What method is being used to build the tunnel?
The world’s largest hard rock boring machine, named Big Becky, will bore a tunnel 14.4 m in diameter under the City of Niagara Falls. The tunnel is about 1.5 times larger in diameter than the Euro Tunnel railway tunnels under the English Channel. As it is being bored the tunnel is reinforced with a combination of steel ribs, wire mesh, rock bolts and shotcrete that varies with the actual rock conditions encountered along the tunnel route. As construction progresses, a waterproof membrane and the final cast in place concrete liner is constructed to finish the tunnel.
