We are moving towards a record at Sheremetyevskaya

The tunneling crews of Roman Ustrizhitsky’s section from SMU-8, having worked at the pre-launch station of the Big Circle Line “Savelovskaya”, returned to their base construction site on Vetkina Street. Here is the long-lived mining complex of the 946th mine. Several years ago it was used to build dead ends behind Maryina Roshcha. Later, it was from the shaft of this mine that they decided to build an approach adit towards the future Sheremetyevskaya BKL station. It passed over the existing Lyublinsko-Dmitrovskaya line and, stretching for almost one kilometer, reached the border of the planned transfer.

To date, a cut into the future approach corridor has been made there and its short right end has been developed using the ITC-120 combine. With a diameter of 9.5 meters, the entire length of the passage will exceed forty meters. Three human walkways will be developed through the openings in the side wall, which will lead to the Maryina Roshcha platform. An inclined tunnel will be built from the far end of the corridor - it will lead to Sheremetyevskaya.

A team of former Rostov miner Vladimir Golikov operates in an underground mine. Their patch at the end of the approaching trapezoidal adit does not really resemble the usual metro construction landscapes. There is a lot of fastening wood around: vertical posts, horizontal beams, a board fence at the face of the face, and the flooring under the vault is made of boards. Against this background, the ten half-rings made of cast iron tubes, already installed on the right side of the corridor, do not particularly attract attention. Now the miners from the height of the scaffolding are using jackhammers to clean the arch to install the next half-ring of lining.

“There’s not much rock there,” says the foreman. “Now we cope with loading it into wagons with the help of shovels. When we begin excavation along the entire section, a rock loading machine will be delivered here. Along the right wall of the corridor we will soon begin to design the opening for the first transfer passage. Corresponding shaped tubes are available. After the next two openings, it will not be far to the last, 56th ring. From there, the development of a small slope will begin.

Through the long approach adit you can also get into the second face, if you don’t reach its end a little, but turn left, into the side passage. There is a blind shaft being sunk - one that does not start from the surface of the earth. It will connect the adit for the upcoming haulage with the level of the middle hall of Sheremetyevskaya. The trunk diameter is 4 meters, the total depth will be 25 meters. They mine it with jackhammers, breaking through layers of limestone of varying hardness alternating with marl.

When a Metrostroevets correspondent visited the mine, Sergei Sobolev’s tunneling team was breaking up the rock for the installation of tubing for the 21st ring. This means that the tunnelers are already working at approximately the level of the roofs of the cars that will arrive at Sheremetyevskaya. Only the barrel is not aimed at the platform part - it is inscribed between the tunnels approaching the platform.

At the moment of the approaching final push, the tunnelers will break the depth record for the Moscow metro. While it is held by the Victory Park station - 73 meters. Sheremetyevskaya, by the will of the designers, will be a meter deeper.