Now, on the 24th of June, the eastern end-house is finished, the welding machine is in place, and the rail where the tube will be hung from is installed and adjusted. We have built a "wooden hut" with a shelf inside which takes up to 6 pieces of the 4.5 m tube sections for short term storing capacity. The trench is ready and covered with corrugated sheet metal. The welding of the tube will (hopefully) begin within a week or two.
The ramming of the second trench is nearly completed. There are only about 100 m left.
We are currently checking the vacuum properties of a 75 cm test section taken out of the manufacturing process. The first results look promising.

View into the central station (from the entrance). You can see the beginning of the south-north trench (left side of the picture), and the west-east trench (right side).		The eastern end house with the wooden hut. Michaela is just taking spectra of the seismic motion inside the end house.
Inside the eastern end house. The red part (to keep people off from here) is the separate foundation where the tank will be placed upon. From here the tube will lead 600 m to the central station.		Inside the eastern end house. You can see the welding machine (red) with a short test segment of tube in front of the port in the wall leading to the trench (with the black seal to keep the building dust tight when welding the tube) and another tube section to see whether everything fits together. During the welding process the building will be slightly pressurized to prevent dust entering the building. An air lock allows to enter the building.

             

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