Digging has started at what will become the new underground Parkville Station, as part of Victoria’s $11 billion Metro Tunnel project.
Workers will excavate the equivalent of 80 Olympic swimming pools during the dig.
Acting premier James Merlino and transport infrastructure minister Jacinta Allan visited the Parkville worksite in Melbourne’s inner-north on Monday to inspect where the 270-metre long, 30-metre wide station box will be built roughly 30 metres below Grattan Street, between Leicester Street and Royal Parade.
“The Metro Tunnel will make travelling to the renowned Parkville health, education and research precinct easier than ever before, slashing travel times by up to 20 minutes in each direction,” Merlino said.
“We are undertaking a monumental engineering feat as part of the Metro Tunnel, including constructing new train stations deep beneath some of Melbourne’s busiest areas,” Allan added.
The state has said excavators will initially dig roughly three metres deep, while a temporary deck made of concrete and steel is simultaneously built at surface level to reduce noise and dust impacts.
Once the deck is complete in March, digging will continue, with truck able to head underground via a ramp to remove rock and soil.
Once the excavation reaches 15 metres, gantry cranes will be used to remove rock and soil via buckets, which will be lowered through holes in the deck. The cranes will lower excavated material into trucks inside two acoustic enclosures at surface level, before the trucks leave the site.
The first of three 20-metre high gantry cranes has already been installed at the site. Each crane will be able to remove up to 35 tonnes of rock and soil at a time. All three will be in place by the end of February.