India’s flagship Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train project reached a major milestone with the successful breakthrough of Mountain Tunnel 5 in Palghar district, Maharashtra, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on Friday. Speaking at a press briefing, Vaishnaw said, “The completion of Mountain Tunnel 5 marks a significant achievement for the high-speed rail corridor, bringing us closer to operational readiness.”
The Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor, spanning 508 kilometres, includes 8 mountain tunnels and 1 undersea tunnel, with a combined tunnel length of 27.4 kilometres. Of these, 21 kilometres are underground tunnels, while 6.4 kilometres are surface tunnels. Mountain Tunnel 5, the first and longest of the seven planned mountain tunnels in Maharashtra, measures 1.48 kilometres (1.39 km excluding portals). The first underground tunnel, spanning about 5 kilometres between Thane and Bandra Kurla Complex, was completed in September 2025.
The corridor will feature 12 stations, with Sabarmati in Gujarat and Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai serving as terminal points. Vaishnaw noted that three depots are being constructed instead of the usual two, to accommodate delays caused during prior administrative approvals in Maharashtra.
Recently, the project also achieved a key engineering feat with the launch of a 130-metre span of a 230-metre steel bridge over National Highway 64 and the Bharuch-Dahej freight line in Gujarat’s Bharuch district. Standing 18 metres high and weighing 2,780 metric tonnes, the bridge was assembled in just 12 hours using advanced construction techniques including high-strength Tor Shear bolts and C5 system painting.
Approximately 465 kilometres, or 85 percent of the corridor, is being constructed on viaducts to minimize land acquisition issues and enhance safety. So far, 326 kilometres of viaduct work and 17 out of 25 planned river bridges have been completed.
