For sale: Eurotunnel Tunnel Boring Machine

BabyDave writes "BBC News reports that Eurotunnel are selling one of the 580-tonne Tunnel Boring Machines used to dig the Channel Tunnel on eBay, with proceeds going to charity. The auction closes on the 12th of April, and bidding currently stands at 1300 pounds. Anyone who's interested should note that the buyer must collect the item themselves, and returns will not be accepted."

Is this the one in the photo or not?

[sbaker]

I know that when the tunnels met, one of the two boring machines had to be
driven off diagonally into perpetual oblivion in order to let the other one go past because they aparrently do not have a reverse gear.

I thought the buried one was on offer for 1 pound to anyone who could retrieve it.

I guess this one (if it's truly the one in the photo) isn't the one that's buried.

Well, either way, they don't tell you the state of the bodywork or how many miles it'll do to the gallon. :-)

Re:location

[kidgenius]

They sent one off to the side/down and let the other continue it's way through to actually bore the tunnel all the way through. And, there were not just 2 boring machines. I believe that the chunnel consists of 3 tunnels, so that makes 6 machines, 3 of which alien archaelogists one day will dig up and in one loud voice proclaim....WTF?!

Re:TBM?

[phrasebook]

From Wikipedia (dunno whether info there can be trusted): "After the British and French TBMs had met near the middle, the French TBM was dismantled while the British one was diverted into the rock and abandoned."

So this is presumably the French one, reassembled, but at the British side? :-/

Isn't there a real market for these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lots of tunnels being dug around the world, for trains, subways, highways. Surely large construction/engineering companies would be the likely buyers.

Selling this thing on ebay just sounds like a big waste of public money.

The BBC claims it's not operational. How hard would it be to refurb it?

Re:That's just the front end of the TBM

[martingunnarsson]

Nice information, thanks. One thing though, how the heck do they get the rings through the tunnel? In pieces? I mean, you can't move a ring through another ring of the same size!

Re:Shipping's a bitch

[Have Blue]

Well, it got from the Chunnel to the field where those pictures were taken. I imagine it would be similar to the procedure used for moving a nuclear reactor [greenvilleonline.com]:

Here's the plan. A 133-foot-long tractor-trailer with 192 tires and 16 axles (this from the Orange County Register) will take about five days to crawl about 17 miles on Old Highway 101 and Interstate 5, under the guard of Marines and, at one point, state park rangers.

It will inch along about eight miles of beach over interlocking mats that will be continuously moved from the back to the front, so the 192 tires don't sink in the sand.

Then somehow it will be loaded onto the barge.

Best use of the word "somehow" I've ever seen :P

What's the cost to operate?

[Daetrin]

How much does it cost to dig a mile of tunnel underground? How much would it cost to make a similar tunnel 3000 miles long, from one coast of the US to the other? Install a maglev train and evacuate the atmosphere from the tunnel, and see how fast you could get it going.

It probably wouldn't be cost effective, but wouldn't it be cool to catch a train from one coast to the other and have the trip last about six hours? :)

Operative Phrase "Shipping Not Included"

[Dark Bard]

The real issue is transportation of something that size. Even broken down the sections would be incredibly heavy and would exceed the limits on traditional roads. Doesn't matter the value of the material if transportation exceeds it's value. Actually seems like a good scam for getting rid of a useless hunk of scrap metal. Why pay a small fortune to dispose of it when you can get some one to pay you to take it away? My guess is the buyer will default once reality sets it.

Worth remembering

[BillsPetMonkey]

That quite a few people were killed by that thing.

When I worked on the Jubilee Line Extension in London and went down 20m (that's below the water table) to see a slurry tunnelling machine I was amazed a) at how hot it is even that far down and b) how dangerous it is.

There are pressurized fuel and bentonite (a kind of rock lubricant) lines everywhere and large carbide tipped cutting teeth which can jam and flip the entire machine at it's rock face.

People work inside these machines when they're working and as a consequence this TBM will have killed more than a few people.

Re:location

[Jabes]

The picture on ebay is from the Folkestone visitors centre; so it looks like it is the one that has been sitting in Folkestone for the last 10 years.

When the boring machine was first put by the visitors centre, it had a painted sign on it saying "FOR SALE - APPLY WITHIN". I think they honestly thought someone would buy it for some other large scale tunnel project.

There were two boring machines, one starting at the French end, and one starting at the English end. When the tunnel met in the middle they were a matter of millimetres apart. Pretty impressive engineering feat!

The boring maching in Folkestone is actually the one that started at the French side, with the one that started in England dug off to one side and left below the channel. (When they met, they could not pass, obviously ;-)

I also beta tested the tunnel, but our train didn't stop because it was on the pre-opening "locals go free" trips to convince us that digging up all the local countryside and destroying small villages was a good idea.

It's amazing how you forget: I use the tunnel all the time now and until writing this message had forgotten all about the anti-tunnel pressure groups at the time.

Re:Operative Phrase "Shipping Not Included"

[andreMA]

What puzzles me is why the town near where it is presently (Folkstone, UK -- sounds small; dunno) doesn't just erect a small park/museum around the sucker and pull in tourism revenue...

Re:TBM?

[Chocky2]

There were two TBMs -- one started from Britain, the other from France, the problem with them is no effective reverse gear, so when they met in the middle the British one turned off the main tunnel and dug itself a parking space (where I believe it remains), and the French one continued on to Britain.

Now, I'm hoping that the one on eBay is the French TBM that is now resident in Britain, because if it's the British one then the "buyer collects" clause is a real bitch!

Something Tells Me...

[barry_williams]

This is a fake. They've spelled numerous items wrong including Folkestone (spelled "Folkstone"), McMillan nurses I'm fairly sure is spelled MacMillan Nurses.

The seller has no feedback (but this would probably be expected) yet no proof that the item is for sale by Eurotunnel.

Who says this guys hasn't taken two photographs of it and placed it on eBay for a laugh??

News? Yes, but not of a sale, but of a scam.

Re:Is this the one in the photo or not?

[KingDaveRa]

It emphatically *isn't* the whole machine.

Certainly isn't. The whole machine was something like 400-500 feet long, including the spoil collection kit, the hydraulics to steer it all and the kit to insert all the segments. There was a control booth of sorts, concrete spraying apparatus, conveyers, and all sorts of other fun things. These TBMs were collossul. I've seen this TBM head from the motorway passing the Eurotunnel Offices, and it is pretty big.

Re:location

[jackb_guppy]

Actually, there was SIX boring machines. Two for each of the tunnels that make up the Chunnel. There of the machines are still under ground left in dise bores.

The part that they are selling is *NOT* a machine. The orignal machine was more like 300 ft long. They are selling the cutting head.

There was still the jacking sections, the placement of tunnel sections, the spoil removal, and power and guidance sections.

Re:Use for this?

[WindBourne]

How about a tunnel between Alaska and Russia for a high speed train and/or a pipeline? I have always been surprised that nobody has persued the idea of connecting Asia/Russia/Europe to America via that small connection. It is only double the length of the chunnel and would connect the vast majority of the world.

Re:Use for this?

[Shakrai]

How about a tunnel between Alaska and Russia for a high speed train and/or a pipeline? I have always been surprised that nobody has persued the idea of connecting Asia/Russia/Europe to America via that small connection. It is only double the length of the chunnel and would connect the vast majority of the world.

It's been talked about. It's not very feasible though. There's virtually nothing up there. The climate is harsh, the population is sparse and the terrain is impassable in many areas (both in North America and Asia). Back in the 1860s a group of companies attempted to string telegraph wire across the Bering straight [fortlangley.ca] to connect North America with Europe (using existing or new telegraph wires across Siberia). However the successful deployment of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph wire ended these efforts. It was literally cheaper to lay undersea cables then it was to attempt to build (not to mention maintain) telegraph wires in the harsh Artic environment.

If it's too harsh to lay wire think about what you'd need to overcome to lay railroad tracks. Plus where would your high-speed trains go? The nearest Russian city of any significance would be Vladivostok -- thousands of miles away. According to Travelocity I could fly there from LAX for about $1,300. Why would I take a multi-day train ride across the Arctic and the Bering straight?