HS2

[figworthy]

6 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

The little blue line at the bottom right is where Shushila and Caroline will show.  I had to enter some dummy data to get the lines edited and set up.  I'll put the pukkah data in due course when they get started.  Caroline is in Yellow and Shushilla in Blue.

 

 

Are you going to put in a target line for Shushila and Caroline, as there are for Florence and Dorothy ?

 

Adrian

[jamie92208]

40 minutes ago, figworthy said:

 

Are you going to put in a target line for Shushila and Caroline, as there are for Florence and Dorothy ?

 

Adrian

In due course when I find out what the target is.

 

Jamie

[Ron Ron Ron]

Shushila has appeared on the near useless HS2 map.

 

 

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[Ron Ron Ron]

On 07/10/2022 at 14:57, jamie92208 said:

Lo and behold when I checked on YouTube a few minutes ago, Shushila has been launched today and started work.

 

Not quite, it launched the day before, on the 6th.

The PR release and associated video and news reports were put out the day after (Friday the 7th).

 

 

 

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[jamie92208]

Sad news  last night. @Mike Storey the author of this thread died suddenly  on Sunday.  There is a thread in the Obituary section.  He was a relatively close neighbour of mine in the Charente  Maritime, about 6 miles away. His informative and well informed comments on this thread will be sadly missed.

 

Jamie

Edited April 19, 2023 by jamie92208

[Ron Ron Ron]

After returning home this evening from a trip oop north and seeing that sad news, I feel a bit guilty posting anything in this thread tonight.

However, I’m sure Mike would have liked to have seen the latest progress on the HS2 works.

 

The Colne Valley viaduct span across the A412 has been completed.

The launching girder will shortly move on to the next pier.

 

 

 

[keefer]

Great photo Ron, it's pics like that that really convey the scale of what is an amazing piece of equipment, especially when you consider the alternative - smaller cranes basically manhandling the sections into place.

Terrible news about Mike of course, he not only drove this topic but kept it on track when it was needed!

[jamie92208]

I checked tunnelling progress yezterday and Cecelia and Florence are both hard at it. Florence had dom 20 m per day and Cecilia  15m per day for the past days.  No reported progress by Sushila yet.  IIRC the first stretch will be very slow as the drive is very shalliw to begin with. Ron, I think, posted a fascinating link to a paper describing thevproblems and solutions a few months ago.

 

As said above Mike will be missed.  He was very good at getting the thread back on track when news was sparse.  Now there is more progress to report on the ground I suspe t that drift will not be such a problem.

 

Jamie

[RJS1977]

I caught a couple of trains into/out of New Street earlier this week. Still not much to see at Curzon Street other than clearance work, but work has started on the West Midlands Metro extension to Curzon Street and Moor Street. (Though it does seem strange to me that the recent WMM extension to Edgbaston wasn't routed that way between Bull Street and BNS in the first place).

[Ron Ron Ron]

18 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

I caught a couple of trains into/out of New Street earlier this week. Still not much to see at Curzon Street other than clearance work…….

Apart from site clearance and the removal and re-routing of utilities etc, they have been carrying out piling work for most of this year.

The work is more advanced at one end of the site from the other, from the look of it.

From what I’ve read, full on construction of the new station is due to start over the next couple of months.

 

 

 

 

[lmsforever]

Went from Stoke Manderville towards Askett and passed the where the line will cross the road ,looking to the left the route is very clearly set out .As you enter Wendover from Butlers Cross you get a very good view of the works alongside the Wendover Bypass ,the cement works are very busy and route work has progressed very well .I have not been toward the Amersham side of Wendover so dont know how work is progressing. On the descent into Wendover there is a new road taking shape going towards the line one thing now is that    route is now well defined and the next works will be starting soon.

[KingEdwardII]

3 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

Though it does seem strange to me that the recent WMM extension to Edgbaston wasn't routed that way between Bull Street and BNS in the first place

That would be dangerously close to coordinated thinking.

To be fair, they are making the HS2 link part of an extension on the East side to Deritend, which I think is a good idea.

Combined with the revived Camp Hill line, that helps with public transport in the south and east of the city centre.

 

Yours, Mike.

[Ron Ron Ron]

5 hours ago, lmsforever said:

..............I have not been toward the Amersham side of Wendover so dont know how work is progressing. On the descent into Wendover there is a new road taking shape going towards the line one thing now is that    route is now well defined and the next works will be starting soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

[Ron Ron Ron]

More photos of the Colne Valley viaduct construction.

(note that the gap in the centre of the latest span to be completed, seen below, has since been filled in.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Ron Ron Ron]

Photos of construction of the Old Oak Common station box.

The box is being constructed from the top downwards, with excavations below, as each layer is built.

2 views from above and a view from below the top level  (note: there's a long way down to go).....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Ron Ron Ron

[Allegheny1600]

8 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

The box is being constructed from the top downwards, with excavations below, as each layer is built.

Ah, begorra! They’ve actually figured out how to build something from the top to the bottom at last!

Paddy and Murphy would be proud! 😉

[melmerby]

9 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

 

 

 

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That chap on the right looks like he is blessing the digger!🙂

[jamie92208]

Another tunnelling update.  Florence is now at 6758m out of 16000 and doing 32m per day.  Cecilia is at 6520 and going at 30m per day.   Sushila has appeared on the progress report with just 25m done since launch on 6th October but the report isn't dated.  

 

Jamie

 

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

3 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Ah, begorra! They’ve actually figured out how to build something from the top to the bottom at last!

Paddy and Murphy would be proud! 😉

 

🤣🤣🤣  I found that funny, but there are people today who would accuse you of a hate crime. 🙄

World gone mad and all that.........

 

 

For clarity though, Building from the top down, isn't just digging down and creating a big hole in the ground, in which to build the "box".

Quite the reverse.

They are building the concrete structure, starting with its ground level slab.

Then burrowing underneath what they've built, while ensuring the thousands of tons of this concrete structure doesn't collapse into the void created.

This is followed by building the next layer down, to support what's already been built above.

Then digging further down under that and repeating the process.

 

It's a bit like building an office block by starting with the top floor (suspended up in the air), before building each floor below, in turn, until you reach the ground floor.

Finally putting in the foundations !

Obviously impossible above ground, unless you theoretically used some complicated and ridiculously expensive engineering and massive temporary supporting structures.

 

 

 

.

[Allegheny1600]

24 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

I found that funny, but there are people today who would accuse you of a hate crime. 🙄

World gone mad and all that.........

Thanks Ron!

Yes, I know it was risky and quite expected to have it deleted, no worries if it does. I had a very close mate from the Emerald Isle and he told more such jokes than I could ever post on here but that’s by the by.

 

Anyway, that method of construction is actually quite remarkable - very clever indeed in my book. Thanks for the description of how they do it, I find it fascinating.

Cheers all,

John

[Ron Ron Ron]

5 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

......that method of construction is actually quite remarkable - very clever indeed in my book. Thanks for the description of how they do it, I find it fascinating.....

 

It is quite remarkable.

This method has been used elsewhere on not only this project, but others.

I'm not sure if the Canary Wharf Crossrail station was built using a similar method?  I can't remember offhand.

 

I'm intrigued how they can stop thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of tons of concrete structure from collapsing into the excavations and keep the whole thing stable, until the thing is completed and becomes a totally integrated, load bearing and supporting underground structure.

Maybe the man with the stick,in that photo above,  is holding it all up?  🤔

 

 

 

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[melmerby]

Nobody has commented about the fact that the sub surface picture with the diggers is actually monochrome, with only the machine in the foreground in colour.🙂

 

[Arun Sharma]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

Nobody has commented about the fact that the sub surface picture with the diggers is actually monochrome, with only the machine in the foreground in colour.🙂

 

It's a very strange picture altogether. The ? Sikh chap appears not to be wearing much in the way of recognised 'Orange Army' PPE. 

 

[melmerby]

6 minutes ago, Arun Sharma said:

It's a very strange picture altogether. The ? Sikh chap appears not to be wearing much in the way of recognised 'Orange Army' PPE. 

 

I wonder how orange would look when all colour has been deliberately removed?

[Arun Sharma]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

I wonder how orange would look when all colour has been deliberately removed?

You have a point - There is a shinyness to his clothing that suggests it might be PPE but then why a waistcoat?  The chap also has a scarf-thing hanging down the back of his neck which ought to be a hazard. Most odd.