Surat Metro’s TBM Tapi Records Final Breakthrough at Railway Station

Gulermak – Sam India Builtwell JV on Wednesday celebrated tunnel boring machine (TBM) S94’s final breakthrough at Surat Railway Station of Surat Metro Phase 1 project’s 22.77 km Line-1 (Sarthana – Dream City).

This exciting milestone marks the sixth & final breakthrough for 3.46 km Package CS2 / UG1 connecting Kapodra – Surat Railway Station.

TBM S94 is a Terratec earth pressure balance (EPB) machine and had built a total of 3 tunnels for the up-line after being launched from Kapodra in December 2022. Here’s a recap of all 3 tunneling drives:

• Kapodra to Labheshwar Chowk (1.45 km – hidden breakthrough in January 2024)
• Labheshwar Chowk to Central Warehouse (655m – first visible breakthrough in March 2024)
• Central Warehouse to Surat Railway Station (389m – second visible breakthrough in September 2024 – this post!)

This isn’t the first time this has happened in India, but Gulermak – Sam JV’s banner for the event includes my generic map that I use for system contracts:

Gujarat Metro Rail Corporation (GMRC) had awarded 3.46 km Package CS2 / UG1’s construction contract to Gulermak – Sam India JV in March 2021.

Besides boring 6 tunnels (3 twin tunnels) by S78 (Narmada) and S94 (Tapi), their scope also includes the construction of 3 stations at Kapodra, Labheshwar Chowk and Central Warehouse.

TBM S78 (Narmada)’s back-up gantry for the parallel down-line tunnel can be seen being taken out in the above and below images.

With this development, S94’s job is done! It bored & built 2484m tunnels and a 208m tunnel through Labheshwar Chowk Station, which will be dismantled. Its sister machine S78 (TBM Narmada) had completed building all 3 parallel tunnels for the up-line in August 2024.

J Kumar Infraprojects has two machines, TBM S25B (Amrit) and S28B (Diya), currently tunneling from Surat Railway Station to Chowk Bazar since April 2023. I’ll add an update on their status over here when available.

For more updates, check out the Surat Metro section or my Home Page! Sign up for free instant email notifications on new posts over here. Like this post? Get early-access to updates and support the site over here.

– TMRG