Passed under the Yauza without surprises

A mechanized tunnel boring complex with the name “Natalya” passed under the Yauza. Since June last year, he has been building the left tunnel from Rubtsovskaya to Stromynka. Parallel to it, but with an obligatory lag, another shield is moving along the right path - “Sofia”, which started two months later. Both of them are at the disposal of the site manager Vasily Kostromenkov.

Last fall, both “Natalya” and “Sofia” dug a tunnel through the fence of the future pit of the platform part of the Rubtsovskaya station. In winter, they successfully carried out the crossing under the embankment with the railway tracks of the Kazan direction. And now, in the left tunnel, another milestone has been overcome - the head part of the Natalya TBM calmly, without any problems, “dipped” under the Yauza. The newspaper's correspondent visited the site on February 20 - there was no large water there, only puddles of limestone, which members of Andrei Tereshko's team were scooping out at the very end of the tunnel in order to begin installing the lower blocks of the next lining ring.

– Щит продолжает идти через известняк, а в нем попадаются небольшие линзы с водой, – пояснил заместитель начальника участка Евгений Бачурин.

Such surprises do not frighten experienced miners. Something more serious could have happened directly under the Yauza, despite the fact that the width of the river in that place (in the Elektrozavodskaya area) is small. The designers provided for the tunnel route to be 20 meters deeper than the bottom of the Yauza, but the metro builders still felt the increased level of water inflow. To prepare for any difficulties, the mechanized tunnel boring complex was pre-equipped with an additional polymer tank. In the event of an emergency, such a reserve could be required to stabilize the condition of the face. Fortunately, it was not required.

On the shield there is a normal working environment. After installing the ring, the rotor will start again. There is no rush or fuss felt. Despite the frost outside, next to the tunneling complex, which is more than 900 meters away from the portal, the temperature is almost room temperature. Metro workers are working in a newly built tunnel, even without winter jackets. After some time, the second complex will have to go through the difficult test of the Yauza. And on it, as the head of the section Vasily Kostromenkov said, the same precaution is already being applied - an additional tank for polymer is installed and is waiting to be filled.

Now that “Natalya” has successfully coped with all three problems of the first part of the haul to “Stromynka” (passing through the future station “Rubtsovskaya”, under the railway tracks and under the Yauza River), and “Sofia” is as close as possible to Therefore, Vasily Kostromenkov and his builders focused on new tasks.

– As of March 2, “Natalya” entered the pile enclosure of the 18th site allocated for Mosmetrostroy on Rusakovskaya embankment. A chamber for a drainage installation and a ventilation chamber will be built on it. Their fencing has already been done, and our tunnel boring mechanized complexes are again overcoming an obstacle similar to what the site was able to cope with at Rubtsovskaya. From the 18th site we still have about one and a half kilometers left to the future Stromynka station,” explained Kostromenkov.