A drone's eye view of Crossrail (SLYT)

June 4, 2015 9:24 AM

Crossrail is a 70 ish mile railway currently being built right through the centre of London. Take drone flight through some of the tunnels and watch the giant mechanical Shai Halud chomp through walls.
posted by Just this guy, y'know (7 comments total)

that was fantastic, thanks!
posted by Auden at 9:43 AM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Bless the Maker and His water
Bless the coming and the going of Him
May His passage cleanse the world
May He keep the world for His people

posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:10 AM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've been on their TBMs a bunch of times, TheWhiteSkull and they do absolutely feel like giant mechanical sandworms every time. I've never not been in awe of them.

The last time I was down on one was about a day before they made the final breakthrough (which actually happened a couple of weeks back) and it felt very sad knowing that these giant machines - which I'd first seen all pristine and clean over in Germany, then being reassembled piece by piece in London, then in slow-motion, violent action Underground in increasingly dirty and beaten up form - were making their last moves.

I actually felt a genuine pang of impending loss. Especially for Victoria - who I'd seen (and been on) throughout all the above stages of her mechanical life. I think she's one of the ones being dismantled, luckily, as I reckon I'd actually feel pretty bad if she was one of the ones being driven underground and buried.

At least she's getting a clean death, silly as that sounds.
posted by garius at 10:29 AM on June 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

garius: "At least she's getting a clean death, silly as that sounds."

I always assumed there was an essentially fixed number of tunnel borers in the world and they just got revamped and shipped to where they're needed. Impressive (crazy?) that they're custom builds for each project, but I guess in the scheme of things, the cost of the tunneling machines ($15 million each) is a rounding error compared to the size of the entire project ($22 billion).

It's going to be exciting seeing how the better connections are going to transform the new areas brought into the system (Hayes and Harlington, I'm looking at you).
posted by Static Vagabond at 12:18 PM on June 4, 2015

I've been on their TBMs a bunch of times

Yep, this is my envious face.
posted by ambrosen at 1:58 AM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Where is the drone flight? That was just some CG promotional recordings of something going through short segments, and then either hand-held videos or stills of the stations in question as they were presumably some time this or last year.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:32 PM on June 5, 2015

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed with the lack of drone. There is a cool drone shot near the end though, rising out of the greenwich entrance and spinning about.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 1:48 PM on June 5, 2015