Engineering, Passenger Rail

Piling works to begin in Melbourne CBD for new Town Hall Station

Major piling works are set to begin at City Square in Melbourne for the building of the new underground Town Hall Station, one of five being built for the Metro Tunnel project.

The works will be carried out in the large shaft at the site created following the demolition of the three-storey car park beneath City Square and subsequent removal of around 5,000 tonnes of debris.

Early next year, an acoustic shed will be erected over the work site prior to the beginning of 24-hour excavation and tunnelling works.

“We’re getting on with the job of building a world-class rail system for Melbourne with turn-up-and-go services that will get you home safer and sooner every day,” said premier Daniel Andrews, who was visiting the site today.

He was joined by state transport minister Jacinta Allan and Michele Dix, the managing director of London’s Crossrail 2. Dix was visiting the Metro Tunnel project to share her experience working on the massive transport infrastructure project in the UK.

Approximately 7,000 jobs are expected to be created by the Metro Tunnel project, including tradespeople, crane operators and tunnel boring machine crews, and 800 apprentices, trainees and cadets.

“The Victorian Liberals had four years and built nothing – we haven’t wasted a minute with over $40 billion to transform our transport network to get Victorians where they need to go safer and sooner,” Allan said.

The $11 billion Metro Tunnel Project will build nine kilometres of twin tunnels beneath the CBD in an effort to ease congestion on the City Circle and surrounding lines. It is being carried out by the Cross Yarra Partnership consortium led by Lendlease Engineering, John Holland, Bouygues Construction and Capella Capital.

Town Hall Station will be located under Swanston Street, between Flinders Street and Collins Street. The station will include an underground passenger connection to the platforms at Flinders Street Station, allowing commuters to conveniently interchange between Metro Tunnel and City Loop train services.