The tunnel caving work has been completed at the Western DFC’s 1 km long tunnel through the Aravallis near Sohna in the state of Haryana. Interestingly, this will be the first electrified railway tunnel in the world, which would be able to run double stack containers. The tunnel work has been completed in a record time of less than a year. The development work on this tunnel started on this site in the year 2019. The tunnel’s last blasting, which is located on the Rewari-Dadri section has been done on 24 July 2020. Through this tunnel, double stack containers, as well as 25 ton axle load freight trains, will run at a speed of 100 km per hour.
In the state of Haryana, the tunnel connects the districts of Mewat and Gurugram and negotiates a steep gradient on the Aravalli range’s uphill and downhill slope. To accommodate double line with higher OHE to allow the movement of double stack container on the Western DFC, the D-shaped tunnel has a cross-sectional area of 150 square metres. It is one of the biggest railway tunnels in the country, cross-sectional area wise. The tunnel’s one end is near Rewari and is called west portal or Portal -1. The tunnel’s other end at Dadri is designated as east portal or Portal -2.
The high-tech machinery used in the Tunnelling work included two number of Shotcrete Machine Robotic Arm type with 12 metres reach, five Transit Mixers having 6CUM capacity, two Boomer Double arm type with arm reach spanning 7 metres, 10 number of Hywa with a Load capacity of 20 Tons, one Scissor Lift, three DG Set of 500 KVA capacity, two concrete pumps, grout pumps and ROC.
In both the Eastern DFC and Western DFC, there are a total of six tunnels. In the Western DFC, there are 1 km long Sohna Tunnel, 430 metre long Vasai Detour South Tunnel and 320 metre long Vasai Detour North Tunnel. The Eastern DFC also has three number of tunnels measuring 150 metre, 475 metre and 300 metre respectively in the Sonnagar-Gomoh section.
Till date, more than 1600 trains have been run by the DFCCIL, in the Bhadan-Khurja section of Eastern DFC and the Madar-Rewari section of the Western DFC. The Western DFC and the Eastern DFC (excluding the PPP section) is slated for completion in the month of June 2022.