
The tunnel boring machine, called “Elsie”For the company, he would have started his excavation of one of the tunnels last October when he left the station Wilshire and La Brea, a mile away. Elsie weighs 1,000 tons and is 400 feet long.
The arrival of the excavator machine represents a great advance in the ambitious project of expansion of the Purple line of the Los Angeles public transport system, since the area it crossed combines various types of terrain and geological conditions such as oil sands and methane gas.
It is expected that the other tunnel boring machine, called "Soyeon", I arrived at the same station in about eight weeks, completing the second tunnel.
During the past five months the tunnel boring machine worked five days a week, 20 hours a day and he dug about 60 feet a day. The construction of the public transport system is considered as an essential activity and both the company and its contractors are taking the necessary preventive measures to guarantee the safety of workers.
The project that will connect Downtown with West Los Angeles will be fully completed in 2027.
