September 18 - Blue Water Shipping has delivered the first of four tunnel boring machines (TBM) for Sydney's North West Rail Link project in Australia.
"In addition to mastering the local transportation from the factory in Shenyang, China, we also completed the ocean transport and the final delivery to site," said Sebastian Stephan Schilde, project manager at Blue Water.
"We knew up front that we would face the biggest challenges during the 200 km haulage transportation in Australia, where TBM1 - named Elizabeth - was transported through local suburbs," added Schilde.
Blue Water's offices in Shanghai, Marseille, Melbourne and Singapore worked together to safely deliver the TBM to northwest Sydney.
Once reassembled, the machine will weigh 900 tonnes and measure 120 m long. It will be used in the digging of a 15 km twin tunnel system.
The second and third TBMs are currently en route to Australia, while the fourth and final machine will be ready for collection from the factory at the end of September.
