[urbanclient]

GO Expansion was once compared to Stuttgart 21 in a similarly positive manner by an illustrious UrbanToronto member. I think a similarly negative comparison would be more appropriate:

Breaking news:

A German high-speed railway project likened to HS2 has been delayed after engineers incorrectly laid 1,000km (620 miles) of cables.

Stuttgart 21, an €11bn (£9.4bn) mega-project that was scheduled to open in 2019, will not open for at least another five years as the cables need to be replaced, German media reported on Wednesday.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/06/10/germanys-hs2-delayed-five-years-engineering-blunder/

Now delayed to 2031.

I think we need to do away with illusions of German engineering superiority or Canadian engineering excellence.

Chongqing East station to Qianjiang is 242 route km, 80% in tunnels, as opposed to ~57-60 km of route km for Stuttgart 21, with ~60% tunnelled.

I get that the Chinese example is more greenfield. However that alone does not explain the 7 year construction time (2018 to 2025) vs. the 21 year timeline for Stuttgart 21 (2010 to 2031).

 

[PShells]

That's a drill rig used for geotechnical/hydrogeological investigations, it's the same premise as the larger drill rigs that one finds on construction sites installing caissons just on a much smaller scale. All that prep work was done so the rig can sit level as you're drilling.

Just basing this off of the picture but they're likely going fairly deep with that borehole given what looks like a mud rotary set up. It's certainly possible that they're going shallow but you tend to use hollow or solid stem augers for shallow holes just because it's so much quicker to set up and tear down.

I'm pretty sure it was @smallspy who said it but something bigger is happening here.

Thanks for the explanation. I learned something new.

Crews were busy this morning. By my afternoon commute home the drilling rig is gone, the ground is distributed and there are some barrels remaining.

Let’s see if the project continues to progress over the summer or if collecting new samples is all that’s in the cards for 2026.

 

[crs1026]

https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1u29uqc/cbc_news_toronto_mimico_residents_frustrated_by

- Paul