CHENNAI: CMRL has launched a fresh tunnelling drive on its east-west Corridor-4, with tunnel boring machine (TBM) ‘Peacock’ starting drilling westwards from Panagal Park towards Boat Club on Thursday.
Corridor-4, running 26.1km from Light House to Poonamallee Bypass, includes an 8km underground section that has been split into two civil packages, each carrying roughly 4km of twin tunnels. Four TBMs with a 6.67-metre diametre have been assigned to deliver 16km of tunnelling in both directions.
‘Peacock’, operated by contractor Cemindia Projects, is already one of the workhorse machines on the corridor. It completed a 2km drive between Panagal Park and the Kodambakkam retrieval shaft in July - the first breakthrough on the underground stretch - after excavating safely beneath live Indian Railways tracks, one of the project’s most sensitive alignments.
Following the breakthrough, the machine was dismantled, trucked back to Panagal Park, and rebuilt for its second run: a 1.9km drive to Boat Club Station.