An amazing video has been posted online showing New York ‘sandhogs’ blasting away rock and earth beneath Grand Central Terminal for the East Side Access mega project.
The short film shows the moment hundreds of explosives are set off to create a new section of tunnel underneath Manhattan.
Once complete, the caverns, which lie 50 metres below street level, will connect the Long Island Rail Road’s (LIRR) Main and Port Washington lines in Queens with a new underground station beneath Grand Central.
Having carried out more than 2,400 controlled blasts during construction of the tunnels, excavating enough material to cover the whole of Central Park, MTA has now finished major blasting work on the project.
Blasts are carried out by teams of sandhogs – a New York slang term for urban miners – who carefully place hundreds of explosives into small holes drilled into the sides of the tunnel.
“This is a very significant milestone for the East Side Access project,” said Dr. Michael Horodniceanu, president of MTA Capital Construction.
“The caverns are essentially now fully excavated. Much work remains to be done to build the platforms and tracks, and finish what is currently raw, cave-like space. But we now have a fully built shell in which all future work will take place.”
