Bullet train will be underground between BKC to Diva; 7-km stretch to be under Thane creek

Of the 508km-long corridor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project, 156km would be in Maharashtra and 35km in Gujarat

The proposed Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train will pass through an underground tunnel that would be about 25-40 meters beneath the surface between Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) and Diva near Thane.

Picture for representation

Of the 508km-long corridor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project, 156km would be in Maharashtra and 35km in Gujarat, besides a 2km-long stretch in the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli. He will be laying the foundation stone of the project with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Gujarat on September 14.

About 21 kilometers of the 508km-long double line tracks of India’s first bullet train will be underground while the remaining section will be completely elevated. A railway official said that the proposed bullet train corridor will start from International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at BKC and it will go underground till Dativali village ahead of Diva station.

“The bullet train will be elevated at Dativali, next to Diva,” said that official, requesting anonymity. The corridor ahead till Gujarat be mostly parallel to the existing railway lines.

The bullet train will have a total of 12 stations, and of those, three---BKC, Thane and Talasari--- are in Maharashtra. Of the three, BKC and Thane stations would be underground. The high-speed train corridor will be designed for maximum speed of 350kmph, and trains would ply at the speed of 320kmph. The trains will cover the distance between Mumbai-Ahmedabad in 2.07 hours to 2.58 hours.