LACMTA The Source blog, 3/1/21
First tunneling machine reaches future Wilshire/La Cienega subway station
Metro today announced that its first Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), named Elsie, on Thursday broke through to the Wilshire/La Cienega subway station in Beverly Hills. It is the first of two TBMs that will reach this last station on Section 1 of the Metro D Line (Purple) Extension project.
Tunneling for the first four-mile section of the subway project is now two-thirds complete. More than 90 percent of the tunnels have been mined safely and Metro anticipates completing tunnel mining this summer. Excavation for all three subway station boxes beneath Wilshire Boulevard has been completed.
Elsie, the 1,000-ton, 400-feet long Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), started west at the Wilshire/Fairfax station on May 29, 2020, and broke through to the Wilshire/La Cienega station site about one mile away on February 25. Metro’s first TBM “Elsie” arrived at Wilshire/Fairfax on April 4, 2020.
Reaching this milestone is a significant win for Metro. Section 1 of project tunneling has presented challenges that have been successfully overcome by the project. En route to Wilshire/La Cienega, the agency’s modern, high-tech TBMs have mined through a unique combination of soils and geologic conditions, including tar sands and methane gas.
Continue here w/additional photos.