Fond memories, new dawns

Deep underground astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, not far from the foothills of the Alps (about an hour by car in fact), CERN, the world's largest particle physics centre, uses around 1,000 hoists to assist scientists in one of the most fascinating experiments ever known.

CERN exists primarily to provide these scientists with the necessary tools. These, primarily, are accelerators, which accelerate particles to almost the speed of light and detectors to make the particles visible. However, without lifting gear the project would quite literally not have got off the ground.

It's an exciting time for Ruehl, who I spent two days with on-site at CERN around 18 months ago, when the projects now nearing completion were at earlier stages. I'll never forget it for a number of reasons, most notably because it was one of my first assignments as editor of this magazine.

The LHC (large hadron collider) accelerator is already installed and most of the sectors are under commissioning. "We expect the first beam this summer and first 'physic' results by the end of the year," Ruehl said.

He continued: "Altogether we have installed about 100,000t of material in the LHC tunnel and underground caverns, which is about 10 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower in Paris." It's stats like that, which he reeled off almost by the hour when I was there, that put the scale of the operation into perspective. 

CERN will stage an open day on April 6 2008, the last time the public will be allowed to visit the underground installations. Later this year, on October 21, the official LHC inauguration will take place in which all CERN member states will participate.

Without lifting equipment, the construction and assembly of accelerators and detectors would simply not be possible. Additionally, all material transfer from surface buildings to underground tunnels/caverns is done with long travelling EOT cranes with shaft depths of down to 154m. The average depth of the accelerator tunnels is 80-100m.

The site boasts a massive perfectly circular tunnel with a circumferance of 27km. Workers travelling around on push-bikes in hard-hats and head-lamps just adds to the overwhelming sense of surrealism of the place. A cable system to maintain mobile phone signals and a back-up generator for lighting keep workers in touch with humanity during long, enduring shifts.

One crane in particular sticks in my mind - a lonely hoist, which is in a room at the end of a long tunnel. The 30t Italkrane machine resides in the LHC dump cavern. Set against the backdrop only of its own shadow, it seems such a waste. Redundant hoists are installed for two different reasons. First, for safety reasons - for the handling of radioactive material. Secondly, for operation/priority reasons - in order to avoid the delay caused by a faulty hoist in case an important machine component has to be changed.

Reuhl says: "In some cases we also prefer to install two identical hoists (for example, two 8t hoists instead of one 16t hoist). This is sometimes for practical reasons [limited available space in the tunnel] and for operational reasons.

I think it's fascinating how the equipment you and I deal with every day has played such a crucial part in lifting the lid on the secrets of the universe.

Richard Howes, Editor