The World's First Tunnel Boring Machines

摘要

Atunnel boring machine (TBM) excavates a full-face circular cross section in a process that minimizes disturbance of the rock and accurately follows the planned tunnel profile. But in the 1850s, workers were only dreaming of monster machines to reduce the amount of hammer and muscle work required to drive a tunnel. The construction of Hoosac Tunnel in northwestern Massachusetts for the Troy & Greenfield Railroad presented an opportunity to bring those dreams to fruition. Charles Wilson had patented a stone cutting and dressing disc in 1847, and in 1852 a Boston consortium that included owners of a quarry that used one of Wilson's stone cutting machines contracted with the railroad to provide a stone cutter capable of cutting a tunnel 24 feet in diameter.