Mumbai Metro’s TBM Surya-1 Records Breakthrough at Hutatma Chowk

Moments ago, Tunnel Boring Machine XRE 2114-408 (Surya-1) operated by the Larsen & Toubro – Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Company (L&T – STEC) JV made a breakthrough at Hutatma Chowk Station’s southern-end on Mumbai Metro’s 33.5 km Aqua Line (Line-3).

This was TBM Surya-1’s third (and penultimate) breakthrough, 4.25 km Package UGC-01’s 6th of 8 (earlier 7) planned breakthroughs for the Cuffe Parade – CST section, and overall Line-3’s 34th of what will now be 42 (earlier 41) planned breakthroughs.

This Robbins Crossover XRE TBM with a 6.65 meter diameter was originally launched from Cuffe Parade to build Line-3’s up-line tunnel, and recorded breakthroughs at Vidhan Sabha Station in April 2019 and Churchgate Station in October 2019.

For its third of four assignments that ended today – the machine was recommissioned from Churchgate in January 2020 and traveled 649m to build Line-3’s up-line tunnel.

Package UGC-01: Cuffe Parade – CST – view Mumbai Metro Aqua Line info & route map
Hutatma Chowk Station’s NATM-mined down-line tunnel (left) and cut & cover station box for the up-line tunnel (right)

Last month, TBM Surya-2 recorded a breakthrough at the NATM-mined tunnel on the down-line (shown on the left in the above graphic), while today’s breakthrough by Surya-1 was recorded at the adjacent cut and cover station-box.

More on details on the unique Hutatma Chowk Station can be viewed here.

Photo Copyright: Neetesh Prajapati
Photo Copyright: Neetesh Prajapati
Photo Copyright: Syed Mohd Mujtaba Naqvi

Here’s a status of package UGC-01 between Cuffe Parade and CST stations where 2 breakthroughs are now pending, both at CST Station. This table is best viewed on a desktop device –

TBMLineFromToDistanceStatus
1UpCuffe ParadeVidhan Bhavan1128mCompleted
1UpVidhan BhavanChurchgate498mCompleted
1UpChurchgateHutatma Chowk649mCompleted (This Post!)
1UpHutatma ChowkCST551mYet to Begin
2DownCuffe ParadeVidhan Bhavan1254mCompleted
2DownVidhan BhavanChurchgate481mCompleted
2DownChurchgateHutatma Chowk653mCompleted
2DownHutatma ChowkCST556mYet to Begin

With 34 breakthroughs completed, there are now 8 more breakthroughs pending on Mumbai Metro’s Line-3:

PackageSectionDistance, Status
UGC-01Hutatma Chowk – CST (up-line)551m, Not Started
UGC-01Hutatma Chowk – CST (down-line)556m, Not Started
UGC-03Science Museum – Mahalaxmi (up-line)1118m, In Progress
UGC-03Mahalaxmi – Mumbai Central (up-line)837m, Not Started
UGC-03Science Museum – Mahalaxmi (down-line)1136m, In Progress
UGC-03Mahalaxmi – Mumbai Central (down-line)830m, Not Started
UGC-04Siddhivinayak – Dadar (down-line)1126m, In Progress
UGC-06Sahar Road – CSIA T1 (up-line)1516m, In Progress

Contractors on Package UGC-04 (definitely) and UGC-06 (likely) will record their final breakthroughs by the end of the year. All tunneling works are expected to be completed only in Q4 2021 if no major hiccups arise.

For more updates, check out the Mumbai section of The Metro Rail Guy!

– TMRG

written by

Global traveler who prefers mass rapid transit

2 Responses to "Mumbai Metro’s TBM Surya-1 Records Breakthrough at Hutatma Chowk"

  1. Deepak says:

    TMRG, is the tunneling work going mostly on schedule for this line?

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Barring package UGC-07 (northern-most), tunneling is delayed across all packages, especially on package UGC-03. Contractors aren’t worried though because of the depot issue and resulting Line-3 – Line-6 integration rework.

      Reply

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