Chelyabmetrotransstroy, the metro operating company in Chelyabinsk in Russia’s southern Urals, has started tunnelling on the city’s first US$49M metro line using a Lovat tunnel boring machine. The Chelyabinsk regional governor, Pyotr Sumin, said the TBM is likely to excavate about 300m of tunnel a month. Plans call for the construction of three metro lines by 2015, although the mixed ground conditions are expected to pose significant problems.
