GLM-TPL Begins Lowering Pune Metro’s TBM S81 at Swargate

Workers from Gulermak – Tata Projects Ltd. on Friday evening started lowering parts of tunnel boring machine S81 – the third and final machine of Pune Metro’s Phase 1 project – at the northern-end of Swargate Station on the 16.589 km Purple Line.

This Ø6.61m diameter Terratec earth pressure balance (EPB) machine passed factory acceptance tests (FAT) in January 2020 and had arrived in town for building the 2.74 km Package UGC-02’s tunnels in February 2020. Since then, parts of it were stored at the station’s north-west corner waiting for the launch shaft and adjacent station area to get ready.

The machine is expected to be commissioned towards the end of March, and from here it will travel to Mandai, a distance of roughly 1297m, and onward to Budhwar Peth, a distance of roughly 860 meters.

The base of Swargate Station is 22 meters deep, and post-assembly the machine will be transported and deployed inside the 136m NATM scissor crossover cavern visible below:

Waterproofing works at the base of Swargate Station started in December – view images here.

Meanwhile, S81’s sister TBMs S78 and S79 on Package UGC-01 up north are currently undergoing minor refurbishing works inside the Civil Court Station’s 155m NATM crossover cavern. Some really cool images of them being extracted out of the tunnels they built and into the crossover cavern can be viewed here and here (latest).

As shared earlier, either S78 or S79 might in the involved in building Package UGC-02’s tunnels from the north side, between Budhwar Peth – Mandai – Swargate, but that remains to be seen. I’m expecting all 3 machines to be on their way by April. Stay tuned…

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– TMRG