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| Mayor of London launches tunnelling and Carla The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, started the tunnelling that will form a major part of the 2.5km, £180m Docklands Light Railway (DLR) Woolwich Arsenal extension. The extension, part of Transport for London's five-year £10bn investment programme, is being designed and constructed by Amec, the international project management and services company, on behalf of Woolwich Arsenal Rail Enterprises, a joint venture between Amec and the Royal Bank of Scotland, which holds the 30-year PFI concession for the extension. The DLR Woolwich Arsenal station will be situated alongside the existing mainline station and open in early 2009. The Mayor launched Carla, the 540-tonne boring machine that will be used to connect DLR King George V station to the heart of Woolwich town centre. The tradition in tunnelling projects is for the machine to be given a female name. Carla is named after Amec's site receptionist, Carla Murphy, whose name was drawn in a lottery. The machine (Carla) was built in Canada by Lovat to Amec's precise specification to meet the varied conditions and tight turns needed under the Thames. She is six metres in diameter – as tall as a two-storey house and over 90 metres long. Carla will remove 104, 000 cubic metres of material - enough to fill around 1, 100 double-decker buses or 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools! Carla cost nearly £5 million. After the project is completed, manufacturers Lovat will buy her back for refurbishment and possible future use. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Construction News :: home page |