TBM arrives for Suburban Rail Loop East: ground and settlement notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on Roads & Infrastructure (AU)
30 Second Briefing
Tunnel Boring Machine Aayushi has arrived in Clarinda, Victoria, to drive part of the Suburban Rail Loop East section between Cheltenham and Box Hill, Melbourne’s first orbital rail line. The TBM will excavate twin tunnels for the SRL East leg, a key stage in creating grade-separated, underground rail capacity that bypasses the CBD. For geotechnical and civil teams, the drive will involve managing variable Melbourne basin soils and groundwater while controlling settlement beneath existing suburban infrastructure.
Technical Brief
- Site compound in Clarinda will need slurry treatment, segment handling cranes and spoil haulage interfaces.
- TBM launch will demand pre-support and ground improvement at the portal to limit initial face instability.
- Construction sequencing around Clarinda must manage noise, vibration and settlement criteria for adjacent low-rise residential structures.
- Similar orbital tunnelling schemes around existing suburbs often adopt conservative cover and alignment curvature to protect services.
Our Take
The Victorian Government’s Suburban Rail Loop works around Clarinda sit alongside its intensive program of level crossing removals in Melbourne’s suburbs, as seen in the Old Calder Highway and Watsons Road upgrades completed in Diggers Rest in late 2025, signalling a sustained shift to grade‑separated rail across the network.
Our database shows the Victorian Government recurring across Melbourne rail bridge and level crossing projects (e.g. the Ruthven Street crossing at Macleod), which suggests the SRL East tunnelling will need to be tightly coordinated with parallel surface rail upgrades to manage network interfaces and construction access.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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