CRL tunnel boring machine named after Dame Whina Cooper

City Rail Link's Tunnel Boring Machine has been named after Maori land rights activist Dame Whina Cooper . Dame Whina was chosen in a national poll over other finalists, Georgina Beyer, the world's first elected openly transgender mayor and Member of Parliament and an Anartica scientist Margaret Bradshaw. Naming boring machines after women is a tradition sometimes linked to St. Barbara, the patron saint of people who work underground.