CANADA: Lisette is excavating 4.6 kilometres of the Montreal Blue Line extension beneath the city’s east end, with underground tunnelling due to finish in early 2028.

Blue Montreal Metro train at Acadie station platform
An STM train at Acadie station on Montreal’s existing Blue Line; illustrative image, not the current extension works. Photo: Chicoutimi / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Lisette combines excavation and tunnel lining

The Herrenknecht-built tunnel boring machine began working in May from the future Vertières station after seven months of assembly. It is 135 metres long, weighs more than 2,000 tonnes and draws electric power from a continuously extended 25 kV supply.

A 9.7-metre cutterhead with 50 discs grinds through hard Montreal limestone at an average 10 to 15 metres per day. That compares with three or four metres per day for a conventional roadheader, project director Sarah Bédard Giulione told Daily Commercial News.

Rock passes through a screw conveyor and belt system. Every two metres, the machine stops to place seven precast concrete segments, known as voussoirs, into a lining ring. Seven hydraulic cylinders then push against the completed ring to advance the machine, while a crew of about 20 monitors the operation. Around eight rings are installed daily.

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Five new stations will meet the bored tunnel

An official STM project update says Lisette will remove 300,000 cubic metres of rock and install 14,300 concrete segments on its journey from Vertières to Anjou. The excavated material will go to the nearby Saint-Michel quarry and may be reused by the City of Montreal.

Lisette is boring 4.6 kilometres of the approximately six-kilometre extension. The section between the existing Saint-Michel terminus and Vertières is being excavated with roadheaders because the tunnel boring machine cannot reverse after assembly. Station caverns are being opened separately so they can connect with the advancing tunnel.

Tunnel depth varies from 17 to 40 metres. Changes in gradient are designed so arriving trains climb and departing trains descend, reducing brake wear and energy use during normal operations.

The Montreal Blue Line project will add five accessible stations east of Saint-Michel: Vertières, Mary-Two-Axe-Earley, Cesira-Parisotto, Madeleine-Parent and Anjou. The wider scope also includes two bus terminals, a pedestrian connection to the Pie-IX BRT and supporting operational infrastructure.

Opening remains scheduled for 2031

Lisette is expected to reach Anjou in early 2028 after just over 18 months of tunnelling. The extension is scheduled to open to passengers in 2031, becoming Montreal’s first metro extension since 2007.

The tunnelling contractor is MBH, a joint venture comprising Quebec-based Pomerleau and EBC with France-based Spie batignolles. Its work proceeds alongside the separate excavation of the five future stations and the remaining tunnel sections.

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