Somewhere beneath Thane Creek, a giant German-engineered drill just started chewing through rock — and it's carving out a piece of railway history.
India's first undersea train tunnel is officially under construction.
Here's the scene.
The National High Speed Rail Corporation fired up its second Tunnel Boring Machine on Saturday, starting from Sawli near Ghansoli and pushing toward Vikhroli.
This isn't just another tunnel.
Seven kilometres of it will run beneath the seabed of Thane Creek.
Trains have never gone under Indian waters before.
This 10-km stretch is one small piece of a massive 21-km underground corridor connecting Sawli to Bandra Kurla Complex — the beating heart of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train line.
A quick breakdown:
Each machine bores a single tube, 13.1 metres wide, big enough to carry twin high-speed tracks side by side.
To line just this tunnel, engineers need roughly 77,000 concrete segments, assembled into 7,700 rings.
All cast at a dedicated 11-hectare yard in Mahape.
Stay with me — that's not construction. That's an industrial ecosystem built for one job.
And the stakes are real.
Reports suggest this undersea stretch is targeted to be operational by August 2027, part of a corridor meant to eventually run bullet trains at speeds India has never seen on rail.
Undersea tunnelling isn't like drilling through regular soil.
Pressure. Water seepage. Geology that shifts beneath a creek bed.
Every metre here is a first for Indian engineering.
So next time you hear "bullet train delay" headlines…
remember this.
Somewhere under Thane Creek, right now, a machine is quietly making history — one ring at a time.
That's all for now!
