Rail projects are different. They do not operate as isolated pieces of infrastructure, but as systems where track, structures, signalling, control and communities all have to function together.
Disruption in one part ripples through the whole. Delivering them requires more than capability. It requires a contractor who understands how every element connects and how to keep them connected while projects are underway.
Align Wide Alliance, formed by FCC, Martinus, BGE and Arcadia, has been established to meet that challenge. The alliance combines FCC’s experience on some of the world’s busiest metro systems with Martinus’ proven track record delivering Australia and New Zealand’s largest brownfield rail programs.
Innovation with purpose is just one part of Align Wide’s broader approach, but it is the thread that ensures new ideas make a difference. In practice, that means solutions that keep services moving in the middle of major works.
Martinus’ delivery on Auckland’s City Rail Link (CRL) and its current role on Sydney Metro Southwest both illustrate how practical, rail-specific innovation can reduce disruption where it matters most.
City Rail Link
On Auckland’s CRL, the largest and most complex rail program in New Zealand’s history, keeping trains and commuters moving meant rethinking how materials were delivered and works staged. The answer was rail by rail: staging works one section at a time and using the railway itself as the logistics corridor.
At Britomart Station, the constrained underground environment ruled out full-scale locomotives, and relying on road access would have caused major disruption to commuters and the community. Instead, Martinus introduced Zephir locomotives, compact yet powerful units capable of hauling heavy loads through tight tunnels.
Bringing them into New Zealand for the first time meant more than sourcing specialist plant. Martinus became the only contractor for rail services accredited to operate on the KiwiRail network, developed detailed logistics plans to sequence every movement, and managed critical interfaces to keep services running.
“This is what it means to go to any length to deliver,” said James Leech, Martinus Project Director, who worked on the CRL project.
“Not glossy innovation, but technical solutions born from rail expertise and applied with purpose.
“The result was safe, reliable progress on one of New Zealand’s most complex brownfield rail environments, with services handed back first train every time.”
Sydney Metro Southwest
Disruption does not only come from the tracks. It also comes from the structures above them. On Sydney Metro Southwest, 15 road over rail bridges along the Bankstown corridor are being upgraded with vehicle barriers and throw screens to meet automation requirements. Many of them are more than a century old, carry heavy traffic and contain critical utilities within their decks.
The conventional approach of demolishing bridge decks, dowelling rebar and casting new barriers would have meant long closures, major utility relocations and significant disruption. Instead, Martinus is working with Sydney Metro and local fabricator Alfabs to co-engineer a prefabricated solution known as off-structure beams.
These weathering steel portal structures – some more than 30 metres long and weighing more than 35 tonnes – are being fabricated off-site and progressively installed during possession windows.
At Moreton Street in Lakemba, Western Sydney, a 750-tonne crane was used to lift two 30-metre beams into place during a single night closure. Just a kilometre down the line at Belmore Station, a 32.7-metre beam weighing 37 tonnes was installed the following evening while surrounding roads remained open thanks to detailed traffic management.
By carrying the new barriers and screens independently of the old decks, the off-structure beams avoid utility diversions and reduce risk.
“The solution is showing how purposeful innovation relies on collaboration as much as engineering, with client, contractor and supplier working together to keep communities connected while critical upgrades are delivered,” Leech added.
Why purpose matters
The next wave of Australian projects will be delivered in some of the busiest rail and community interfaces the country has seen.
Their success will not be measured by scale alone, but by whether they can be delivered without bringing cities to a standstill.
Leech continued: “Rail by rail at CRL and off-structure beams on Sydney Metro are more than technical solutions.
“They are proof that the real innovation in rail comes from disciplined methods that reduce disruption where it matters most.
“For Australia’s next generation of projects, that is the test that will separate delivery from disruption.”
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