{"id":494611,"date":"2026-02-23T18:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T18:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/494611\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T18:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T18:36:11","slug":"tunnel-boring-machine-unveiled-ahead-of-montreal-metro-blue-line-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/494611\/","title":{"rendered":"Tunnel boring machine unveiled ahead of Montreal metro blue line expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

The massive piece of equipment that will excavate the tunnels for Montreal\u2019s blue line metro extension was unveiled on Monday.<\/p>\n

The 9.7-metre wide tunnel boring machine will dig through rock to create the tunnel from the future Verti\u00e8res station to the Anjou station \u2014 a stretch of 4.6 kilometres.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s being described as the largest such drill in Quebec and an \u201cengineering feat rarely seen\u201d in the province.<\/p>\n

Tunnelling will begin in April and won\u2019t stop until the work is complete \u2014 at some point in 2028. It\u2019s expected to excavate the rock at an average rate of 10 to 15 metres per day. <\/p>\n

The tunnel boring machine arrived in Quebec in October and needed to be assembled. Though final assembly is ongoing, the components were recently successfully lowered to approximately 20 metres below ground level.<\/p>\n

A handful of government officials were on hand for the unveiling of the machinery Monday, including Quebec Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility Jonatan Julien; Quebec Minister responsible for the Metropolis and the Montreal region Chantal Rouleau; and Aref Salem, chairman of the board of directors of the STM.<\/p>\n

The entire blue line extension project, which has a price tag of $7.6 billion, won\u2019t be complete before 2031. It will add five stations to the blue line, with names paying tribute to women<\/a> and communities that have marked Montreal\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\"\"Map of Montreal metro\u2019s blue line with names of five new metro stations unveiled Sept. 9, 2025 (Courtesy: STM)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The massive piece of equipment that will excavate the tunnels for Montreal\u2019s blue line metro extension was unveiled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-494611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}