A huge boring machine which is creating some of the tunnels for phase one of HS2 in Warwickshire has become the first on the project to complete its full journey underground. The first bore of the one-mile tunnel under Long Itchington Wood has been dug in seven months by the 2,000-tonne machine nicknamed Dorothy.
The name is a nod to Dorothy Hodgkin, who in 1964 became the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry. The 410-foot long machine started its journey in December and has just broken through its reception box.
Creating both bores of the tunnel, the machine has removed around 8.8 million cubic feet of mudstone and soil which is being transported to the on-site slurry treatment plant where the material is separated out before being reused on embankments and landscaping along the route.
