To qualify for the tunnelbuilder Chamber of Horrors, a project must have set out for the Hall of Fame and lost its way. The list below is by no means complete, because failures in tunnels are generally both out of sight and out of mind. Contributions by readers are welcome, both for listed and unlisted projects, particularly if recounted from personal experience. Please send your inputs to sam@tunnelbuilder.com. The webmaster will edit and insert them in the appropriate place, with attribution if requested.

Rogers Pass - forgettable fourth of July!
The 14.4 km-long Rogers Pass railway tunnel on the Canadian Pacific Railroad commenced driving from both ends in May, 1983. The crown heading of the 8 km east section was driven by Selkirk Contractors upgrade at 1%, using a refurbished 6.8 m-diameter Robbins TBM model 222-183. The drive commenced in January, 1985 in extremely-hard marble and quartzite. On 4th July, a piece of the main bearing race failed, and was pulled into the rotating rollers, causing a full stop which also damaged the pinions, gears and bearings of the drive motors. After an eight-week delay for major repairs, the TBM resumed operations, turning with reduced loading while reseating the new bearing. After another 1.9 km in quartzite, a much softer phyllite was encountered, where the best day was 65 m, and best 5-day week was 260 m. The TBM eventually completed on schedule in June, 1986, returning 24.3 m/day overall, and 2.73 m/h. Visit www.robbinstbm.com Submitted by reader Jim Eckford www.minegate.com 12/04.

Saltash - an engineering history lesson
A report by consultant Dr G Sauer into the building of the 408 m-long Saltash road tunnel, a crucial link between Cornwall and Devon in the UK, has confirmed that engineers knew that the tunnel walls would crack before it was built, because the concrete used would shrink. Extra cost, and tight deadlines, prevented action from being taken at the time. As predicted, bulges appeared in the tunnel walls and started to leak, exacerbated by high groundwater and poor drainage. The US$17.6 million tunnel was built by Balfour Beatty for the Highways Agency between 1986 and 1988. Refurbishment work is being undertaken by Skanska. The tunnel is adjacent to the Saltash railway bridge, built by Brunel more than a century earlier, and still in daily use. Ouch! Visit www.dr-sauer.com 46/03.

Pinglin - a teenager by opening time
The 12.9 km-long Pinglin tunnel on Taiwan's Taipei-Ilan Freeway comprises two main bores, with a pilot bore running 5 m below them. The 4.8 m-diameter Robbins pilot tunnel TBM broke through on October 20th, 2003, having commenced boring in December, 1992, and after 10 stoppages because of ground collapses, rock and mud slides and enormous water inflows. To date, 10 lives have been lost, together with one of the Wirth TBMs driving the main tunnels. Visit www.robbinstbm.com 44/03.

Lisbon Blue Line - flooded, cracked and oval
Opening of the important seafront metro extension to the Blue Line in Lisbon, between Baixa-Chiado in Terreiro do Paço and Santa Apolónia, has been seriously delayed by flooding of the tunnel near the former station. Tunnelling was stopped in June 2000 further to heavy water ingress and mud leakage causing subsidence to the surface. To avoid liquefaction and further settlements, the tunnel was deliberately flooded. The tunnel was TBM-driven through sands and segmentally lined. In September, a 150 m-long 65 cm-deep 1-4 cm-wide crack has been discovered along the invert by divers as well as cracks on the walls and uneveness of the segmental lining. The ovalization of the tunnel has also been observed.
Dutch consultancy Tunnel Engineering Consultants handed in an interim report in November to the ministry of public works, transport and housing recommending to repair the tunnel. One solution described in the report is reinforcing the tunnel giving it a rigid structure using steel supports and resin. Another option is to improve the surrounding subsoil, the third being the combination of the first and second remedial actions. The most radical solution would be to demolish the tunnel and building another one from Cais do Sodré to Santa Apolónia. The Dutch experts also say that ovalization is due to the deliberate flooding of the tunnel.
The Dutch team will submit its final findings to the ministry in late January 2003 once pumping of the water is completed. Progressive pumping of 7,500 cubic metres of water began in August. In late November, 68% of the water had been evacuated. Drainage is planned to be finalised in end-December. Meanwhile, construction of the Terreiro do Paço and Santa Apolónia stations is proceeding, a much criticized decision as nobody knows if the connecting tunnel is serviceable. Click pt/13. Visit www.tec-tunnel.com, www.lnec.pt and www.metrolisboa.pt 50/02.

Supercollider - failure of political will
The Texas Supercollider was to be 87 km long in an oval with major axis of 30 km and minor axis of 24 km. It was being driven by four TBMs which were erecting a 4.27 m internal diameter concrete segmental lining, when funding was withdrawn by the U.S. government. Some 37 shafts and 25 km of utility adits were also cancelled at various stages of construction. The ring was located in the Austin Chalk, the perfect TBM medium with ucs of 14,250 kPa, and advances of 80 m/shift were regularly recorded. The TBMs were withdrawn and the shafts capped. The final bill was not disclosed.

Heathrow Express - NATM on trial
The four-mile tunnel linking the Great Western mainline with Heathrow was constructed within the London Clay using NATM techniques. Because of lack of experience with NATM in clay, a 90 m trial tunnel was constructed to study the behaviour of the strata and to establish suitability of the excavation method. Despite the precaution, a collapse occurred in October, 1994 causing huge disruption to the operation of the airport. Contractor Balfour Beatty continued with the project to completion, and the line opened a year late with a much-modified station at Terminal 3, site of the collapse. Subsequently, in early-1999, the Health and Safety Executive successfully prosecuted Balfour Beatty and their NATM consultant Geoconsult for endangering the safety of workers and public. Fines of £1.2 million and £500,000 were levied on the companies, and they shared costs of £200,000.

Kemano Completion - conservation gone mad
The first Kemano tunnel in northern British Columbia was driven in the early 1950s by drill/blast, taking two years to complete the 16 km x 8 m-high horseshoe-section. It was designed to supply water to the turbines at a hydro station built to serve Alcan’s Kitimat smelter, some 75 km away. Because of access difficulties and shortages of material caused by the Korean War, the tunnel was mainly unlined except for a concreted floor. In 1990, expansion of demand led to the need for a second headrace tunnel, a third penstock, and an extension to the powerhouse for another four turbines. A Robbins TBM, originally built in 1984 for the Calaveras scheme in California, was modified to 5.73 m diameter and refurbished for the job. It got under way, achieving a best performance of 80.6 m. Unfortunately, when the project was nearing the halfway stage and $400 million had been spent, it stalled after complaints by the indigenous Inuit that their fishing rights had not been adequately protected under the Kemano Settlement Agreement. As a result, the agreement was revoked in the Canadian courts. Amazingly, Alcan’s appeal failed, and the project was shut down permanently.

Protvino - Cold War casualty
The 20.7 km, 5.1 m i.d. Protvino collider ring was nearly completed at the time of the breakup of the USSR. It had been excavated by various means, including a pair of Lovat EPBs which achieved 50 m/day. The member states of the new CIS refused to pay their portion of the costs of completion, and the project was abandoned before it could be equipped with the superconducting magnets necessary for its operation.

Agnew Bored Shaft - moved the goalposts
Apparently, the 55 t bit was lost in the hole after the stud stretchers for tensioning the 24 off, 2 in studs attaching the bit to the mandrel were torqued up too tight. To achieve this, 48 in Stilson wrenches, wire rope and a hydraulic cylinder normally used to open and close the hole cover had been used. A fishing trip followed, using a specially built bit picker, and the bit was retrieved. On another occasion, circulation was lost for a couple of days because the fluid level in the hole had fallen, increasing the pumping head required.
Finally, after a series of problems with the wayward trunnions, cracks started to appear in the travelling assembly. These would have been very serious, had it not been for the twisting of the goalpost derrick that caused the final shutdown of the project.

Seoul Metro - a baker’s dozen
At the last count, ten collapses had occurred on this unfortunate project. Reader input, please!

Hollywood Boulevard - calamity in celluloid city
On the Hollywood section of the L A Metro extension in 1995 contractors were realigning the tunnel by cutting out 20 segments and replacing them when they noticed a pocket of saturation. The situation rapidly deteriorated, resulting in an inflow of mud and water which produced a sinkhole in Hollywood Boulevard measuring 20 m wide x 18 m deep. The contractor poured 3,000 m³ of concrete slurry into the hole and paved it with tarmac to facilitate rush hour traffic the next morning. The client was not impressed and fired the contractor. The ensuing litigation cost the citizens a fortune and set back the cause of underground transport in Los Angeles by ten years.

Hallandsas - three tries for a Swede
This much-needed rail tunnel in southern Sweden was originally let to a State-owned contractor Kraftbyggarna who decided that it was a TBM prospect. The TBMs, however, proved to be too heavy for the job, and kept diving into the soft strata. Time went by, Kraftbyggarna went broke, the TBMs were withdrawn, and the contract was relet to Skanska as a drill/blast proposition. In order to consolidate the strata, chemical grout supplied by a French manufacturer was injected at the tunnel horizon. When cows grazing on the fields above the tunnel started to fall over, the problem was quickly traced to poison grass. The noxious chemicals in the grout had entered the groundwater system and had risen to irrigate the grass. This sparked a second long shutdown of the contract.

We get an average of three contacts each week about this emotive project, which, incidentally, is still standing awaiting judgement following the chemical injection saga. Latest verified inputs concern the first attempt using TBMs:

The first TBM was actually delivered ahead of time, earning a bonus for the manufacturer, but the launch was delayed by the water resources authority. It was expected that the initial 150 m would be in a mixture of hard and soft formations comprising mainly fractured gneiss and plastic ground. Overcutting was studied and tried out, but the TBM started sinking during the test. Expectations for water flow were exceeded, but grouting failed to seal the plastic material. This proved to be an insoluble problem because there was absolutely no allowance for water level reduction, even temporary. The intransigence of the authority led to a total breakdown of communications between all of the parties involved.

Another Swedish correspondent notes that the delivered cost of the TBM with backup and transportation system was $24 million. Production was just 14 m in two years, with a contract penalty clause costing $4 million for every month of delay. The contractor was bankrupted. Truly, a candidate for tunnelbuilder House of Horrors.

Thames Tunnel - father to son
This first subsurface crossing of the River Thames in London became a test of will for two generations of the Brunel family. Started by Marc Brunel in 1825, it was completed by Isambard Brunel in 1843. It was horseshoe section, driven by multi-deck hand shield with a brick lining. It was originally intended as a roadway for coach and horses, but the spiral ramps required at each end were never constructed. Instead, the tunnel became a seedy tourist attraction for strollers until it was taken over by the railways and later transferred to London Underground. It is still in use over 150 years later. Refurbished in mid-90s at a cost of £32 million - four times the original estimate, owing to a last-minute listing as a protected structure by English Heritage.

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) - a nuclear waste disposal gravy train
This attempt by the U S government to resolve its escalating nuclear waste disposal problem achieved the self-perpetuating cycle that now characterises most such schemes. The scientists working on it posed more questions than they answered. WIPP became a sinkhole for cash while delivering absolutely nothing. The waste isolation pilot plant became a tourist attraction for the State of New Mexico.

Storebaelt - a saga of fire, flood, and pestilence
The contract for the 8 km twin-tube bored rail tunnel under the Danish Great Belt was awarded in November, 1988. Four 8.75 m TBMs were ordered. Because of design modifications, these arrived at site up to 10 months behind schedule and were late being commissioned. Shortly after they commenced driving, impurities in their hydraulic systems caused a malfunction which resulted in the replacement of the cutterhead drive motors; the Sprogo tunnels flooded in October, 1991, inundating two TBMs; the bearing seals on the TBM screw conveyors failed, causing six months further delay; the cutterheads on the two Halsskov machines wore out and were replaced at a cost of nine months delay; ground freezing was required twice in order to repair the TBMs; and to cap it all, in June, 1994 with just 1% of the tunnel left to complete, a devastating fire occurred on TBM Dania which nearly destroyed 36 m of the concrete segmental lining closest to the face. Following another long delay, the final segment was placed on 7th April, 1995 after nearly five years of tunnelling. Despite all the problems, the tunnel opened to goods trains on 7th April, 1997 and will be paid for by the year 2024.

Athens Metro - more of an aqueduct
The job started with high hopes and two NFM TBMs to commence construction of 18 km of new Lines Nos 2 & 3 with a view on a further extension of 13 km together with 21 new stations. Unfortunately, every time it rained, water entered the workings through the fractured schist and karstic limestone, drowning the TBMs. The construction began in November, 1991 on a six-year lump sum turnkey basis and is still proceeding.

Athens Metro (2) - and here is the news!

Excavation of Athens metro during the 1990s was the subject of many news stories, mainly related to the slow progress caused by frequent stops to explore archaeological remains revealed as the tunnels advanced. However, in 1997 the local TV station picked up a report that the pavements were moving in Panepistimiou Avenue, a six-lane thoroughfare in the city centre. The reporter dispatched to the scene got more than he expected! He was conducting a live interview with the owner of a newstand, when the entire structure collapsed and disappeared down a hole that appeared in the pavement. Looking into the hole, the rotating cutterhead of a TBM could be plainly seen! The earthquake theories were quickly forgotten…..

Munich Metro - made buses look risky
Seven collapses, one of which resulted in a memorable picture of a bus disappearing into a surface sinkhole. Unfortunately, there were fatalities which included the bus driver.

Blackwall Refurbishment - produced its own tarmac at site
Refurbished in late-1960s, the contractor attempted to smooth the tunnel curves at the shaft locations. When the 1890s vintage cast iron tubbing was removed, there was a massive inrush of waterbearing gravels contaminated with coal tar from the adjacent gasworks which completely filled the tunnel. The Millennium Dome has since been erected on this site, and the hole in the west side of the Dome houses one of the original Blackwall tunnel ventilation shafts, which has been classified as a listed building! One thing is certain: the Dome itself will never achieve this status.

Hong Kong Strategic Sewer - French kiss goodbye
Campenon Bernard experienced water inflows of up to 100x what was expected after they had sunk 12 deep shafts and leased 5 hardrock TBMs to handle 23 km of tunnels in granite. When the immigration department deported some of the contractor’s skilled labour in June, 1996 for working on tourist visas, the situation degenerated into farce, resulting in withdrawal and a two-year shutdown. The tunnels were rebid in three separate packages by invitation to the original competing contractors.

Pinglin Highway - untried, untested technology
This vital 12.9 km-long link on the Taipei-Ilan expressway is the first application of hardrock TBMs in Taiwan. To date, since 1992, there have been ten collapses of ground in the pilot drive alone. In 1997, the 4.8 m-diameter pilot TBM was left at the 1.6 km point in order to probe ahead 1.5 km using drill/blast, and by year-end, both 11.8 m-diameter road tunnel machines had been stopped as well. At the last report in April, 1999 all three TBMs were still stationary while exploratory headings were advanced along the alignment using drill/blast. Awarded in 1991, the expressway was to have opened in 1999. Instead, this date has been revised to an optimistic 2003.

Fires in tunnels - 1167 fatalities in 30 years
Fatalities blamed on metro fires over the last 30 years were 289 dead in Baku, Azerbaijan on 28th October, 1995; 31 dead in London, England on 18th November, 1987; and one dead in San Francisco, USA on 17th January, 1979.

Road tunnels in the same period recorded 8 major incidents with 5 dead at Velsen, Netherlands in 1978; 7 dead at Nihonzaka, Japan in 1979; 7 dead at Oakland, CA, USA in 1982; estimated 700 dead at Salang, Afghanistan in 1982; 3 dead at Pfander, Austria in 1995; 5 dead at Palermo, Italy in 1996; 42 dead at Mont Blanc, France-Italy and 13 dead at Tauern, Austria in 1999.

Railway tunnels claimed 34 lives in Yugoslavia in 1971 and another 30 in Hokuriku tunnel, Japan the following year. No fatalities have been recorded in rail tunnel fires since 1972. Visit www.ita-aites.org for more information.