I wonder how much this bad boy cost?

Robert

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Jan 2, 1999
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The Dosco MK3 tunneling machine the government purchased for the metro project.

A 1990 reconditioned unit costs around US$600,000.

Your DR taxes at work!

Dosco_MK3.jpg
 

KateP

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May 28, 2004
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And with the good maintenance they give things down here, it'll last 2 days max, if it works at all right now. And when someone asks for it in 4 months, it'll be nowhere to be found!
 

HOWMAR

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Jan 28, 2004
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KateP said:
And with the good maintenance they give things down here, it'll last 2 days max, if it works at all right now. And when someone asks for it in 4 months, it'll be nowhere to be found!
Probably in a flooded tunnel with 16 Engineers pointing fingers at each other trying to figure out who to blame.
 

Mirador

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Apr 15, 2004
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There's one just like it (however, slightly smaller) several meters below Avenida Nu?ez de C?ceres. The tunneling machine was purchased years ago by a contractor to build a drainage tunnel for the lagoon on the corner with Gustavo Mej?a Ricart (an impossible feat since it is a sink hole connected to the Isabela river). After attempts to dislodge the expensive machinery, the contractor went broke, and shot himself... The government recently announced it has budgeted over RD$300 million to continue the lagoon draining project....


-
 

Cleef

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Feb 24, 2002
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Locked and Loaded

Mirador said:
After attempts to dislodge the expensive machinery, the contractor went broke, and shot himself... The government recently announced it has budgeted over RD$300 million to continue the lagoon draining project....-
Does Leonel own a gun?
Can we donate bullets?
 

aerobaticman

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Nov 10, 2004
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They bought the wrong machine!

Knowing a thing or two about building long underground tunnels, that is here in Switzerland, I nearly choked to death from laughter when seeing this machine! What they bought is used for mining - building rough, crude, and imprecise tunnels.

When you build a tunnel for trains the tunnel must be properly tug, otherwise a curve may be too sharp, or you have changes in elevation not desired, or best you have to rebore the tunnel to get the desired curve which creates too big a cavity that requires additional structural bracing to support the ceiling from caving in....

I can just see it now. Ten engineers telling the operator which direction to bore. Then when installing the track they find out they bored the tunnel too tight and can't lay the track down to make the curve, taking some blowtorches and bending the track ?properly? so that it can be layed, and then when driving the train the first time learning the train can?t turn that tight on the ?track properly adjusted.?

What blows my mind is though why they didn't spring for the badest and hottest tunnel digger machine in the world, a nuclear tunnel machine. No joke. Check out some pics and facts on http://www.detailshere.com/tunnelmachine.htm
 

jrzyguy

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May 5, 2004
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so THAT is where my dildo went!!!!! i thought i left it in Santo Domingo in March!!! LOl (sorry....couldnt resist)
 

qgrande

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Jul 27, 2005
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Your link gave me quite a few chuckles as well :laugh: ; a high probability of the existence of a tunnel between America and Europe? :paranoid: :bunny: :bunny: :bunny: :bunny:
Maybe a new project for Leonel, a tunnel to Nueva Yol and a link to its metro system :cheeky:

aerobaticman said:
Knowing a thing or two about building long underground tunnels, that is here in Switzerland, I nearly choked to death from laughter when seeing this machine! What they bought is used for mining - building rough, crude, and imprecise tunnels.

When you build a tunnel for trains the tunnel must be properly tug, otherwise a curve may be too sharp, or you have changes in elevation not desired, or best you have to rebore the tunnel to get the desired curve which creates too big a cavity that requires additional structural bracing to support the ceiling from caving in....

I can just see it now. Ten engineers telling the operator which direction to bore. Then when installing the track they find out they bored the tunnel too tight and can't lay the track down to make the curve, taking some blowtorches and bending the track ?properly? so that it can be layed, and then when driving the train the first time learning the train can?t turn that tight on the ?track properly adjusted.?

What blows my mind is though why they didn't spring for the badest and hottest tunnel digger machine in the world, a nuclear tunnel machine. No joke. Check out some pics and facts on http://www.detailshere.com/tunnelmachine.htm
 

Cleef

Bronze
Feb 24, 2002
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ay dios mio

aerobaticman said:
Knowing a thing or two about building long underground tunnels, that is here in Switzerland, I nearly choked to death from laughter when seeing this machine! What they bought is used for mining - building rough, crude, and imprecise tunnels.
I'm not an expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night, and they have Discovery Channel.

Anyway, I've watched their amazing engineering shows and many have covered tunnel construction. The first thing that struck me when I saw this picture in the news was a sewage tunnel.

The same points you made - the line has to be perfectly straight - or where curved, perfectly done so - for a train tunnel. This thing will be virtually useless for its intended need.

They'd been better off with a hungry workforce and butter knives.

Why can't we do something about the education on the island?

A f'n metro isn't even on the long list, nevermind the short list.:rolleyes:
 

Robert

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Jan 2, 1999
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DR1 is about 2-3kms as the crow fly's from the test site. They did a few tests yesterday and it sounded like it was thundering in the distance, that thing is loud!
 

FireGuy

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It is the wrong piece of equipment.

Having been a supplier to the Cape Breton coalfields during the 1980's when they had four operating coal mines and were developing a fifth, I have some exposure to underground operations.

For main shafts, which are very similar to underground rail tunnels (and the Chunnel, although it is a very large scale tunnel), the proper piece of equipment is a TBM or Tunnel Boring Machine. It bores a round tunnel and then the floor is built up to provide the flat roadbed for the rails. The walls can be shotcreted to prevent water ingress by a variety of pressurised methods which will infill the cracks and fissures and will provide a proper base to allow the formation of the high pressure concrete walls and ceiling.

Dosco roadheaders are mainly used in coal mining to drill the top and bottom tunnels at either end of long wall or short wall mine working faces. The resultant tunnels are designed for temporary use only as they are abandoned and collapse as the wall is worked back towards the main shafts of the mine. They are called roadheaders as they are almost exclusively used for this purpose. They can also be used in some aspects of room and pillar mines with limited success, but this is really better suited to continuous miners, another type of mining machine.

Well at least they didn't buy a steam shovel - LOL.

Gregg
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
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Oh the shame! A ragtag bag of random posters on a mere website came up with something their teams of highly-paid technical consultants and glossy feasibility studies didn't. And we provided the service for free.

Who's going to tell Diandi?
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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I WANT TO KNOW HOW MANY OF YOU THOUGHT ABOUT just WHERE TO PLACE THAT THING???
/
HB :p:p:p:p:p:p
 
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Mirador

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Apr 15, 2004
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My brother Enriquillo supervised construction of part of the Metro de Caracas, and they used a tunnel boring machine that looked like the following image....

t98o4j.jpg