After nearly two years under Vancouver, Elsie and Phyllis emerged earlier this year.
The two boring machines were tasked with each creating a tunnel along Broadway for the city's subway megaproject. They finished that quest in the spring and then were removed over a couple of months.
In a video released by the Transportation Investment Corporation (the crown corporation in charge of the project) earlier this year, the two giant machines can be seen at the end of the tunnel.
The video goes on the show the disassembly and removal of the pair via a sort of timelapse video.
"The TBMs were removed from the site between March and July 2024," states the Ministry of Transportation and Transit in an email to V.I.A. "The components were separated and then transported for recycling and refurbishment, with some of the pieces returning to Herrenknecht, the manufacturer.
Herrenknecht is a German company that just makes boring machines.
The current completion date for the Broadway Subway is the fall of 2027.
The two machines were named after notable women from B.C.'s history: Elsie MacGill and Phyllis Munday.
MacGill, born in Vancouver in 1905, was the world's first female aeronautical engineer.
Phyllis Munday was born in Sri Lanka in 1894 before moving to B.C. as a child. She was known for her exploits as a mountaineer, climbing over 100 peaks with her husband (who she once saved from a grizzly by charging it with an ice axe).
