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Work starts on NWRL tunnel boring machines

<span class="" id="parent-fieldname-description"> Sydney’s $8.3 billion North West Rail Link is a step closer, with the commencement of works on four tunnel boring machines needed for the project. </span> <p>The four gigantic machines will drill the network’s 15km of tunnels – the longest rail tunnels to be built in Australia to date.</p><p>They are being built by French manufacturer, NFM Technologies, in Lyon. NFM was contracted by the consortium in charge of the $1.15 billion tunneling contract, Thiess John Holland Dragados.</p><p>Each machine will weigh more than 900 tonnes.</p><p>They will be built using components from across Europe, with the complex and precision components designed and pre-assembled in France, then sent to China where steel structures will be made.</p><p>Each will be assembled and tested overseas, before being pulled apart and shipped in ten, 40-foot shipping containers, to Australia.</p><p>Those containers, filled with tunnel boring machine parts, will be delivered to Port Botany, while it is expected that the large cutter heads will be delivered into Port Kembla or Newcastle.</p><p>The tunnel bores are being specially designed for Sydney sandstone.</p><p>When they arrive they’ll each be manned by 15 people per shift, 24-hours a day, seven days a week. They will drill at a rate of about 120m a week.</p><p>“The first tunnel boring machine will be in the ground next year and three others will follow soon after,” NSW premier, and minister for Western Sydney, Barry O’Farrell said. “This is an important development in this exciting project.”</p><p>State minister for transport, Gladys Berejiklian, said the French manufacturer, NFM, was well qualified to build the machines.</p><p>“This is highly-specialised equipment which is being made specifically for the north west of Sydney by a world-leader in tunneling which has built more than 100 of these machines for a wide range of geological conditions,” she said.</p><p>“It will be a major logistical feat in itself just getting these huge machines into Sydney – most likely in the middle of the night under escort to minimize the disturbance to as many motorists as possible,” she added.</p>