Sydney Metro’s second tunnel boring machine breaks through rock at Waterloo Station
Sydney Metro’s second tunnel boring machine has broken through the rock at Waterloo Station after six months of digging underground. Transport Minister Andrew Constance said the breakthrough was a significant milestone for the Metro project.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Sydney Metro’s second tunnel boring machine has broken through the rock at Waterloo Station after six months of digging underground.
TBM Mum Shirl began at Marrickville on November 5 and has carved through 304,000 tonnes of rock — enough to fill 47 swimming pools — to build the 3.1 kilometre tunnel.
The TBM named after an Aboriginal woman who raised 60 foster children installed 1815 reinforced concrete rings to form the tunnel from Marrickville to Waterloo.
Transport Minister Andrew Constance said the breakthrough at Waterloo was a significant milestone for the Metro project.
“While we’re about to open Sydney Metro in the northwest on 26 May, this latest milestone shows the extension of metro rail into the city is moving quickly as well,” he said.
MORE NEWS:
Dylan Walker triple-0 call released: ‘He pulled my hair’
Greenpeace activists dangle from Harbour Bridge
Vaucluse arrest: $645k of cocaine hidden inside children’s books
TBM Mum Shirl is one of five tunnel boring machines building the 15.5 kilometre twin railway tunnels between Chatswood and Marrickville as part of the Sydney Metro City rail line.
The machine will now spend about two weeks at Waterloo station being serviced before it begins tunnelling from Waterloo to Central Station.
The under construction Metro line, which includes stations at Waterloo, Central, Pitt Street, Martin Place, Barangaroo, Victoria Cross and Crows Nest, is scheduled to open in 2024.
On Sunday the Sydney Metro took its first public passengers on a trip into the city’s future.
More than 250 readers of The Daily Telegraph were given a glimpse of the new driverless trains that will arrive every four minutes from May 26.
Delighted NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said: “Sydney will remember 2019 as the Year of the Metro, the point in our history when getting around our great city started to become faster and easier.
“Not since the Sydney Harbour Bridge has a public transport project captured our imagination,” he said.
The Sydney Metro Northwest will be one of the most advanced Metro systems in the world when it opens in less than two weeks.
The 22 trains built by French multinational Alstom are based on the international Metropolis train platform, which currently operates in more than 25 cities around the world, including Singapore, Barcelona and Amsterdam.
The driverless trains have been designed to offer maximum safety and comfort to passengers, and feature the latest in passenger information systems, as well as areas for prams, luggage, bicycles, wheelchair spaces and separate priority seating for those with reduced mobility. Once inside, passengers can circulate freely throughout the entire length of the train.
There are three doors per carriage, which make boarding and departing the train faster and easier.
Originally published as Sydney Metro’s second tunnel boring machine breaks through rock at Waterloo Station
‘We got them’: Influencer details ‘mission’ to expose health workers
The Israeli influencer who exposed the vile tirade of two Sydney nurses says their comments have left him wondering who he can trust, describing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Australia as ‘insane’.
‘I admire Pauline’: Shock Indigenous candidate ready to roll for Hanson
A one-handed Indigenous truck driver endorsed by One Nation for the federal election says he is running to end the ‘hoax’ that Pauline Hanson is racist.