Incredible pictures show huge machines that will build giant new HS2 tunnels under London

HS2 is set to start tunnelling towards central after receiving the needed cash.

During her budget on October 30, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, , announced that the company would be  to begin the work to burrow to Euston.

This is set to begin next year after preparatory work is finished by the end of December. says engineers have begun assembling the two giant tunnelling machines to dig the final 4.5 miles of underground high-speed railway.

This will eventually carry HS2 trains into London from the Midlands.

Each of the 1,250-tonne tunnel boring machines (TBMs) – named Karen and Madeleine – will launch from an underground box at one end of the project’s Old Oak Common station.

The interchange, which will be privately funded, is expected to function as a temporary terminus before HS2’s station in Euston is built.

The TBMs, officials say, are expected to take around one and a half years to reach Camden.

The two 190m-long TBMs were manufactured by Herrenknecht AG in Germany and were transported to Old Oak Common in pieces before being reassembled on-site.

In the summer, HS2 lifted the machines into the underground station box using a 750-tonne crane. T

They are now being reassembled at the eastern end of the station and are ready to bore to Euston.

The machine’s cutter head, which has been optimised to cut through London clay, is 8.53m across, and the tunnel’s inner diameter is set to be 7.55m.

HS2’s London tunnels contractor, Skanska Costain STRABAG (SCS) joint venture, is leading the construction of the twin-bored tunnel.

In January 2024, engineers completed a logistics tunnel from a nearby site at Atlas Road, providing access to materials and a route to remove the London clay being excavated by the machine.

HS2 has also built two spray concrete-lined tunnels, from which the TBMs will be launched eastwards towards Euston.