Today was an important day in the building of the new north-south connection in the Amsterdam underground network. A new tunnel build outside the main railway station will be slided below it. That moster weighs 22.000 metric tons!! Before this operation could commence 3000 wooden poles that supported the main part of the station, opened October 1889, had to be removed and the station itself had to be supported with an in situ build caissson. The tunnel is 136 meters long and 22 meters wide. It will take at least six weeks before this operation is completed.
here's an animation of this part of the project. Note the differences in waterlevels during the process. Quite impressive.
A Flickr collection of the project around the Censtral Station.
This project has been dogged with budget overruns, disasters and is way behind planning. Years in fact.
This is what happened when a leak in the building pit occurred. Centuries old buildings were on the verge of collapsing, with occupants inside. Disaster was eventually averted and these houses were saved and stabilized.
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