First station breakthrough on M4 Sydhavn
The facts
- The M4 Sydhavn is expected to open in 2024. The project includes a total of five new metro stations from Havneholmen (near Fisketorvet) to Ny Ellebjerg. The entire M4 Sydhavn will be built in a tunnel, and when it opens it will connect to the M4 Nordhavn, linking the southern and northern parts of Copenhagen.
- The tunnel boring machines on the M4 Sydhavn are the longest tunnel boring machines that have been used on any metro construction project in Copenhagen. The machines are approximately 140 metres long including supply trucks and weigh a total of approximately 600 tonnes.
- The two tunnel boring machines Inge and Olivia are named after two strong Danish women. Inge Lehmann was a geophysicist who discovered the Earth's core more than 100 years ago. Olivia Nielsen was a prominent figure in the trade union movement in the 1800s and has had a road named after her in Sydhavn.
The tunnel boring machines will first drill southwards from Enghave Brygge to Sluseholmen via Mozarts Plads to Ny Ellebjerg. They will then be picked up and transported back to the final stage, where they will bore from Enghave Brygge and northwards to Havneholmen and finally the final section to the junction chamber that connects M4 Sydhavn with M4 Nordhavn and M3 line. - In total, the tunnel boring machines will construct two tunnels of approximately 4.5 kilometres in length. The tunnelling work is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2021.
The Inge tunnel boring machine has completed the first stage of tunnel construction on the M4 Sydhavn. A new tunnel has now been built from Enghave Brygge to Sluseholmen.
Like many other construction projects, the M4 Sydhavn metro construction is also affected by the corona crisis. At the moment. only one of the two tunnel boring machines is currently in operation, but it reached an important milestone during the Easter holidays. The Inge tunnel boring machine has now arrived at Sluseholmen station.
‘It's gratifying and a nice milestone to reach in an otherwise challenging time. We are operating at reduced capacity due to the corona crisis, but we have managed to keep production going. The people who are at work are really working hard, and it is reassuring that we are able to maintain some progress on the project,’ says Mikkel Kjær Jensen, Project Director at Metroselskabet.
During March and April, there have been fewer employees on the construction sites, partly because several foreign employees chose to return to their home countries. To create a safe and secure working environment on the construction sites, Metroselskabet and the contractor have introduced extra measures so that all employees travelling to Denmark from another country must have been quarantined in Denmark for 14 days before they are allowed on the construction sites on the metro project in Sydhavnen.
The Inge tunnel boring machine is expected to continue tunnelling in a month's time when it starts the second stage from Sluseholmen to Mozarts Plads. Until then, the machine will undergo regular maintenance work, during which Inge will have her ‘teeth’ replaced so she is ready to gnaw through more of the underground in Sydhavn.