IEEE Spectrum April, 2016 - 4

BAcK StorY_
editor in chief

Susan Hassler, s.hassler@ieee.org
executive editor

Glenn Zorpette, g.zorpette@ieee.org
editorial director, digital

Harry Goldstein, h.goldstein@ieee.org
managing editor

Elizabeth A. Bretz, e.bretz@ieee.org
senior art director

Mark Montgomery, m.montgomery@ieee.org
senior editors

Stephen Cass (Resources), cass.s@ieee.org
Erico Guizzo (Digital), e.guizzo@ieee.org
Jean Kumagai, j.kumagai@ieee.org
Samuel K. Moore (News), s.k.moore@ieee.org
Tekla S. Perry, t.perry@ieee.org
Philip E. Ross, p.ross@ieee.org
David Schneider, d.a.schneider@ieee.org
Brandon Palacio, b.palacio@ieee.org
Randi Klett, randi.klett@ieee.org
associate art director Erik Vrielink, e.vrielink@ieee.org
deputy art director

photography director

senior associate editors

Rachel Courtland, r.courtland@ieee.org
Eliza Strickland, e.strickland@ieee.org

Notes From Underground
n a da mp, cold day in January, Mark Peplow found himself at

the bottom of a massive hole in the ground. By choice. He was
there to report on the construction of Crossrail, London's vast
new US $21 billion underground rail network.
The hole was one of a pair of 41-meter-deep shafts in East
London, on a spit of land overlooking the Thames. Back
in late 2012, two tunnel-boring machines had been lowered
into the shafts. The rotating heads on the 1,000-metric-ton
behemoths (named Elizabeth and Victoria) chewed their way westward,
finally reaching Central London in May 2015. When the Crossrail
network is fully operational in 2019, it will carry some 200 million
passengers every year.
In "The Digital Underground," in this issue, Peplow describes the
ingenious engineering being brought to bear on Crossrail: wireless
sensors and lasers that monitor construction, smart components that
warn of impending failure, and a 3-D model of the whole network that
can be explored from an iPad.
But on this visit, he says, he saw "the blunt end of this construction
project." Peplow [above] and his hosts had reached the tunnel floor by
descending a cramped staircase crafted from scaffolding and boards.
Halfway down, they encountered a small shrine bolted to the wall. Site
manager Peter Kelly explained that it was for Saint Barbara, patron
saint of mine workers and tunnelers.
Returning to the surface, Peplow noticed workmen clearing a short,
rubble-strewn stretch. Their breath clouding the air from the exertion,
they were loading hunks of concrete into wheelbarrows. "There's no
doubt that Crossrail is a high-tech railway," Peplow says, "but building
it still involves a whole lot of mud, concrete, shovels, and sweat." n

Apr 2016

north AmericAn

SpectrUm.ieee.orG

contributing editors

Evan Ackerman, Mark Anderson, John Blau, Robert N.
Charette, Peter Fairley, Tam Harbert, Mark Harris, David
Kushner, Robert W. Lucky, Paul McFedries, Prachi Patel,
Richard Stevenson, Lawrence Ulrich, Paul Wallich
Peter Tuohy
Roy Carubia
senior electronic layout specialist Bonnie Nani
director, periodicals production services
editorial & Web production manager

Shannan Brown
Jacqueline L. Parker
multimedia production specialist Michael Spector
product manager, digital

Web production coordinator

editorial advisory board

Susan Hassler, Chair; David Brock, Jason Cong*, Sudhir Dixit,
Limor Fried, Robert Hebner, Joseph J. Helble, Grant Jacoby, Leah
Jamieson, Deepa Kundur, Norberto Lerendegui, Steve Mann,
Allison March, Jacob Østergaard, Umit Ozguner, Thrasos Pappas,
John Rogers, Jonathan Rothberg, Umar Saif, Takao Someya,
Yu Zheng, Kun Zhou, Edward Zyszkowski
* Chinese-language edition
editorial / advertising correspondence

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04.16

citing articles in ieee spectrum IEEE Spectrum publishes an international and a North American edition, as
indicated at the bottom of each page. Both have the same editorial content, but because of differences in advertising, page
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Ramona L. Foster, r.foster@ieee.org

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Tom Lawson

associate editors

Celia Gorman (Multimedia), celia.gorman@ieee.org
Amy Nordrum, a.nordrum@ieee.org
video producer Kristen Clark, kristen.clark@ieee.org
assistant editor Willie D. Jones, w.jones@ieee.org
senior copy editor Joseph N. Levine, j.levine@ieee.org
copy editor Michele Kogon, m.kogon@ieee.org
editorial researcher Alan Gardner, a.gardner@ieee.org

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum April, 2016