TBM S-1259 Starts Tunneling for Bangalore Metro’s Pink Line
Afcons Infrastructure on Friday commissioned their second tunnel boring machine, S-1259, at Dairy Circle Ramp to build Bangalore Metro’s 21.386 km Pink Line (Reach 6) which will connect Nagawara – Kalena Agrahara via 18 stations.
This slurry machine for the 73.92 km Bangalore Metro Phase 2 project was manufactured by Herrenknecht in Guangzhou, China and arrived onsite in Bengaluru in December 2020.
In March, Afcons team started lowering its parts into the ramp’s TBM launch shaft area for constructing twin tunnels for the Pink Line’s 3.655 km Package RT-01 (Rashtriya Military School Station – Dairy Circle Ramp).
Per the tunneling plan, S-1259 will build 3 tunnels totaling 2075.306 meters for the north-bound tunnel from Dairy Circle Ramp to Langford Town Station:
- Dairy Circle Ramp to Dairy Circle Station: 613.458 meters (estimate of 260 days)
- Dairy Circle Station to Lakkasandra Station (formerly Mico Industries): 747.338 meters (estimate of 243 days)
- Lakkasandra Station to Langford Town Station: 714.510 meters (estimate of 157 days)
Here are some snaps via Srivas Rajagopalan at BMRCL’s PR team:
A total of 9 TBMs will be deployed by Afcons (3), Larsen & Toubro (4) and ITD Cementation (2) for constructing the city’s Pink Line. With this development – 6 of those have been commissioned.
Here’s a status of each with figures displayed from BMRCL’s March newsletter. Whenever the April newsletter is out (its timing is erratic), I’ll update this table.
April 26 Update: Table has been updated with numbers from the April newsletter
| TBM | Status |
| S-1259 | Commissioned in April 2021 (this post!) |
| S-1260 | Getting configured for commissioning (Parts arrived in December) |
| S-1264 | Commissioned in March 2021 (29.4/596m) |
| DZ669 (Avni) | Commissioned in Sept 2020 (346.5/1089m) |
| DZ670 (Urja) | Commissioned in July 2020 (427.5/860m) |
| DZ671 (Vindhya) | Commissioned in October 2020 (345/860m) |
| DZ672 (Lavi) | Commissioned in February 2021 (27/1089m) |
| S-839B (Tunga) | Factory acceptance tests completed Jan 27-29 |
| S-840B (Bhadra) | Factory acceptance tests completed Jan 27-29 |
For more updates, check out my Home Page!
– TMRG
Hat-tip: Christin Matthew Philip
Super
I am assuming nickname still hasn’t been announced or leaked?
Yep
How many kms cumulatively do these TBMs need to tunnel?
What’s your ETA on tunnelling to complete if there are no issues?
South to north:
Afcons’ RT-01: 2670m x 2
L&T’s RT-02: 2187M x 2
L&T’s RT-03: 2431m x 2
ITD’s RT-04: 3119m x 2
Total= 20814m
RT-04, where tunneling is yet to start, has an estimated lead time of 608 pure-tunneling days. The machines will need to be dragged through station boxes as well. If excavation was an easy job, then we’re looking at a roughly 2 year minimum ETA from the start of ITD Cem’s last machine. Let’s see how things progress 🙂
Thanks for your detailed response.
On a different note now that the central government has approved phase 2A and 2B, I am hoping the contracts for phase 2A are awarded to the contractors any day. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on it?
There’s no other reason / excuse left now. Looking forward to LOAs getting issued and start of work.
Update on purple line?
Trial runs are underway on Kengeri extension. Per a couple industry folks, the lockdown is going to speed things up.
Why work orders still not issued for 2A line ? By when can we expect actual ground work on 2A line ?
BMRCL was waiting for Central Govt’s approval. After LOA is issued, expect ground work in ~2-3 months. That’s how much time they’d need to mobilize men/machinery.