WENDY MCLELLAN
Province
Roberto Casagrande’s shrine to Saint Barbara, top left, will watch over the project. WAYNE LEIDENFROST— THE PROVINCE
It looks like any other construction site in this city of cranes, but at the bottom of the huge hole next to the Cambie Street Bridge, a team of tunnel rats is preparing to dig.
The 50 workers, all specialists in mechanized tunnel boring, are from Italy, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Greece, Portugal and the Philippines and they travel the world together digging tunnels for the Italy-based company SELI.
Beginning this week and continuing until February 2008, the workers will drive an $11-million tunnel-boring machine deep under the ground from the south end of the Cambie bridge, under False Creek and below downtown buildings to create a pair of 2.5-kilometre tunnels for the new Canada Line rapid transit system.
“It’s quite different than other construction jobs,” said Andrea Ciamei, an Italian who is the project manager. “You are always underground and you have to be aware all the time. But after a while, you become addicted and you can’t do without it.”
The workers communicate mostly in Spanish or English. As well as their experience with tunnel projects, they have training as electricians, engineers, mechanics and surveyors. They are part of a global network of specialized workers who travel with SELI and other companies on tunnels for transit systems, roadways and hydro projects.
Once digging starts for the Canada Line tunnels, Ciamei said, three crews of workers will operate the machine around the clock, pushing through about 10 metres of sandstone and glacial muck a day.
The machine will dive below ground from the hole at the Cambie bridge to a depth of about 32 metres as it heads downtown.
Roberto Casagrande started as a tunnel rat in Italy 25 years ago, following in the footsteps of his father, who worked as a miner. But unlike his father, Casagrande has worked on more than 20 tunnels in countries all over the world.
“You meet a lot of people, see different countries and have so many different opportunities,” said Casagrande, who is responsible for co-ordinating the excavation and the work crews. “And you leave something important behind.”
Casagrande set up a small shrine for Saint Barbara, the Catholic patron saint of miners, at the start of the tunnel. He takes the shrine to his projects all over the world, and before excavation begins, a local priest comes to the site to bless the project. He said tunnel rats are highly specialized and difficult to find. “You need skills, but you also need experience. You never know what you will find underground.”
