FLASHBACK FRIDAY: THE FIRST TUNNEL BORING MACHINE

James S Robbins role in the modern tunnel was anything but boring.

Flashback Friday: let’s turn our attention to James S Robbins, back in 1952. He designed and operated the first tunnel boring machines to be successfully put to use. The revolutionary technology used to excavate at South Dakota’s Oahe Dam project in 1952 used picks and discs to break through soft shale. A few years later, the Robbins Company developed a TBM that relied solely on disc cutters to excavate harder ground.