Bangalore Metro’s TBM Rudra Records Breakthrough at Lakkasandra
Tunnel Boring Machine S-1259 operated by Afcons Infrastructure on Friday evening recorded a breakthrough at Lakkasandra Station for Bangalore Metro’s 21.386 km Pink Line (Nagawara – Kalena Agrahara).
Nicknamed Rudra, this was TBM S-1259’s second breakthrough for the northbound tunnel. Overall, this was the 6th of 8 breakthroughs planned in 73.92 km Bangalore Metro Phase 2 project‘s 3.655 km Package RT-01 connecting Rashtriya Military School Station – Dairy Circle South Ramp.
This Herrenknecht slurry machine was originally commissioned from Dairy Circle’s South Ramp in April 2021 and traveled 614 meters to record a “hidden breakthrough” at Dairy Circle Station in November 2021.
The machine then continued tunneling through Dairy Circle Station’s box and traveled another 745m to arrive at Lakkasandra Station’s site today. Along the way, it got stuck in an unrecorded garbage dump that earlier used to be a granite quarry.
Per the tunneling plan, Afcons was hoping to complete tunneling on this section in 243 days and they accomplished the task in 403 days with delays primarily attributed to that garbage dump.
Here’s a video of the exact moment Rudra showed its cutterhead via Manish Kumar on YouTube. With boulders and rock-chips crashing down and getting flung as projectiles into the air, this could easily have turned into a nasty event.
With this development, Package RT-01 now has just 2 tunnels left to be built by TBM Vamika and TBM Rudra between Lakkasandra and Langford Town stations, a distance of roughly 721m.
A total of 20 out of 26 tunnel breakthroughs have been recorded in Phase 2: 6/8 on Package RT-01 by Afcons, 4/4 on RT-02 by L&T, 6/6 on RT-03 by L&T, and 4/8 on RT-04 by ITD Cementation.
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– TMRG
I keep hearing/reading about Yellow Line commencing operations by the end of this year 2023. Is this realistic or just propaganda? When I look at the Jayadeva junction, it doesn’t appear to be ready for another 2 years. What is your opinion on this?
They’ll be opening it in stages with likely Bommasandra – Bommanahalli (HSR Layout) to start with. Depot is not ready (it’s getting close), but more importantly BMRCL has no trains to start ops. So a 2023 start looks unlikely at this time.