Remembering engineers who shaped their own parts of the industry
TunnelTalk reporting
January 2023
At the end of 2022 the industry paid tributes to three outstanding engineers who were known for their particular sectors of expertise and their ability to communicate across national, language, cultural and interdisciplinary barriers.
John Foster
Tunnellers
around the world either knew John personally, or of him professionally, or had direct working relationships with him as a colleague, collaborator or client. When he closed his MTS consultancy practice and retired in 2018, Foster would have been involved in the application of more than 250 tunnelling machines, using his expertise to provide advise and support on projects across Europe and Asia and extensively through South America.
From a student apprenticeship with a steel company in Workington, UK, that led to an honours degree in mechanical engineering, Foster joined Edmund Nuttall and worked on a number of UK projects including the Foyers pumped storage scheme, a set of 100in tunnels for the Ely-Ouse Aqueduct and the Second Mersey Tunnel.
Formatively, he worked on the experimental bentonite tunnelling machine at New Cross in London and after that, moved to Nuttall’s subsidiary R L Priestley where he was involved in the design of numerous tunnelling machines for use in UK, Italy and Czechoslovakia as well as on the first Channel Tunnel TBM in 1974 which was proven to be successful before the project was abandoned.
When Priestley closed in 1980, Foster moved with his colleague Richard Lewis to heavy steel manufacturing
Ovidiu Arghiroiu
company Markham in Sheffield, where he was instrumental in the design and construction of many open-face and semi-mechanised shields for contractors in the UK and for several projects in Italy.
In 1985 he became Managing Director of Decon, and in cooperation with James Howden of Scotland, he used his 1974 Channel Tunnel TBM experience to lead the design team for the four TBMs provided by Howden to Trans Manche Link for the UK side of the new Channel Tunnel project of the 1980s.
In 1987 he established his consultancy, Mechanised Tunnelling Services, and for the following 31 years he provided independent and specialist services in respect of tunnelling equipment to contractors, consultants, and insurers worldwide.
Those who knew and worked with Foster knew him as an honest man whose integrity, skills and expertise were recognised and respected throughout the tunnelling industry. He was a keen golfer, a jovial character with an infectious sense of humour, and a strong family man who put his family before everything. He died in November 2022 after deciding to forego invasive treatment for an aggressive brain tumour. n
As a Professor of underground construction and civil engineering at the Technical University of Bucharest, Ovidiu Arghiroiu was known to so many international friends and fellows as the dedicated representative of ART, the Association Roumaine des Tunnels, for Member Nation Romania at the General Assembly of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association. Romania has been a long time Member Nation of ITA and many of the former Soviet republic’s engineers remember back with appreciation to links with the international world that membership of ITA offered.
Arghiroiu earned a PhD Doctor of Engineering with the thesis Behavior and calculation of static and dynamic actions of underground structures. Since 2000, and as part of the Faculty of Railways, Roads and Bridges within the Bucharest Technical University of Construction, his professional experience was in the field of structural design, with expertise in underground works and metro project management based on his association with Metro Bucharest acting as a chief engineer, design director and advisor. Recently, he was an investment engineer at the bi-national Water Basin Administration (ABA) Crişuri Oradea in collaboration with neighbouring Hungary.
Along with ITA and ART, Arghiroiu was a member of the Romanian Society of Geotechnics and Foundations and the Association of Construction Engineers Designing Structures and was the author and co-author of numerous scientific works. Representatives of the UK, Royaume-Uni, who sat in the chair next to Romania at the ITA General Assemblies remember Arghiroiu as a professional gentleman, and he and his wife, as a regular accompanying delegate to the ITA events, with great affection and as ITA family friends. n
Factory visit for a Sao Paulo Metro TBM for Brazil
Ron Drake
After joining COWI as Practice Lead for Construction Management and Project Management Services in 2019, Drake worked on many projects, among them the Anderson Dam tunnel in Santa Clara County; the Mill Creek drainage relief tunnel in Dallas; and the Colgate tunnel in Yuba County, California.
He was known as an engineer who followed technical developments and tried always to do things better and smarter and as a communicator who was to-the-point and knowledgeable. He never turned down a request for help and always found a way to be of assistance, often in difficult and stressful situations. Through his more than 40 years of experience, he was a recognized industry leader and was an original proponent of the first ever underground transit connection between Hollywood and Mid-Town Los Angeles.
He had a Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering from Colorado School of Mines and was a registered Professional Engineer in Colorado, Texas, California, and Washington, DC.
Drake died unexpectedly in December 2022 and was remembered at a memorial service in San Diego, California. n
1
Reference ITA Member Nation Romania
1967-2022
Ovidiu Arghiroiu
Ron Drake 1951-2022
John Foster 1947-2022