Great tasks beckon

But communities are not only webs of relationships in themselves but are served by networks of infrastructure, too, comprising smaller-scale elements.

In the underground realm these big and little scales come as large and smaller diameter tunnels, most often. Both have function and value, contributing in vital ways to what municipalities and nations want to have serving their needs.

It is a pleasure, therefore, to provide another preview to a further trenchless tunneling gathering – the large No-Dig Show 2024, to be held this coming Spring in Providence, RI.

Training will be offered along with conference and exhibition.

We also look back at another event – the awards held at the Tunnelling Association of Canada (TAC) national meeting, in September. Many projects were celebrated as well as young tunnelers and there was also a lifetime recognition award.

In this issue, which has more focus on Canada and Latin America, we also share a profile interview looking at the life and career of one of Brazil’s top tunnelers and a Past president of the International Tunnelling Association (ITA) – Tarcisio B. Celestino.

The sense of time also has us reflect upon the challenge of underground disposal of nuclear waste and we have an article offering another possibility for small diameter tunneling – but much, much deeper.

Yet challenges are found more often at the shallower levels of everyday trenchless and other underground works, although an unusual example was an MTBM getting tangled in unmarked tensioned wires from building work.

Getting the machine untangled and finishing the job was no small task.

This issue looks wider, too, to experiences told of TBM rail bore success in Turkey, a summary of a lecture on learning lessons from failure, and also what the future can be crafted to hold, as proposed by the new ITA President.