SOUTH TBM OF METRO 4 DEPARTED ALSO -BUDA SIDE TUNNEL BUILDING NEARING ITS END

On 26th January 2009 the south tunnel boring machine (TBM) of metro 4 has departed also towards Szent Gellért Square, to where its north pair arrived a week ago. Once internal walls of the station and its linking platform tunnels are finished, they may be pushed into the Danube side station by the Contractor in the second half of February according to the plans.
Tunnel building BAMCO consortium in hand with the consent from the National Transport Authority (NTA) obtained at the middle of last December launched the north TBM at the beginning of January – with respect to the Holiday season – and by the middle of the month reached the platform tunnel linking to Szent Gellért station. Following this could the south TBM begin to build the last section of Buda side along the railway connecting tunnel length, which earlier evoke dispute over its building method, but now approved and being built with subsequent enlargement.

The south TBM will likely break into the platform tunnel in the second half of February, and then the Contractor will push them into the station, but before that the internal walls of the station and platform tunnels are needed to be finished for the purpose to conserve buildings at the surface. With the parallel works being executed now the Buda side tunnel building will end soon, in other words TBMs are approaching half of their way. In the spring tunnel building continues under the Danube and then at Pest side. Across the Pest side of the 7.5 km stretch it will also obviously occur a few times that the TBMs will stop temporarily and restart again, as required by the building process and respectively the methodology chosen.

DBR Metro Project Directorate
January 26th, 2009