After 18 months of intense digging, Qatar Rail officials have announced the completion of tunneling on the Doha Metro Green Line.

Some six tunnel boring machines (TMBs) have been working on the line, with the first beginning in September 2014.

TBM Al Messila has been tunneling for 14 months and made its final breakthrough this week at the Education City station after covering some 6,176m.

In a statement, Green Line Project Director Jassim Al Ansari said the milestone marks the end of a great deal of tunneling in a short amount of time. He added:

“Technically, this has meant carrying out many complex operations associated with drilling horizontal tunnels and underground hazards along 33kms of twin tunnels using 6 TBMS.”

The tunneling was conducted by the Austria-based Porr Group, in a consortium with Saudi Bin Laden Group (SBG) and Hamad bin Khalid Construction (HBK).

Meanwhile, work on the Green Line’s 10 underground stations is 57 percent complete, Qatar Rail said.

The east-west line runs mostly underground, from Al Rayyan Stadium to Mansoura via Education City and Msheireb, a trip that will take 24 minutes by rail compared to 54 minutes by car, according to Qatar Rail.

What’s next

Overall tunneling on the Doha Metro is now 87 percent complete.

Earlier this month, Qatar Rail finished tunneling on the northern section of the Red Line.

In a statement today, Qatar Rail said it plans to complete tunneling on the Gold Line next, and then finish off the rest of the Red Line by the fall.

The three lines are expected to open to passenger traffic in late 2019.

By the end of the year, Qatar Rail will shift its focus from construction to installation of things like tracks, power supply sources and signals. It will also begin working on architectural finishes, the company said.

The first train is scheduled to be delivered to Qatar Rail in the third quarter of 2017.

Thoughts?