The authorities had a choice to make: either to restrict flight operations in Nice so that the runway could be dug up and in Lille to close the French high-speed TGV train’s railway line while open excavation work was done on the sewer, or to do everything using costly, labour-intensive structural supporting work. Fortunately there was also another way.

Our French representative asked us to provide a team for these admittedly not altogether simple remote-controlled concrete-breaking jobs inside the sewers. Nevertheless, using our 100-kilogram Talpa FSR 2060 rehabilitation robot we succeeded through meticulous detailed work in removing several cubic metres of concrete from the sewer pipes without having to open up the sewers in the process. The project in Lille took a total of four weeks. The TGV train operations were able to carry on uninterrupted. The choice between digging the sewer up and a trenchless repair was decided by hard cash. The estimated cost of interrupting the TGV train operations was €7 million a day. Money talks!