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.
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– TMRG
Nice,
Do you have any news/information about extension of line 1 being extended to the Surat HSR station
Also given the construction activities when can we expect Surat metro phase-1 to be operational?
Thanks!
Hey, strangely no plans have publicly been announced to extend the line. It’s such a short and no-brainer extension, hope we hear about it soon.
At this point, I see Kadarsha Ni Nal to Dream City or a section of it opening no sooner than Q4 2025
Congratulations team Gülermak
You need to watermark the maps of the route
I started doing that in 2021ish, but missed out on a few maps.
I’m cool with them being used for non-commercial purposes or events. Pune Metro in fact once got a cake made with my map on it 😀
What is J kumar even doing? 1.5 years of tunneling and no news ??? So strange.
I hear their machines will bore straight through the station boxes due to pending excavation work. There’ll be only 1 visible breakthrough for each machine.
Hey Dear TMRG any update for Patna metro PC-05 & PC -06 Civil Tender work which Company lowest bid
Hi, technical bids (stage 1) are currently scheduled to open on October 9. If not postponed again, that day we’ll know which firms submitted bids.
Financial bids (stage 2) will be opened at a later date, sometime in 2025. That day we’ll know who’s the lowest bidder.
Long way to go for construction work to begin.