Branden Hall, 10, with Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee after Branden started 'Alice' the tunnel drilling machine which was fired up for the start of Waterview Tunnel project. Photo / Greg Bowker
Branden Hall, 10, with Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee after Branden started 'Alice' the tunnel drilling machine which was fired up for the start of Waterview Tunnel project. Photo / Greg Bowker
Auckland's giant motorway tunnelling machine has been fired up for its two-year underground journey from Mt Albert to Waterview and back.
Ten-year-old Manukau boy Branden Hall, who won a schools competition to name the 2800-tonne ground-eater Alice, joined Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee in a deep trench in Alan Wood Reserve today to push the ignition button on the machine's 14.46m cutting head.
But after a few ceremonial turns, each taking about 30 seconds, the machine was shut down again for final checks before it can push off against a heavy steel "shove frame" for tunnelling to start next week.
Waterview tunnel: How the boring machine works
Video Graphics that show how the TBM (called an EPBM or Earth Pressure Balance Machine) will bore and line the tunnel for the 2.4 km stretch between Owairaka and Waterview. The Tunnel Boring Machine not only bores the tunnel but also lines ...
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NZ Herald News Update: June 23, 2025
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NOW PLAYING • Waterview tunnel: How the boring machine works
Video Graphics that show how the TBM (called an EPBM or Earth Pressure Balance Machine) will bore and line the tunnel for the 2.4 km stretch between Owairaka and Waterview. The Tunnel Boring Machine not only bores the tunnel but also lines ...
It will spend a year travelling at up to 8cm a minute - about as fast as a snail - to Waterview where it will be dismantled, turned around, and re-assembled to dig the second tunnel in the opposite direction.
Transport Agency regional highways manager Tommy Parker congratulated the organisation's contracting alliance for completing the most significant milestone of what was a world-scale project, bang on time.
