Athens Metro: new Line 4 “quiet” TBMs start their trip to Greece

The journey to Greece has begun for the first of the two TBMs that will dig Attica’s subsoil for the opening of the tunnel of the new line 4 of the Athens Metro. As already reported by ypodomes.com, a group of executives from AVAX and Attiko Metro had traveled to Germany to inspect and receive the 2 TBMs.

On Friday July 1st, the first TBM was finally received by AVAX after successfully passing all the necessary tests. Now these days the TBM is being dismantled and will be transported by ship to the port of Piraeus. From there, the pieces that make up the machine will be transported by special trucks to the “Katehaki” construction site in the well that has been formed, from where the process of rewiring them will begin. The final goal is at the beginning of 2023 to start the journey of the TBM initially to the eastern suburbs and then to the center of Athens.

The same course will be followed by the second TBM who is expected to start it’s journey for Athens quite soon. The second machine will be transported from the port of Piraeus in sections by trucks to the Veikou construction site where it will be assembled and the tunneling will begin.

The two machines will meet up at the Evangelismos construction site from where they will be dismantled, they will leave to be reused again in another project.

The …quiet TMBs

Even though Athens hasn’t seen new TBMs for many years as used TBMs were used in the last extensions, but since it has taken the specific step, it promises state-of-the-art machines.

The TBMs were manufactured and assembled at the Herrenknecht AG factory in Germany. They are 100 meters long and over 9 meters in diameter. Their weight is 1,500 tons per machine and they have the most modern technology that can be offered.

The most important thing for Athens is that the two machines have specially configured machines in such a way as to ensure for the first time zero disturbance during the opening of the tunnel of the new line 4.

The journey of the TBMs

The first TBM will start opening the tunnel from the east. The first three stations it will meet are:

GOUDI, ZOGRAFOU, ILISSIA. Accordingly, the second TMB will meet the stations: ALSOS VEIKOU, GALATSI, ELIKONOS.

It is worth mentioning that the metro network of Athens will again see the opening of stations after many years. In particular, the last opening took place on November 29, 2017, when the subway arrived at the DIMOTIKO THEATRO station on the extension of line 3 to Piraeus.

After 5.5 years the city will once again live the exciting experience of a breakthrough, this time for the new orange line 4 of Athens. The metro station will continue the opening from Ilisia and will find the PANEPISTIMOUPOLI, KESARIANI, EVANGELISMOS stations. The second one after Helikonos will find the stations KYPSELI, DIKASTIRIA, ALEXANDRAS, EXARCHIA, ACADEMIA, KOLONAKI to end up at the EVANGELISMOS station.