The Purple Line Extension’s first section is under construction with the subway being extended for 3.9 miles from Wilshire/Western to new stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega.

The first of the project’s two tunnel boring machine (TBMs in construction-speak) arrived at the construction site earlier this month and is now being lowered into the Wilshire/La Brea Station. Once both TBMs are lowered into the station and fully assembled, they’ll start to dig later this year with both TBMs headed east toward Wilshire/Western.

Once there, the TBMs will be disassembled and taken back to Wilshire/La Brea and then reassembled. Digging then will resume to the west toward Fairfax and La Cienega.

The Purple Line Extension is a nine-mile extension of the subway from Wilshire/Western to the Westwood/VA Hospital. The project is being built in three sections. The second section — which broke ground earlier this year — will extend the subway to downtown Beverly Hills and Century City. Utility work is underway on the third section that will run from Century City to Wilshire/Westwood and then the Westwood VA Hospital, just west of the 405 freeway. The project has funding from Measure R, Measure M and from federal grants. The first section is targeted to open in late 2023.

Here’s a video of work excavating the Fairfax station. And a few other pics from earlier this month:

Aligning the rails for the tunnel boring machine to match up with the center eye! pic.twitter.com/jXi2A3z6mT — Purple Line Ext (@PurpleLineExt) July 19, 2018

And these of parts of the TBM being delivered to the Wilshire/La Brea construction staging yard:

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