The giant roadheader made a small ceremonial cut Aug. 8 for a public event, but it had to back out and wait for crews to use torches and other tools to cut out metal reinforcement embedded into the hill to stabilize the east portal of the tunnel.
The giant roadheader, which has a rotating cutter mounted on a boom, started boring Wednesday and had carved out about 10 feet of the new tunnel by midday Friday, Caltrans reported. “It’s exciting to see it finally boring through the mountain, scooping up the dirt, and moving it away,” Caltrans spokesman Jeff Weiss said at the construction site just north of the existing three bores of the Caldecott Tunnel on Highway 24.
Crews will be operating the roadheader 10 hours a day this week and 20 hours a day next week.
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