Ladies and gentlemen, may we present the latest MTA employee, the TBM.  I wonder if it’s in the union?

Anyway, this machine is the workhorse of subway tunnel system.  It’s going to do most of the Second Ave tunnel digging.  They can even be fitted to lay the concrete roof structure and tracks!  So they can do a heck of a lot of the work in an automated fashion.  Also, they should cause the least amount of disruption up on the street level.

Check it out.