Posted on 05/18/2015 10:01:33 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Now that stalled tunnel machine Bertha’s front end is disassembled, the damage looks worse than project experts thought — and contractors will miss their goal to resume digging in August.
Not only did grit penetrate the rubber bearing seals, but the steel casings around the seals broke apart, sending fragments into the drive gears.
Some teeth are cracked in the giant bull gear, which rotates the circular drill face, as well as several pinion gears that are spun by 24 electric motors.
The news was revealed Monday morning by Todd Trepanier, administrator for the state’s Highway 99 replacement project, at a Seattle City Council briefing.
Bertha, the world’s biggest tunnel-boring machine, overheated and quit digging on Dec. 6, 2013. The machine is stuck near Pioneer Square, some 1,083 feet into the 9,270-foot route from Sodo to South Lake Union.
The highway tunnel has lapsed two years behind schedule, and is now estimated to open in early 2017.
Hitachi-Zosen, which built the $80 million, 57-foot-4-inch-diameter machine, is replacing or retrofitting virtually the entire front end.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
Big Dig II.
PING!
When will liberals learn?
Who knows when or IF Bertha will ever work again, and what will it hit next?
Had they just torn down the viaduct and rebuilt it, it would have cost $500 million. And it would be done by now.
At some point don't you think liberals will say, hey, ENOUGH good money after bad.
Plus how many years will this ruin the waterfront?
That WAS a big Seattle attraction.
Overtime. And crews that would have been working on the tunnel (but can’t seeing as the machine is broken) are still getting paid. Union rules you know.
I knew a guy on another project that was supposed to spend all day in his big construction crane - even though a repair part wasn’t due from Germany for 15 days. Union rules - operator gets paid no matter what. (He quit after his first day in the crane just sitting there!)
Absolutely another Big Bertha. The sort of thing that really appeals to idiots and morons. AKA liberals.
Lucky you to have escaped. I spent two days in KY and thought it was heaven. Was just driving through, but it made an impression. Obviously smarter folks than Seattleites. Gracious, too.
“The machine is stuck near Pioneer Square, some 1,083 feet into the 9,270-foot route from Sodo to South Lake Union. . . The state has paid about $1 billion toward the $1.35 billion contract.”
That’s some first class project management right there.
I saw the same thing happen to my cabinet and finish carpentry work while I was building a new house, with draws way ahead of delivery. I warned my general contractor, but not in time to prevent the subcontractor from going belly up with five figures of my money out the door and only half my cabinetry installed.
But I think I have the right to demand better supervision than that from our obscenely well funded government.
New opening target date is January, 2017. I can hardly wait,
Feed me! Feed me! I’m so hungry!!!
Liberals’ utopic plans thwarted again by the real world.
Bummer
And they spent millions to decide to choose the risky, untested, most expensive option. Laughing smugly at the press conference when they made their decision.
...and in Seattle....get PETA on the job.
Somebody had to say it...
I'm sure there is a college student in Seattle somewhere with nothing better to do than complain about it.
-PJ
Back-breaking physical labor needs to make a comeback. Get to work boys.
Hahahaha! Someone else has the same idea!
Brenda is doing just fine!
Don’t forget the carpenters.
Brilliant marketing here. Sell the customer on your device, design a weakness into it that is almost certain to fail, and when it does you can soak the customer for more money to fix the device and finish his job.
A plan only a liberal would be stupid enough to buy into!
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