Can You Name The Most Inspiring Women In Victorian History?
Enter the Tunnel Boring Machine Naming Competition!
The Victorian Government is seeking the community’s help in naming six tunnel boring machines, to be used in the construction of the West Gate and Metro Tunnels.
Minister for Public Transport, Jacinta Allan, and Minister for Roads, Luke Donnellan, yesterday issued a state-wide callout, asking for all Victorians to suggest suitable names in tribute of powerful and inspiring Victorian women.
“Just like the tunnel boring machines will break through ground to create city changing infrastructure, we’re looking for groundbreaking women that changed our state,” Ms. Allan said.
Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) don’t usually generate much excitement, however these enormous drills are set to change that in record-breaking fashion…
The West Gate Tunnel boring machies will be the “biggest ever used in the Southern Hemisphere, almost as long as three E-class trams and as tall as the top of the dome at Flinders Street Station,” (premier.vic.gov.au), whilst the Metro Tunnel boring machines will be 100 meters long and up to 1,000 tonnes in weight, with a diameter of 7.2 meters.
“Collectively, the six TBMs will create around 25 kilometers of tunnel, operating like moving factories,” (premier.vic.gov.au), but before they can be put to work, they each need to be given a female name as a sign of good luck for their respective projects.
The naming of digging equipment after women is a tradition that dates back to the 1500s, when miners and military engineers working with explosives, would pray to Saint Barbara for protection.
According to LA Times reporter, Laura Nelson, cities around the world have named tunnel-boring machines after women, including the widow of a sugar magnate (Big Alma), British royalty (Victoria and Elizabeth), and the star of a martial arts novel (Xiaolongnu, or "Little Dragon Girl"). Many of them have their own Twitter accounts.
The most infamous is Bertha, a tunneling machine that broke down under Seattle in 2013. Bertha was named after Bertha Knight Landes, the mayor of Seattle from 1926 to 1928 and the first woman to hold that position in a major American city.
Enter the naming competition today, via www.bigbuild.vic.gov.au
(Please note that officers, employees and immediate families of officers and employees of the Promoter (i.e. RPV), and the associated companies, agencies and contractors of the Promoter are ineligible).
Six winners will be chosen and invited to watch the assembly of the boring machine they named. Entries close on October 7.
