Bangalore Metro’s TBM Rudra Records RT-01’s Final Breakthrough

Afcons Infrastructure this morning celebrated Tunnel Boring Machine S-1259’s final breakthrough at Langford Town Station of Bangalore Metro’s 21.386 km Pink Line (Nagawara – Kalena Agrahara).

Nicknamed Rudra, this Herrenknecht slurry machine arrived from Lakkasandra Station after boring and building rings for its 3rd assignment in 114 days.

This was Afcons’ final of 8 tunnel breakthroughs planned for 73.92 km Bangalore Metro Phase 2 project’s 3.655 km Package RT-01 connecting Rashtriya Military School Station – Dairy Circle South Ramp. Their other 2 machines – Varada and Vamika – had completed their tunneling assignments in September 2022 and August 2023, respectively.

Rudra was originally commissioned from Dairy Circle’s South Ramp in April 2021. Here’s a summary of Rudra’s completed tunneling drives:

• South Ramp to Dairy Circle Station (613m) – November 2021
• Dairy Circle to Lakkasandra (746m) – April 2023
• Lakkasandra to Langford Town (718m) – October 2023 (this post!)

Per a detailed banner displayed at the site, TBM Rudra:

• Recorded 3 breakthroughs
• Had 122 interventions
• Was 518 days in journey
• Erected 1485 rings

A video can be viewed here on X (Twitter).

With this development, Rudra’s job is over! It’s become the 7th of 9 machines, after Varada, Avni, Urja, Lavi, Vindhya & Vamika to finish all of its tunneling assignments.

Tunneling works on 3/4 packages of Phase 2 have been wrapped up with the completion of 22/26 tunnel breakthroughs: 8/8 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.

Pink Line’s completed twin tunnels now connect all the way from South Ramp (on Afcons’ package RT-01) to Venkateshpura (on ITD’s package RT-04) – a distance of roughly 10.8 km.

Overall tunneling progress stands at 18.45 / 20.9 km. On RT-04, as of October 25 – TBM Tunga had completed tunneling 84% of 1184m while Bhadra had completed 60% of 1186m for their 3rd of 4 drives.

From ITD’s team I hear TBM Tunga, which has a balance of 148 rings left to build, will make its 3rd breakthrough at KG Halli Station somewhere around December 1. I’ll know an exact date as we approach the last week of November.

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– TMRG