Kaveri, Vaigai, Nilgiri... tunnel boring machines at Chennai Metro Rail sites named after mountains and rivers

Of the 23 tounnel borning machines, 15 had arrived and have been named after mountains and rivers; CMRL officials say the remaining eight TBMs that will arrive soon will be named after flowers

A few days ago, “Kaveri” set off to bore the earth from Greenways Road to Adyar Junction to create a tunnel where a train will zip through in a few years down the line. Soon, “Vaigai” will start tunnelling between Greenways Road and Mandaveli.

From Kaveri to Vaigai, Nilgiri to Melagiri, tunnel boring machines (TBM) deployed in different parts of the city to build underground network for the 118.9-km Chennai Metro Rail Phase 2 project have been named after rivers and mountains.

According to officials, 23 tunnel boring machines will be at work during the course of the ₹61,843-crore Phase 2 project. So far, 15 machines have arrived and they have all been named after mountains or rivers. For the remaining eight machines, which will reach the sites in the coming months, they plan to name them after flowers.

“Usually, the manufacturer of these machines will give them a name. But instead of using their name, as long as the machines are with our project, we want to do something different and name them after our flowers, mountains and rivers. Tunnelling is progressing at a fairly good speed as of now at Madhavaram and we are gearing up at start it in other places as well,” an official said.

There are four machines engaged for tunnelling work at Madhavaram Milk Colony and they are Nilgiri, Podhigai, Anaimalai and Servarayan. Of these, the Nilgiri was the first machine to start with the tunnelling work for the Phase 2 project last year. Three more machines from Ayanavaram that will create tunnels towards Perambur and Otteri will wear the names Kalvarayan, Melagiri and Kolli respectively.

Siruvani, Palar, Bhavani and Thamirabharani are the names for the four TBMs that will build tunnels from Chetpet to Sterling Road and KMC.