I've been searching out information about tunnel boring machines and trying to find information in general about what the current state of the art happens to be... in part to get an idea for what Elon Musk is facing by setting up The Boring Company and what he is competing against. It turns out that from that searching, the YouTube recommendation algorithm suggested this absolute gem of an historic video to me:
This was something presumably broadcast on the BBC by Transport for London sometime in the 1960's as an official progress report of the construction of the Victoria Line. At about 27 minutes into the video, one of the segments goes into incredible detail about tunnel boring technology as of the 1960's including automated tunnel boring machines as well as manual tunneling methods. What surprises me is how much manual labor was used even in the 1960's... manual as in people with picks and shovels physically moving dirt by human labor alone.
This video also goes into massive details about the logistical headaches and engineering challenges that actual transit systems in the real world face when trying to construct new tunnels. The solutions that the TfL engineers came up with to build the Victoria Line are really quite amazing and innovative, and is all something that the Boring Company will need to address at some point in the future.
If only more documentaries were made with this quality and detail of the engineering processes. This video really nails home the challenges and potential of tunnels, and indirectly shows what changes that the Boring Company will really make to tunnel construction by having a continuous tunneling operation that beats Gary the Snail for speed.
Submitted March 22, 2019 at 06:16PM by rshorning https://ift.tt/2Wf5fNN
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