Passenger Rail, Rolling stock & Rail Vehicle Design

Metronet depot contract details released

The tender to build a new railcar manufacturing facility in Bellevue for the Western Australian government’s Metronet program has been released to market.

The $50 million assembly and maintenance facility will be 180 metres long, and will include offices, workshops and storage areas to support the 246 new C-series railcars which will be built and maintained there.

The state said the facility will be fitted out when the contract to deliver the trains is finalised with Alstom later this year.

The facility will require two overhead cranes capable of lifting 25 tonnes apiece, and one heavy maintenance railroad with a crane which can lift 10 tonnes, all of which is currently out to tender.

The winning construction contractor will also be required to build a secondary high-voltage testing building.

A tender is expected to be awarded in late 2019.

WA premier Mark McGowan said the construction of a Bellevue facility would bring rail manufacturing back to the Midland area for the first time since the Midland Railway Workshops were closed in 1994.

“The release of today’s tender to construct the Bellevue depot is another step towards bringing railcar manufacturing back to Western Australia,” he said. “It means hundreds of quality, local jobs, more training and apprenticeship opportunities for our kids and WA made trains, on our new WA built Metronet lines.”

Transport minister Rita Saffioti said railcar manufacturing was a key election commitment by WA Labor.

“This is the largest railcar order in WA history,” she said. “We’ve done that deliberately to maximise competition for this large contract, thus maximising the amount of local content companies are willing to commit to.

“We’re committed to bringing back local manufacturing, and ensuring these new trains are built by local people. They’re our trains, and they should be our jobs as well.”