The Delhi – Ghaziabad – Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) corridor has gained another achievement with the completion of a 2 km long tunnel between Anand Vihar towards Sahibabad. This is one of the major developments towards providing faster regional connectivity in the National Capital Region (NCR).
Duration of Tunnelling work:-
The whole tunnelling work has been completed in less than 19 months. A total of seven state of the art Sudarshan, the Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) have been used to bore the 12 km long parallel tunnels of the underground section of the nation’s first RRTS corridor.
Segments used in tunnel construction work:-
To construct the tunnels, the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) has used over 80,000 precast segments. These high-precision precast tunnel segments were cast at the state-of-the-art casting yards established at Karkardooma, New Delhi, and Shatabdi Nagar and Meerut.
Measuring 1.5 meters in length, these segments joined together to form the tunnel rings. The diameter of the RRTS tunnels is 6.5 m which is highly optimised as compared to global benchmarks of tunnels for a similar design speed of 180 Kmph with wider and higher rolling stock.
How many tunnels are constructed in Delhi RRTS underground section?
The NCRTC have constructed four tunnels in the national capital from Anand Vihar underground RAPIDX station for to and fro movement of trains. Of these, two parallel tunnels (of 3 km long) are connecting Anand Vihar station to New Ashok Nagar station. While, another 2 km long parallel tunnels are connecting Anand Vihar station to Sahibabad station.
RAPIDX service to begin soon on Priority corridor:-
The NCRTC has a target to open the entire 82-km long Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor for the public by 2025. Before that, it will operationalize a 17-km long Priority Section between Sahibabad and Duhai Depot shortly. It has already received the approval of the Commissioner for Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) for the operation of RAPIDX service.