Mumbai Metro Records NATM Tunnel Breakthrough for T1 Subway
Back on September 22, a relatively small but significant tunnel breakthrough was recorded for a passenger subway connecting Vile Parle East to the Domestic Terminal-1 Station of the 33.5 km underground Mumbai Metro Line-3 (Aqua Line).
This roughly 200 meter subway underneath the city’s busy Western Express Highway (WEH) was designed by Geoconsult India and built using the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM) with a controlled blasting technique to limit vibrations and potential damage to structures in the airport’s vicinity.
Its construction is part of the 4.45 km Package UGC-06 (CSIA T1 – Sahar Road – CSIA T2) for which J Kumar – CRTG JV has just one tunnel boring machine (TBM) breakthrough pending (see current list of 9) at the same station for the 1516m up-line tunnel connecting to Sahar Road Station.
Here are snaps of the subway which connects to T1’s concourse level and has a very shallow overburden of 6-8 meters. Work had started from the Vile Parle end in early 2020.
Besides this subway, Mumbai Metro’s Line-3 will consist of 91 NATM cross-passages for evacuation and major NATM tunnels throughout its course at places like Cuffe Parade, Sahar Road, Hutatma Chowk, Kalbadevi, Girgaon, Grant Road, Santacruz, Sitladevi and Marol Naka. As they progress or near completion, I might post separately about them. Details and snaps of some of these are in the links above.
For more updates, check out the Mumbai section of The Metro Rail Guy!
– TMRG
Whether there are more such subway for better Connectivity, like churchgate station to Churchgate metro, CSMT station to CSMT metro etc..
?
Each station will have at least 3 entry/exit structures with connectivity to other transport nodes where possible. I’d recommend checking out MMRC’s newsletters for designs/maps. They usually feature one station each month.
https://www.mmrcl.com/en/media/newsletters/all
Can a similar Tunnel be dug in Bangalore to connect Cantonment Railway Station to the upcoming Metro station which is about 500 – 600 m away. Or is it just wishful thinking?
Surely it can be, but they haven’t included it in Package RT-03’s scope of works. Cost is a big factor.
In Phase 1, the roughly 130 meter West Ramp – City Railway Station section of the Purple Line was built using NATM.