NHSRCL completes 12 river bridges for Bullet Train project

NHSRCL is done with 12 of the 20 river crossings in Gujarat for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train, furthering the high-speed rail project.

The building of 12 of the necessary 20 river crossings in Gujarat for the 508-kilometer Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train corridor is complete. According to the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), the 120-meter-long bridge over the Kharera River in Navsari district is the 12th such construction recently completed in Gujarat.

The bullet train project spans Gujarat (352 kilometres) and Maharashtra (156 kilometres), with 12 stops planned in Mumbai, Thane, Virar, Boisar, Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand/Nadiad, Ahmedabad, and Sabarmati.The train is intended to shorten travel time between Ahmedabad and Mumbai to roughly 3 hours, down from the current 6 to 8 hours.

“The bridge on the Kharera river, Navsari district, has been completed on October 29, 2024 for the bullet train project which marks the completion of all nine river bridges between Vapi and Surat bullet train stations (in south Gujarat) of Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train corridor,” according to a statement from the NHSRCL. Kharera is a tributary of the Ambika River, which rises in the hills of Vansda Taluka on the Gujarat-Maharashtra boundary.

The river is approximately 45 kilometres from the Vapi bullet train station and 6 kilometres from the Bilimora station, according to the report. Apart from Kharera, bridges have been built across the Par, Purna, Mindhola, Ambika, Auranga, Kolak, Kaveri, and Venganiya rivers between Vapi and Surat.  Other constructed bridges include those on the rivers Dhadhar (Vadodara district), Mohar, and Vatrak (both in Kheda district), according to the report. As of October 21, 2024, the whole 1,389.5-hectare land to be used for the project had been bought, and all civil and depot tenders for the project, as well as the track tender for the Gujarat component, had been awarded, according to the statement. Work on all 12 stations is now underway. The NHSRCL also announced that work on a 21-kilometer (7-kilometer) tunnel cutting through the sea has begun.

“The undersea tunnel is at about 36 m below the ground with a diameter of 12.1 m to accommodate both UP and DN (down) tracks of the bullet train in one tunnel. Such a big diameter undersea tunnel is being constructed for the first time in India,” it says. The NHSRCL also stated that 16 km of the tunnel, out of a total of 21 km, will be built using the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), with the remaining 5 km completed using the New Austrian Tunnelling Method.

The ground conditions and reliability are being considered while purchasing slurry type TBMs with a cutter head diameter of 13.6 m. “Works on three shafts for lowering and retrieval of TBMs are nearing completion. Further, the 394 m long Additional Driven Intermediate Tunnel (ADIT) is already completed and tunnel boring through NATM taken up at three faces simultaneously to pace up the work,” it sates.

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