Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train Tunnel Boring Machines Deployment

under construction

Two tunnel boring machines (TBMs), weighing 6,000 tonnes in total, are being transported from Jawaharlal Nehru Port to Vikhroli and Savali in Mumbai for the 21-km underground tunnel stretch of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Corridor, India's first bullet train project. The TBMs, supplied by German company Herrenknecht, arrived at the port on March 23, 2026. The transportation involves a convoy of multi-axle trailers moving at night to avoid traffic disruption. Once assembled, each TBM will be 96 meters long with a diameter of 13.6 meters. The project includes a 7-km undersea tunnel and requires precise tunneling to avoid risks to residential buildings above. The TBMs will enable faster excavation compared to the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM) used earlier. New electricity transmission lines and a water treatment plant are being set up to support the TBMs at the sites.