Tunnelbuilder Promoting the world's tunnelling industry to a huge qualified audience

View the Spanish Tunnelbuilder website View the Italian Tunnelbuilder website

Archive - News

Featured News

TERRATEC TBM completes first tunnel for Mumbai Metro

TERRATEC TBM completes first tunnel for Mumbai Metro

HCC-MMS JV achieves major milestone with Terratec machine having broken through on the first full section of running tunnel to be completed for Mumbai Metro Line 3, in India. In early-August, ... More Information

8th Cutting Edge Conference

8th Cutting Edge Conference

From the East to the West Coast, North America’s tunnelling industry is flourishing. In 2019, the eighth annual Cutting Edge Conference will be held in Hilton Miami Downtown, Florida from ... More Information

Mumbai Metro Line 3 renamed as Aqua Line

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday unveiled the rolling stock model of Metro Line 3, which has been named AquaLine. The MMRC (Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation) has awarded the ... More Information

Blog by Steve Smading – The Robbins Company

Blog by Steve Smading – The Robbins Company

3 Ways to Bore More Efficiently in Extremely Hard Rock: Maximize your TBM Advance through Minimized Downtime When the rock seems unbreakable, stresses are multiplied: The cutters must be stronger, ... More Information

Russia - Moscow Underground updates

Russia - Moscow Underground updates

Extension of the Kommunarskaya Line On 20 August, at the meeting of the Urban Planning Commission, the project for the extension of the Kommunarskaya line of the Moscow metro to the city of Troitsk ... More Information

Tunnel under Monte Tondo in Bolzano, Italy

On the 21st of August a summit to establish the next steps for the construction of the 2.5km road tunnel under Monte Tondo was held. The interested parties were the Municipality, the Province of ... More Information

EnigmaCG’s 5th Annual Conference on Innovation in Tunnels: Construction, Maintenance, Safety & Fire Protection

EnigmaCG’s 5th Annual Conference on Innovation in Tunnels: Construction, Maintenance, Safety & Fire Protection

With over 55 live tenders for construction/development of new tunnels in just Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium at the time of writing this, it is safe to say that tunnel construction/ ... More Information

Delaware Aqueduct Bypass Tunnel breakthrough

A Tunnel boring machine built by the Robbins company “holed through” Tuesday morning, breaking through shale bedrock in Dutchess County to complete its excavation on the $1 billion ... More Information

The ITA Tunnelling Awards Shortlist 2019

The ITA Tunnelling Awards Shortlist 2019

Press release - The 17-strong expert judging panel, chaired by the ITA President Jinxiu (Jenny) Yan, has concluded its deliberations and based on detailed evaluation, 32 entries have been chosen ... More Information

Short courses on tunnelling - Nepal

Short courses on tunnelling - Nepal

Dr. Manoj Verman, President of a new ISRM Commission on Hard Rock Excavation, will be the speaker for two short courses on tunnelling to be held at the Radisson Blu, Kathmandu, Nepal from the ... More Information

Brescia – Verona – Padova Railway

Brescia – Verona – Padova Railway

On July 3, 2019 the MIT (Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti) completed the evaluations for the new Brescia – Padova High Speed/High Capacity railway section and have now ... More Information

Second TERRATEC EPBM delivered for Argentina’s landmark Agua Sur water tunnel project

Second TERRATEC EPBM delivered for Argentina’s landmark Agua Sur water tunnel project

The second of two new 4.66m diameter TERRATEC Earth Pressure Balance TBMs to be delivered for a 13.5km potable water tunnel system, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  At the end of July, ... More Information

STUVA 2019

STUVA 2019

The final sprint: Only 5 months to go to STUVA Expo 2019 - Register now! Reserve your trade fair stand for STUVA Expo 2019 now from the 26th to the 27th of November 2019. Take advantage ... More Information

The Broadway Subway project

The Broadway Subway project

The Broadway Subway project is an extension of the Millennium Line and a key link in Metro Vancouver’s transportation system. The 5.7-km line will extend the existing SkyTrain system ... More Information

TBM Launched for the RijnlandRoute

On July 24th , 2019 the official inauguration ceremony of the RijnlandRoute TBM took place (click here for a video). In early August the 100 m long TBM, built by Herrenknecht and named Gaia, after ... More Information

TBM Annie arrives at Greenwich

A giant tunnelling machine set to create part of London’s new super sewer arrived in London this week, with parts unloaded from a ship onto the Greenwich Peninsula. The machine will be used ... More Information

Obigarm - Nurobod Road Section in Tajikistan

Obigarm - Nurobod Road Section in Tajikistan

The Obigarm-Nurobod road section of the existing M41 - part of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) network (Corridors 2, 3 and 5) and connecting the northeast region of ... More Information

A Robbins TBM for Salvasskardelva HEPP in Norway

A Robbins TBM for Salvasskardelva HEPP in Norway

In early July, a 2.8 m Robbins Main Beam TBM began boring the 2.7 km long Salvasskardelva HEPP in Bardu, Norway. The TBM, specially designed for Norsk Grønnkraft's (NGK) ... More Information

Twenty years of FRC tunnel final lining: Lessons learnt, design proposal and new development

Twenty years of FRC tunnel final lining: Lessons learnt, design proposal and new development

B. De Rivaz Bekaert Maccaferri Underground Solutions, Erembodegem-Aalst, Belgium ABSTRACT: New guideline concerning the use of FRC precast segment has been recently published to provide detail ... More Information

Agenda Set for 12th Annual Breakthroughs in Tunneling Short Course

Course organizers have announced the agenda for the 12th annual Breakthroughs in Tunneling Short Course. The Breakthroughs in Tunneling Short Course will be held Sep. 9-11 at the University of ... More Information

Grand Paris Express update

Grand Paris Express update

On 19.07.2019 the teams of the Horizon Consortium (Bouygues Travaux Publics / Soletanche Bachy / BESSAC) - working on lot T2A of Line 15 South of the Grand Paris Express - left the construction ... More Information

Paris Line 11 extension

Paris Line 11 extension

The Paris Line 11 extension to Rosny-Bois-Perrier will be built with cut  & cover, conventional and TBM methods. The central part of the new alignment between the Serge Gainsbourg ... More Information

Press release for the 3rd ASEAN Rail Summit

Press release for the 3rd ASEAN Rail Summit

As the fastest growing region in the global economy, Southeast Asia emerging economies have attracted worldwide attention. It is estimated that by 2020, ASEAN is expected to become the ... More Information

Cooling the Tube

Retired Chartered Engineer CALVIN BARROWS proposes simple but innovative solutions to the age-old problem of overheating metro networks. Worldwide there are a significant number of Metro networks ... More Information

The Blue line extension in Montreal

On July 4th , 2019 Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, joined by Mayor Valerie Plante, the Quebec Junior Transport Minister and Minister Responsible for Montreal, Chantal Rouleau and ... More Information

Purple Line Extension in Los Angeles

Purple Line Extension in Los Angeles

New allocation from the FTA for section three of the Metro has received a new allocation of AUD100 million from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for the third and final section of the ... More Information

Boring begins on the West Gate Tunnel

Boring begins on the West Gate Tunnel

The launch site - from where the 90 m long TBMs will dig south west to build the twin tunnels to connect the West Gate Freeway to the port, city and CityLink in Melbourne - has taken a year to ... More Information

Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel memorandum of understanding signed

Finest Bay Area Development has signed a memorandum of understanding with three Chinese companies, as part of plans to build the 100 km (60 mile) double undersea train tunnel from Tallinn in ... More Information

Melbourne Metro - Breakthrough at State Library Station

Melbourne Metro - Breakthrough at State Library Station

Three roadheaders have met 30 metres underground in the first major breakthrough, connecting two excavated caverns that will become State Library Station. The road headers have dug out more ... More Information

Bahrain Rail Congress 2019 – Press release

The Bahrain Rail Congress 2019 will be held under the theme “Designing & Developing a Well Connected, World Class, National Rail Network in the Kingdom of Bahrain” which is ... More Information

Excavation of the western section of the M4 completed

On  the 10th of July 2019 a second TBM arrived at Parco Solari station in Milan. Thus completing the excavation of the tunnels from San Cristoforo to Solari, part of the western section of ... More Information

Joint venture for tunnel project

Element Construction are looking for a tunnel construction company to be part of a joint venture on a tunnelling project. The tunnelling project is to build two parallel tunnels for a highway, ... More Information

West Gate tunnel update

Before tunnelling for the West Gate Tunnel Project begins in 2019, they need to divert a 600 metre section of the North Yarra Main Sewer. Diverting a sewer is a massive job that involves ... More Information

Thames Tideway Tunnel: Aerial Photos Reveal £4.2 Billion Project's Progress

London’s £4.2 billion super sewer is seen from the air as new pictures reveal deep shafts carved into the banks of the River Thames. The Thames Tideway tunnel snakes alongside the ... More Information

TBM Sandy arrives at Redcliffe

TBM Sandy arrives at Redcliffe

On Saturday, July 6th , the second 130m-long TBM arrived at Redcliffe Station for the Forrestfield Airport Link project. TBM Sandy broke through into Redcliffe Station, emerging from her most ... More Information

Ghella wins Cross River Rail Tunnel, Stations and Development Package

Ghella, as part of the Pulse consortium, which is led by CIMIC Group, has reached contractual and financial close with the State of Queensland to deliver the Tunnel, Stations and Development (TSD) ... More Information

Tunnelling News

Bengaluru: Four infrastructure firms bid for Hebbal short tunnel

Bengaluru infrastructure: Four firms, including Dilip Buildcon and Max Infra, bid for BDA's Rs 1086 crore Hebbal short tunnel project... More Information

TBM readied for Montreal's Blue Line extension

A custom-made 9.7m-diameter tunnel boring machine (TBM) has been assembled and lowered ready to excavate the tube from the future Vertières stop to ... More Information

$11.5B Brenner Base Tunnel Nears End of TBM Excavation

With TBMs Olga and Wilma closing in, the 55-km rail project shifts from excavation to systems integration ahead of its planned 2028 opening beneath ... More Information

$6.75 Billion Unlocked for Turkey's Bosphorus Rail Project

Multiple Earth Pressure Balance (EPB) Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) will need to be mobilized to carve out the subterranean corridors leading up to ... More Information

Tunneling for Nashville's underground Tesla project has begun

The Boring Company said that the first three weeks of the project will consist of the Prufrock-MB1, a machine that will help carve out the tunnel, ... More Information

Hudson Tunnel Project construction resumes

I look forward to celebrating the launch of our tunnel boring machines through the Palisades once GDC has assurance it will receive the steady flow ... More Information

Lower Thames Crossing

British suppliers could meet 90% of low carbon steel requirements. The proposed machine would be 16.4m in diameter, large enough to create a three‑lane tunnel bore, and is intended to dig ... More Information

Inside the Tunnel Boring Machine, Southampton Link Main project

A six-tonne tunnel boring machine is digging deep below the ground in Hampshire to help keep the county's taps and rivers flowing... More Information

TBM maestro inspects sites ahead of massive tunnel drive

The first machine components have arrived for the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) to be deployed on the Suburban Connect sites in Melbourne. More Information

Metrolinx provides major updates on subway and LRT projects across the GTA

Tunnel boring is advancing on multiple projects, with Scarborough's TBM ... Metrolinx says “Diggy Scardust,” the project's tunnel boring machine, is now ... More Information

Work in Progress: High-tech TBMs ready to carve underground corridor

The Bhopal Metro Rail Project is transitioning into its most challenging and sophisticated phase as two state-of-the-art Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) ... More Information

Sarens helps extract TBM at BC water supply project

The Annacis Water Supply Tunnel Project aims to increase the reliability and capacity of the water supply system in New Westminster, British Columbia. When complete, the tunnel will ... More Information

Judge rules in favor of New York and New Jersey for now in $16B tunnel fight with Trump

A federal judge ruled Friday to temporarily block the Trump administration from suspending federal disbursements for the Gateway Tunnel Project... More Information

Webuild: award for Sustainability Report for commitment to decarbonise through innovation

This includes the large tunnel-boring machines deployed on some of Europe's most complex projects: from the Salerno-Reggio Calabria ... More Information

Clearwater update reports initial entry area is 'stable and intact'

The tunnel boring machine being used in the project remains trapped underground just ahead of where the breach occurred. The ambitious, $630 ... More Information

Tunnel Boring Machine Market Size estimated at USD 7.08 Billion

The Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) market is experiencing significant growth, driven by increasing urbanization, infrastructure development, ... More Information

Completing the First Section of Line 3: Tunnel Boring Machine Roars as it Emerges at Balboa

The Panama tunnel boring machine emerged and completed its first major task: the first section of the Line 3 Metro tunnel. More Information

Twin tunnel-boring titans prepare to dig new road under Sydney Harbour

Twin tunnel-boring titans are preparing to launch under Sydney Harbour to dig out a new road crossing from Birchgrove to Waverton... More Information

Monica Breaks Ground on Snowy 2.0

Monica the tunnel boring machine, with the renewable energy mega-project now more. TBM Monica is among the world's most advanced tunnel boring machines... More Information

Snowy 2.0 sets new tunnel boring machine to work, completes 46 underground concrete pours

Snowy 2.0 has set to work a fourth tunnel boring machine, a $75 million piece of drilling equipment purpose built to complete excavation of the huge pumped hydro project’s “geologically ... More Information

World's 'largest' underground assembly of tunnelling machines happening beneath Sydney

Workers are craning into place about 167 major pieces that will form the first of two giant boring machines. Once assembled like giant Meccano sets, ... More Information

Tunneling Begins on Major Water Pipeline for South Hillsborough

TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa Bay Water has begun construction on a major underground pipeline project aimed at meeting rising water demand in southern Hillsborough County, where population growth ... More Information

The massive £3billion tunnel designed to connect two continents under the sea

The construction of a huge underwater multi-tiered tunnel is underway in Turkey, that will create a direct route from Asia to Europe - and is expected to carry 1.3 million passengers a ... More Information

Riederwald Tunnel in Frankfurt is further delayed

Traffic was supposed to start flowing through the controversial Riederwald Tunnel in Frankfurt in 2033. But that's unlikely to happen. The €1.5 billion project is facing further delays – ... More Information

What happens to our metro tunnel boring machines when they hit the end of the line?

These mechanical behemoths were Betty and Dorothy, the tunnel boring machines tasked with digging the Sydney Metro West tunnels. Loading. The ... More Information

The incredible £2.8bn underwater tunnel connecting Europe and Asia

A huge new tunnel will connect Europe and Asia - and construction has already started. The Great Istanbul Tunnel is a major project. It will carry ... More Information

China develops "smart brain" for tunnel boring machines to boost underground construction

A team from Hunan University in central China has collaboratively developed an intelligent operating system for tunnel boring machines, giving these massive underground giants a "smart ... More Information

How China rescued highway project under Yangtze River

The incident occurred in February 2023 during construction of the 6.4-kilometer Jiangyin–Jingjiang Yangtze River Tunnel. Midway through excavation, at ... More Information

HS2 final tunnel drive to Euston starts next week

A team from SCS will drive a 4.5-mile twin-bore tunnel linking Old Oak Common to Euston using two tunnel boring machines, Karen and Madeleine. More Information

Work begins on £48M Knutsford sewer upgrade featuring 1.8km stormwater tunnel

Sean Reid, United Utilities county business lead for wastewater in Cheshire said: “This project highlights our ongoing commitment to improving water ... More Information

$14.6M boost moves Gering–Fort Laramie Canal Tunnel project forward

After nearly six years of planning, construction is moving forward on the Gering–Fort Laramie Canal tunnels... More Information

Webuild: second breakthrough at Trebisacce Tunnel along Jonica State Road 106

Project will help transform Jonica State Road 106 into a strategic corridor linking Ionian coasts of Calabria, Basilicata and Puglia... More Information

Ground preparation for Lower Thames Crossing tunnelling

Work is ongoing to overcome sub-optimal ground conditions in preparation for the start of tunnelling on the Lower Thames Crossing in late 2028, according to the project’s tunnels director... More Information

LA Metro approves massive $25B underground rail line to bypass 405 Freeway

The LA Metro Board unanimously approved an underground heavy rail line to connect the San Fernando Valley and the Westside, bypassing the congested 405 Freeway. The nearly 13-mile route, ... More Information

TUNNEL VISION Mega £7.4bn undersea tunnel connecting two CONTINENTS just got one step closer

A MAJOR £7.4 billion underwater tunnel connecting two continents has taken a step closer to construction. Experts have said the 24-mile tunnel is “technically viable”, paving the way for ... More Information

TBM breakthrough in Sydney

Tunnel boring machine (TBM) Jane Starkey successfully completed her 1.2km underground journey through challenging Sydney sandstone... More Information

Hochul announces $25 million for Harlem crosstown subway tunnel design

At E. 120th St., a pair of tunnel-boring machines — currently under construction in Germany — will bore new, 8,400-foot tunnels north from the end ... More Information

Tunnelling under the Yarra River

Our two Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) will soon be travelling underneath the Yarra River... Approximately 300 metres of the 6.5 kilometre North East Link will be under the Yarra ... More Information

The Boring Company says its tunneling machine is 'ready to mine in Nashville'

The Music City Loop project is aimed at transporting people from Nashville International Airport to Lower Broadway in roughly 10 minutes. By Li ... More Information