Qatar Rail, the company overseeing the construction of the country's integrated railway network, said it has achieved a major milestone for large-scale transport projects across the region, by entering into the Guinness World Records for its tunnelling operation.

The company won official recognition in the record books for “The Largest Number of Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) Operating Simultaneously in a Single Project”.

Qatar Rail sad the 21 advanced TBMs, deployed across the works for the Doha Metro stations, have achieved many breakthrough milestones for the project’s overall progress.

Works for Qatar Rail’s mega projects have been advancing at full speed since their launch, thanks to groundbreaking technologies from leading manufacturers and suppliers and a strong focus on operational efficiency, it added.

With this recognition, Qatar Rail has broken its own previous world record of simultaneously operating 19 TBMs, said a senior official.
 
"Since we embarked on this journey, we’ve committed ourselves, our resources, our partners and our technologies to delivering world-class projects with speed and efficiency. This recognition by the Guinness is a hard-earned and well-deserved testament to the collective power of our teams, our partners and our stakeholders, who never lost sight of what is needed to deliver our ambitious plans," remarked Abdulla Abdulaziz Al Subaie, the managing director of Qatar Rail.

"This certificate is only a chapter in our story. I am confident that Qatar Rail will be seeing more record-setting achievements in the future," he stated.

On the key milestone, CEO Saad Ahmed Al Muhannadi said: "With a Guinness book recognition under our belt, we carry an even greater and larger responsibility towards our community in successfully closing the tunnelling phase for the Doha Metro project."

Qatar Rail, he stated, was keen on meeting and outperforming on its ambitious objectives and world-class benchmarks.

"We dedicate this achievement - that is a clear indication of the scale and importance of the Doha Metro project - to our team, as well as to Qatar and all our stakeholders who have shared our vision and ambition," he added.

Prior to the recognition, Professor Arnold Dix, an independent record verifier and a highly accomplished tunnelling expert and lawyer who heads a legal chapter in the International Tunnelling Association (ITA), validated the results.

A verification committee comprising 20 inspectors was appointed for each operational TBM. The members had only this month filmed the machines while in operation.

The inspectors were also supplied by the Geographic Information System (GIS) data of Qatar Rail that confirmed works and status of all TBMs.

All these records were handed over by Prof Dix to the Guinness committee.

Currently, Qatar Rail manages the operations of 21 TBMs working underground as part of the Doha Metro project, said the company.

These high-tech machines imported from Germany are set to accomplish the tunnelling phase in 2017, while the first stage of the Doha Metro project will be delivered in 2019, it added.-TradeArabia News Service