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#871: S’pore’s Deepest MRT Tunnel & What About Our Nature Reserves? ft. Alvin Sim

1h 15m

What does it take to build Singapore’s rail network deep underground? Alvin Sim, LTA’s Deputy Director of Tunnelling, started his career as a fresh graduate with no tunnelling experience. Today, his work has taken him through granite, marine clay and some of Singapore’s most complex underground conditions, across projects including the Downtown Line and Thomson-East Coast Line.
He takes us behind the scenes of tunnelling and shares what it takes to construct the Cross Island Line up to 80-90 metres beneath the Central Catchment Nature Reserve.

𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙚𝙥𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙙𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙇𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩 𝘼𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 (𝙇𝙏𝘼).

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(00:00) Intro
(02:41) Telling Random Uncles at CNY You're a Tunneling Engineer
(04:04) Tunnels as the "Arteries of the Nation"
(05:44) Going 50m Underground to a Cross Island Line Dig Site
(07:20) Opening Day at a New MRT Station
(08:28) How a Fresh Grad Ended Up Boring Tunnels
(11:10) Why the Underground Is Singapore's Next Frontier
(14:39) How Deep Can Singapore Actually Go?
(15:04) Will Singaporeans Ever Live Underground?
(16:29) Why the First MRT Lines Were Built Above Ground
(19:10) Meet the Mechanical Earthworm
(22:03) The Biggest Misconception About Working Underground
(23:20) Granite, Limestone and Marine Clay: Singapore's Very Varied Rock
(23:47) When the Rock Is So Hard You Need Explosives
(27:07) Why Stockholm's Tunnels Look Like an Art Gallery
(28:20) 20m a Day in a Dream Project vs Celebrating 3m a Day
(30:03) Daily Meetings and Tracking Every Movement Above the Tunnel
(31:07) Joining the Tunnel Team With Zero Experience
(33:35) The Engineer's DNA: Looking for Problems to Solve
(34:48) Noise, Dust and Vibrations: Dealing With Public Feedback
(36:13) When Auntie Called Alvin Over About the Vibrations
(38:14) 80% of Singaporeans Within 10 Minutes of an MRT by 2030
(39:45) Packing Six Million People Into One Rail Network
(41:37) Riding Other Cities' Underground Trains as an "Occupational Hazard"
(42:48) 13% of Our Land Is Roads: Getting People to Choose Public Transport
(43:35) Moving Infrastructure Underground to Free Up Surface Land
(45:17) How LTA's Public Engagement Has Changed Since the Downtown Line
(47:56) A Project Information Centre With a Biodiversity Twist
(49:45) Tunneling Beneath the Central Catchment Nature Reserve
(50:34) Deep Stations, Bencoolen and Bras Basah's Shimmery Glass
(51:32) Island Platforms vs Stacked Tunnels
(53:09) How Can Regular People Experience Tunneling?
(54:39) The New Hires Who Climbed Down the Shaft
(55:41) Desk Job Meets Hard Hat: Life Above and Below Ground
(58:19) One Shiok Thing
(1:11:24) Post-Interview Reflections

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