Forget the Viaduct -- there's a new tunnel in town. Sound Transit revealed the three tunnel boring machines (TBM) they're using to extend Light Rail to Capitol Hill and and the U-District, and they're about as adorable as 679,000-pound 331-feet long implements of underground destruction can be. Two of the machines will be based in the U-District for the entirety of the project, with a lone TBM linking Westlake Station to Cap Hill.
Never one to miss out on a clever naming opportunity, Sound Transit dubbed the two U-District-based machines Balto and Togo after the famously heroic huskies (cute) and the Capitol Hill-based machine Brenda after... well, nobody knows. Balto and Togo landed in the Port of Tacoma late last month and should arrive in the U-Dist in early April, but Brenda's still en route to Tacoma. Wouldn't be much of a lady if she didn't show up fashionably late, right?
· Sound Transit
· KPLU