And here it is being lowered into position. Quality not so great due to very windy conditions.
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kotsy said:
And here it is being lowered into position. Quality not so great due to very windy conditions.
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Video here on LinkedIn by the Minister of the lowering of that piece pictured.

www.linkedin.com

A major milestone for the Ontario Line! Yesterday, the cutter head was successfully lowered into the tunnel portal and is now being installed on the Ontario Line tunnel boring machine. This is a… | Prabmeet Sarkaria

A major milestone for the Ontario Line! Yesterday, the cutter head was successfully lowered into the tunnel portal and is now being installed on the Ontario Line tunnel boring machine. This is a huge step as we prepare to begin tunnelling this 15.6-kilometre subway through Toronto's downtown...
www.linkedin.com www.linkedin.com
 
crs1026 said:
OK, this may be the nerdiest question of the day, but I will ask....does it turn clockwise or anticlockwise ?

I'll be darned if I can figure that out by looking at it.

- Paul
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Righty tighty lefty loosey makes me think it will turn clockwise if you're standing behind the TBM or anticlockwise if you're facing it
 
Now that Metrolinx has given up on the 2031 projection, we get an insight into why. They’ve given us their first official “guess” at how long an underground station will take to build: 3 years.

Construction of Queen-Spadina station will begin in March until “early 2029”.

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I can’t resist to comment on what this means for Queen Station (at Yonge) which Metrolinx told businesses and residents in 2023 would close Queen Street in front of Eaton Centre for 4 years until 2027 or 2028 “at the latest”.

Did they expect excavation to last only 1 year? As an interchange station, Queen Station is going to be infinitely more complex than Queen-Spadina. Excavation isn’t even finished yet and the earliest possible start of permanent station construction will be Fall 2026, likely keeping Queen Street closed until 2031 or later.
 
crs1026 said:
OK, this may be the nerdiest question of the day, but I will ask....does it turn clockwise or anticlockwise ?

I'll be darned if I can figure that out by looking at it.

- Paul
Click to expand...
BOTH! 🤓

The cutter head will rotate in alternating directions to dislodge soil and rock that gets carried out the back on a conveyer while the TBM pushes itself against the precast concrete sections to move it forward and compact the tunnel built behind it.
 
nightstreak said:
BOTH! 🤓

The cutter head will rotate in alternating directions to dislodge soil and rock that gets carried out the back on a conveyer while the TBM pushes itself against the precast concrete sections to move it forward and compact the tunnel built behind it.
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Thank you, that's very interesting. So the motion is more like a reciprocating scraping than an auger or corkscrew rotation..... who knew?

Paul
 
crs1026 said:
Thank you, that's very interesting. So the motion is more like a reciprocating scraping than an auger or corkscrew rotation..... who knew?

Paul
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If you look at the cutting head, the cutting parts look symmetrical. That's because it's meant to break rock and soil in either direction. It will turn clockwise for a period, then counter clockwise and continue for a while. This is to even out wear and break any stubborn rock that didn't break in one direction but will in the other. The spoils go through the openings in the cutting head and fall on a conveyer which takes it through the back where workers load rail cars to the Exhibition site where the spoil is added to muck pits.

I found out recently that unlike the Yonge and Bloor-Danforth subways which created the Leslie Spit and filled in Trinity Bellwoods Park's ravine, the Ontario Line's spoil will be distributed to construction projects across the country and beyond. I would have liked it to fill out Leslie Spit a bit more and possibly extend it out into the lake but there are different environmental considerations than there were in the 50s.
 
nightstreak said:
If you look at the cutting head, the cutting parts look symmetrical. That's because it's meant to break rock and soil in either direction. It will turn clockwise for a period, then counter clockwise and continue for a while. This is to even out wear and break any stubborn rock that didn't break in one direction but will in the other. The spoils go through the openings in the cutting head and fall on a conveyer which takes it through the back where workers load rail cars to the Exhibition site where the spoil is added to muck pits.

I found out recently that unlike the Yonge and Bloor-Danforth subways which created the Leslie Spit and filled in Trinity Bellwoods Park's ravine, the Ontario Line's spoil will be distributed to construction projects across the country and beyond. I would have liked it to fill out Leslie Spit a bit more and possibly extend it out into the lake but there are different environmental considerations than there were in the 50s.
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The cutterhead as shown is dressed with a number of disc cutters (for scoring and breaking rock) and rippers (for scraping soft ground and fragments of rock). The material accumulates behind the cutterhead, filling the bottom of the cavity as the screw conveyor removes the material.

The fitment can be changed throughout the drive or as it passes through station boxes depending on the conditions. Also to remember, when the drive is below the water table, you can hit some significant pressures. Enough so that the machines will have an airlock built in....so if in the middle of a drive, the cutterhead needs to be accessed, you can pressurize a bubble for specialized diver staff to go in an perform maintenance. Ideally, you don't need to get in there, and the fact we're mining through station excavations means its less likely they'll need to.
 
nightstreak said:
Now that Metrolinx has given up on the 2031 projection, we get an insight into why. They’ve given us their first official “guess” at how long an underground station will take to build: 3 years.

Construction of Queen-Spadina station will begin in March until “early 2029”.
Click to expand...

If completion in early 2029 actually means the station is substantially complete and more or less ready for service then 2031 is not out of the question assuming 18-24 months for testing and commissioning. Though I do think it's likely major delays will be at Yonge and Queen and not here.
 
IRT_BMT_IND said:
If completion in early 2029 actually means the station is substantially complete and more or less ready for service then 2031 is not out of the question assuming 18-24 months for testing and commissioning. Though I do think it's likely major delays will be at Yonge and Queen and not here.
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That's just Queen-Spadina station, others are behind. I was told Osgoode is just 2 months behind schedule but Queen Station (at Yonge) seems to be at least a year, if not two years behind. After they closed Queen Street in 2023, the site sat inactive for about 2 years before they started excavation. Issues were discovered and they had to redesign the station. Excavation at Queen is now expected to be concluded end of Summer with construction of the station starting Fall 2026 at the earliest. Add 4-5 years to that to build an interchange station that is far more complex than Queen-Spadina and you're into the 2030s before they can start testing a completed line and fixing deficiencies.
 
nightstreak said:
That's just Queen-Spadina station, others are behind. I was told Osgoode is just 2 months behind schedule but Queen Station (at Yonge) seems to be at least a year, if not two years behind. After they closed Queen Street in 2023, the site sat inactive for about 2 years before they started excavation. Issues were discovered and they had to redesign the station. Excavation at Queen is now expected to be concluded end of Summer with construction of the station starting Fall 2026 at the earliest. Add 4-5 years to that to build an interchange station that is far more complex than Queen-Spadina and you're into the 2030s before they can start testing a completed line and fixing deficiencies.
Click to expand...
So 2041 opening is not much a joke after all...
 
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