Twin tunnel boring machines (TBMs) that will be used to build the two tunnels for SkyTrain’s Millennium Line Broadway Extension are set to arrive in Vancouver sometime this spring.

BC minister of state for infrastructure Bowinn Ma says the giant machines passed the factory acceptance testing stage this week.

Both machines are identical in size, with a width of six metres (20 ft) and a length of 100 metres (328 ft).

They are expected to dig and complete the concrete tunnel ring structure at a rate of about 18 metres (60 ft) per day, with an average depth of about 15 metres (49 ft) and a maximum depth of 20 metres (66 ft) at Broadway-City Hall Station in order to dive under the Canada Line tunnel.

These TBMs will complete a five-kilometre-long segment of tunnel, travelling from the tunnel boring pit north of the intersection of Great Northern Way and Thornton Street, which doubles as the subway footprint of the Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station.

The progress on excavating and preparing the tunnel boring pit is now highly advanced to meet the schedule of assembling and launching the machines from the site in the middle of 2022.

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