By Lynda Myer
Sydney Metro West line with 24km length is undergoing by commissioning the first two TBMs.
While TBM Daphne is already 150m into its 11km journey from The Bays to Sydney Olympic Park, TBM Beatrice has dug 45m on the parallel tunnel.
Used on the Sydney Metro City & Southwest project, these two double-shield, hard rock machines include refurbished cutterheads, front shields and gripper shields cutterheads.
Also excavation of tunnels that are due to link Sydney Metro West line to a new stabling and maintenance facility at Clyde, has been commenced by two of three roadheaders.
As part of the Central Tunnelling Package, the twin metro tunnels have been granted to the Acciona Ferrovial joint venture in July 2021. The value of this contract that involves excavation and civil works for five new stations at The Bays, Five Dock, Burwood North, North Strathfield and Sydney Olympic Park; a crossover cavern at Burwood North and one of the two precast concrete factories at Eastern Creek; more than 70,000 concrete segments to line the twin tunnels; as well as two access shafts at Burwood North and The Bays, is A$1.96bn (US1.29bn).
Athlete Daphne Hilton who competed in three Paralympic Games between 1960-1968, winning 14 medals across athletics, swimming, archery, table tennis and fencing, was the inspiration of naming TBM Daphne, whereas TBM Beatrice is named after Beatrice Bush who sold newspapers for over 25 years from a traffic island in the area.
In order to delivering 3.5km of tunnels between The Bays and Hunter Street in the Sydney CBD, the Eastern Tunnelling contract was awarded to John Holland, CPB Contractors and Ghella joint venture (JCG JV).
Determined contract budget for Western Tunnelling package is A$2.16bn (US$1.42bn) and the Gamuda Australia and Laing O’Rourke Consortium are slated to use autonomous TBMs for the first time in Australia. Located between Sydney Olympic Park and Westmead construction of the 9km twin tunnels will be up to the two Herrenknecht machines.
Sydney Metro West will double rail capacity between Sydney’s two biggest CBDs once passenger services commence in 2030.
