Look familiar?
It’s not Big Bertha, the monster tunneling machine that’s still stuck with sand in its seals.
We’re not sure this one has a name (maybe we could name it!) but it is in our neighborhood, off First Avenue Northeast 
at the Maple Leaf Portal.
Sound Transit earlier today told the Ravenna Blog: “That’s not the cutter head, but pieces are coming together for the tunnel boring machine(s) that will mine Northgate tunnels!”
Two light rail tunnels will be drilled from this location, roughly across First from SAS Shoes and Silver Platters, to Sound Transit’s Roosevelt Station, on 12th Avenue Northeast near Northeast 65th Street.
Tunnel machine names, anyone?
We shall see how they stand up to time and budget.
If it is anything like Sound Transit’s U-Link project, there shouldn’t be any cost overruns Thomas. In fact that project is way UNDER budget and 6-months ahead of schedule.
They should be wrapping up fairly soon; they only needed it closed for site prep–meaning it won’t be closed the entire time they’re tunneling.
Email main@soundtransit.org for a more concrete answer
Is there an estimate on how long the lane on 1st ave will be closed?
…for Bertha. Sound Transit’s line under construction is about $100 million under budget: http://www.soundtransit.org/About-Sound-Transit/News-and-events/News-releases/News-release-archive/Sound-Transit-details-plans-to-open-light-rail-line-six-to-nine-months-early-11222013
And the cost overruns are due in…approximately four months.
How about Doug. Get it?
Oops, had the wrong TBM.
Definitely a lot more than 6 inches a day! More like ten to thirty feet per day, like Sound Transit’s other tunnels.
I’m not aware of anyone whose foundations shook or cracked during any of the University Link boring under Capitol Hill.
Page 6
TBM will probably move around 6 inches per day.
When does the digging/drilling begin?
How many months/years should we be expecting our foundations to shake & crack?
They are re-using at least one of the TBMs from U-Link, so it’s possible one of them will be named Brenda. This name is the name of the (U-Link) project manager’s wife; a previous TBM he managed was named after his mother.
The other two TBMs were named Togo and Balto:
Source
I’ve gotten information from a few different sources; I’m not sure if they’re launching one or two TBMs at Maple Leaf. My media contact at ST never got back to me on that.
There is also potentially a third (or maybe just a second) TBM being launched from Roosevelt.
Any TBMs launched from Roosevelt will be extracted at Husky Stadium. A large trench beyond the tail track was cut to allow for extraction.
If there is only one TBM that launches from Maple Leaf it’ll tunnel to Roosevelt and then get trucked back to Maple Leaf and do it again for the other tunnel.