Queen officially opens UK Tyne Tunnel Aug 2012
TunnelTalk reporting
The new £260 million (US$404 million) Tyne Tunnel in the UK has been officially opened by the Queen, 45 years after she opened the original traffic link.
The Duke of Edinburgh met representatives from Bouygues Travaux Publics, the main design and build contractor, including its Chairman Martin Bouygues. The project was delivered by Concessionaire TT2, (Bouygues, HSBC and HBOS Bank of Scotland) under its contract to finance, build and operate the new and refurbished tunnels for a 30-year period. Design, engineering and environmental services were carried out by Parsons Brinckerhoff.
  • The Queen opens new Tyne  Tunnel crossing

    The Queen opens new Tyne Tunnel crossing

  • The south portal entrance

    The south portal entrance

After the 30-year concession period, responsibility for the tunnels and infrastructure will be handed back to the project sponsor, Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Association (TWITA).
Nicolas Caille, the Project Director, said: "I am incredibly proud to see Her Majesty officially open the new tunnel. Thousands of people were involved in its construction, and it is a wonderful feeling to have our work recognised by The Queen."

The new immersed tube crossing (red) is just downstream (east) of the existing bored tunnel (blue) and close to the pedestrian/cycle tunnels (green)

The original 1.64km long two-lane Tyne Tunnel was built by Edmund Nuttall (now BAM Nuttall) as a 9.5m i.d. shield driven bored tunnel, excavated under compressed air and lined with cast-iron segments. Opened by the Queen in 1967, it was designed for a daily traffic throughput of 24,000 vehicles, although in recent years it has regularly served 38,000 customers per day.
Tyne's pedestrian and cycle tunnels

Tyne's pedestrian and cycle tunnels

The New Tyne is a 1.5km immersed tube of four precast concrete elements of 90m long, 15m wide and 8.5m high with a further 1.1km of new road and cut and cover tunnelling either side of the river. Completed in February 2011, it is the third immersed tube road tunnel in the UK following the first for the Conwy estuary crossing in Wales, which opened in 1991, and the 725m River Medway crossing in Kent, southeast England, that opened in June 1996. The second Tyne crossing project also included full refurbishment of the existing bored tunnel crossing, and upgrade also of the Grade II listed pedestrian and cycle tunnels.
Immersed tube technology has been selected for major new undersea transportation crossings most notably for the 18km long Fehmarn Bælt crossing between Denmark and Germany and the 6.7km long section of the massive 50km long Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge and tunnel project in China.
References
Concrete casting for the Tyne immersed tube crossing - TunnelCast, November 2009
Tunnel selected over bridge options for Denmark-Germany sea link - TunnelTalk, February 2011
China's mega sea link moves forward - TunnelTalk, June 2011

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