FOUR months after beginning work on creating the second bore of the Long Itchington Wood Tunnel in Warwickshire, Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) Dorothy broke through at its southern portal.
Named after Dorothy Hodgkin, the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the 2000-tonne TBM, which is 125 metres (410 feet) in length, began its mile-long journey excavating the southbound bore in November last year. It had completed the northbound in July 2022 and was dismantled, returned to the northern end, and reassembled over three months in order to start its second drive.