On the southwest edge of Łódź, Poland, four specialist tunneling crews from seven European countries spent nearly three weeks working around the clock to build a curved concrete cradle at the bottom of the Retkinia launch chamber. The structure is designed to support and correctly position a roughly 3,500-ton tunnel boring machine (TBM) as it begins cutting beneath the city.
The cradle was completed on August 18, and the first TBM components are already being assembled on it, as per an Autonocion report. Once underground, the machine will cut a 2.9-mile tunnel for Poland's high-speed rail network, allowing trains to pass beneath Łódź rather than requiring a cut-and-cover route through the city.
