By rosebell
As currently the first TBM is excavating the 6.5km road tunnels between Watsonia and Bulleen, the tunneling process has been started on Melbourne’s North East Link.
While the Spark consortium is due to operate two TBM to construct the twin tunnels,each of these machines is 90m long, 15.6m in diameter high, and weighs 4,000 tonnes, among the biggest in the southern hemisphere.
The two Herrenknecht machines have been named Zelda and Gillian after two local women. Zelda D’Aprano AO (1928-2018) was a renowned activist who established the Women’s Action Committee and was a key player in a long campaign to close the gender pay gap.
Dr Gillian Opie is a neonatal paediatrician at the Mercy Hospital for Women in Heidelberg and founded Australia’s first breast milk bank more than 10 years ago.
The daily advance of each TBM will be almost 10m, while working up to 45m underground and the number of installed segments along the tunnel length will be around 44,000.
Considering that the Victorian Tunnelling Centre at Holmesglen providing state-of-the-art training, over than 100 tunnel workers have undergone specialised training.
Benefiting 100% renewable electricity supplied by Australia’s first First Nations owned energy retail company, the tunnels are going to be built, whereas Yurringa Energy will deliver 137.5 GWh of renewable electricity.
Additionall, the location of using the spoil from the tunneling operations will be across North East Link and other transport sites where possible, including the rehabilitation of a former quarry at Point Wilson and the former Orica site in Deer Park.
While the tunneling process will continue into 2026, the scheduled date for inauguration of the tunnels is 2028. The new route will take 15,000 trucks off local roads and cut journey times by 35 minutes.
The responsibility of building, operating and maintaining the tunnels and key interchanges will be up to Spark consortium, comprising Webuild, GS Engineering and Construction, CPB Contractors, China Construction Oceania, Ventia, Capella Capital, John Laing Investments, DIF and Pacific Partnerships.
