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The eastern running tunnels consist of three drives, the Y Drive which we are in, that
is an 8.3 KM drive and we have the Z Drive which runs north to south from the Olympic
Park at Pudding Mill Lane and then we have a short drive the G Drive which connects the
eastern running tunnels to the eastern part of Crossrail through Victoria Dock Portal
and each one of those drives is just under 1 KM in length. We are approximately 1 KM
into the drive just behind the tunnel boring machine. You can see here the completed tunnel,
7 segments and the key and you'll also see here the conveyor system and all the mechanical
and architectural provision that makes the tunnel machine operate. Provision of water,
bentonite and air this is what we expect to see as the machine progress's and we will
up until Farringdon some 8.5 KM from where we are standing. We are in the west bound
machine Victoria, we are about 1000 meters in from her launch. We are at the business
end of the machine, it is here that we excavate and build the rings. This is the segment magazine.
Our Segments are manufactured in Chatham, they are sent here by Barge, offloaded and
sent down by locomotive transport into the back of the TBM. The segments are then taken
from here from the magazine into the build area of the TBM where they are hydraulically
placed as the machine moves its self forward. There are 8 segments that create a ring. We
have got 7 segments and a key piece. Each segment is approximately 3000 Kilograms, so
at any given point in time we are building and shoving against 24 metric tons of reinforced
concrete which is quality assured every step of its manufacturing process. You are looking
at 10 million pound piece of state of the art construction equipment. Every movement
of this machine is controlled both here within the TBM body itself and externally through
a TBM control room. We know where this machine is every second, every hour, every day. This
is about the combination of effort from every discipline within Crossrail from our colleagues
in Canary Wharf who help us with environmental consents, through design, all the way through
here to delivery where myself and my very able team and the contractor. Everybody's
effort, this is what it means. It's a milestone, it's tangible, you can touch it, the world
can see it. We are doing OK.