When you may be able to travel in the Metro Tunnel
There is light at the end of the $14 billion Metro Tunnel project, with test trains set to run soon and the time frame for passenger services possibly brought forward.
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Test trains are scheduled to run through the Metro Tunnel from as early as next month, boosting hopes the $14 billion rail line could take passengers by late-2024.
The major milestone would lead to High Capacity Metro Trains and signalling systems being trialled between South Yarra and Kensington during a rigorous 16-month safety process.
If successful, the tunnel would be on track to open months earlier than expected, with the project builder and government recently promising passengers could travel through the alternative to the City Loop in 2025.
The Sunday Herald Sun understands the Andrews Government, project builders and operator Metro Trains aim to run test trains through the tunnel within weeks.
Getting trains on tracks would be a big boost for the government, which has been rocked over the past fortnight by allegations of multimillion dollar rorts on major projects including the Metro Tunnel.
Dozens of rail safety workers have been stripped of accreditation while an investigation continues into the allegation of “ghost shifts”, but insiders say this is unlikely to cause widespread project delays.
It is understood one section of the Metro Tunnel near South Yarra still needs welding and further electrical work in the coming weeks, and city-bound tracks will be ready first for live trains.
This will see the Sunshine Signal Control Centre run testing, with drivers varying speeds through the 9km tunnel and ensuring trains and the control centre are “talking” accurately.
The government did not respond to questions about the test start date, or whether the investigations into alleged rorts could impact on those plans.
Publicly, the government has maintained that the finish date for the Metro Tunnel is 2025.
But internal documents referred to in a report by the Victorian Auditor-General last year showed that builders on the project have a contracted target completion date of September 2024 for “Day 1” of passenger services.
When that report was released, Department of Transport secretary Paul Younis wrote to the VAGO to clarify that the 2025 completion date was in place because of a “program contingency” that allowed for a longer time frame for finishing touches.
Disruptions caused by Covid restrictions also created delays on the build, with VAGO flagging an initial construction schedule was out by 52 days, but builders have been scrambling to claw this time back over the past year.
In a major development, workers finished laying tracks at the end of May.
Since the Andrews government was elected in 2014, the Metro Tunnel has been its signature rail project and a core part of the so-called Big Build.
Premier Daniel Andrews made it a key election issue, pledging to scrap the Napthine government’s East West Link proposal and get to work on the underway railway line instead.
While the project has made good time, it has been battered by budget blowouts worth more than $3bn.
Project builders – which include construction giants John Holland and CPB – coughed up almost $1.4bn of the overruns.
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