SEATTLE — Seattle’s tunnel-boring machine, Bertha, has been stuck underground, a thousand feet from where she started, for more than two years. KIRO 7 got confirmation Wednesday from the people who run the machine that it is fixed and on the move.
WSDOT released new video of Bertha on the move. We had seen the tunnel-boring machine's cutter head rotating during the repair process, but in place. Now we see her mining and tunnel rings being built behind her.
"This is a milestone for STP to demonstrate they have the machine ready to go to complete the requirement for building this tunnel,” explained Todd Trepanier with WSDOT.
Seattle Tunnel Partners said Bertha moved 8 feet between Monday and Tuesday. The 8 feet is considered part of a test, but it will get the massive machine out of the pit workers built to fix it and under the viaduct in March.
“Everything is performing exactly as it should, all the temperatures are fine, all the forces are fine, and we are very, very pleased with how the TBM performed yesterday so we're looking forward to coming back after the new year,” said Chris Dixon, Seattle Tunnel Partner’s project manager.
Dixon told reporters Wednesday that after a break for the holidays Bertha will start digging again and picking up speed, averaging 40 feet a day, which is what she did before she broke. Dixon told us she's not going to break again.
"We're not planning on it getting stuck under the viaduct," he concluded.
Bertha has quite a ways to go; the tunnel will be 9,000 feet long and Bertha stopped at the thousand-foot mark. The plan is to have the entire 9,000 feet done by the end of 2016.