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United Utilities Gloria, a tunnel boring machine was an addition to the Trafford Park Scheme. She was a big girl, and she was a grafter – she can dig 1,285 wheelbarrows full of dirt every shift. Weighing in at 140 tonnes! She was busy for six months tunnelling to connect stormwater tanks into the new wastewater sewer system and helped to keep the Manchester Ship Canal clean.
Gloria is in fact a huge tunnel-boring machine and she moved to Manchester from her depot in Stoke, where she had been refurbished following her last job building a sewer in Hull.
With a ‘mouth’ more than four metres wide and 80 ‘teeth’ she will made light work of a 700-metre long tunnel through the heart of Trafford Park.
United Utilities major sewer improvement scheme in Trafford Park, Manchester. Gloria, a 140-tonne tunnel boring machine, started her journey pictured above, beginning by digging beneath Trafford Park as part of a project to improve the water quality in the Manchester Ship Canal. Gloria was previously used to dig a 700m tunnel to increase capacity in London’s Victorian sewerage system. Underground chambers big enough to swallow an 11-storey block of flats were dug at Fraser Place and Europa Way. Gloria was also used to connect these chambers to the tunnel.
The entire system worked together to store 17,800m3 of dirty water during storm conditions – enough to fill more than seven Olympic-sized swimming pools. This water, which would otherwise overflow into the Manchester Ship Canal, will be taken away for treatment after storms. Two of Manchester’s arterial Victorian sewers ran through the site on the way to Davyhulme wastewater treatment works. The project brought sewers up to modern standards with enough capacity to meet the demands of the growing city. Great news for the area and the fish and wildlife in the ship canal. The Trafford Park sewer scheme was one of six similar projects in the area being undertaken by United Utilities, worth more than £90m collectively.
The team really looked forward to welcoming Gloria to the team. Everything on site started with the preparation for her arrival.
This part of Trafford was at the heart of Manchester’s industrial development. The project involved working on the site of the old Westinghouse factory and later the Vickers factory where the Lancaster bomber was assembled during the war.
Two of Manchester’s arterial Victorian sewers run through the site on the way to Davyhulme wastewater treatment works. The project will bring these sewers up to modern standards with enough capacity to meet the demands of the growing city. Good news for the area and the and wildlife in the ship canal. The shafts will all be connected by the tunnel, which will be wide enough to drive a high roof van through.
Site teams had been working at three sites in Fraser Place and Europa Way digging shafts and chambers up to 33 metres deep – big enough to swallow an 11-storey block of flats.
The Trafford Park sewer scheme was one of six similar projects worth more than £90 million being carried out by United Utilities along the Salford and Eccles corridor, with the aim of improving water quality in the Manchester Ship Canal.
