HS2’s giant tunnelling machine Mary Ann has broken through marking the end of her mission to excavate the first bore of what will soon become the longest railway tunnel in the West Midlands.
The 125-metre-long machine began constructing the 3.5-mile (5.8km) Bromford Tunnel, which starts at the Warwickshire village of Water Orton and extends to the northeast Birmingham suburb of Washwood Heath, in July 2023. The TBM was named Mary Ann, by the local community, in a nod to the Warwickshire-born writer better known by her pen name George Eliot.
The tunnel breakthrough – HS2’s first in Birmingham – is a significant milestone for the project, which will almost halve journey times between Britain’s two largest cities, whilst freeing up valuable track space on the heavily congested West Coast Main Line for more local, regional and freight services.
The ground-breaking achievement comes as construction work on the giant structures being built to carry HS2 hits a peak, with around 31,000 people now employed on the programme across the 140-mile route. Despite recent progress, HS2 is currently undergoing a fundamental reset to make sure the railway can be delivered efficiently and for the lowest feasible cost.
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