File:Second North West Rail Link tunnelling breakthrough at Norwest Station

Description
The North West Rail Link has reached a second major tunnelling milestone with Florence, the second of our four mega tunnel boring machines, breaking through into the Norwest Station site on 4 March 2015. Florence will spend the coming weeks moving through the Norwest Station area and undergoing maintenance before resuming her underground journey towards Showground Station.

In tunnelling to Norwest from the Bella Vista tunnelling site, TBM2 Florence has: Excavated more than 180,000 tonnes of crushed rock, both sandstone and shale; Installed more than 7,200 concrete segments to line the new rail tunnel; Been home to more than 80 workers, including tunnellers, maintenance crews, geologists, surveyors and engineers, who combined have spent almost 30,000 hours underground; Had 49 hardened steel cutters on her cutter head replaced, worn down from the harsh forces of cutting the Sydney sandstone and shale; Had its conveyor belt extended by almost 3.6km so the crushed rock can be transported back to Bella Vista.