Longest escalators in southern hemisphere installed at Sydney’s Central Station

Construction workers have installed the longest escalators in the southern hemisphere at Sydney’s Central Station, which will shift thousands of commuters every hour to new underground platforms for the city’s metro train line when it opens in three years.

Extending 27 metres below the surface, the escalators form part of the City and Southwest metro rail line from Chatswood, under Sydney Harbour to the CBD and onto Sydenham and Bankstown.

The escalators to and from the new metro platforms at Central Station.Credit: NSW government

The nine escalators in the new metro station under construction at Central Station are each 45 metres long and weigh more than 26 tonnes.

The metro platforms are included in the $944 million cost of an upgrade of Central Station, which features an underground pedestrian link due to be inspected by Premier Dominic Perrottet and Transport Minister David Elliott on Tuesday.

Dubbed “Central Walk”, the 80 metre-long pedestrian link will connect light rail passengers with suburban trains and the metro trains once they are operating, as well as buses and regional services.

Mr Perrottet said the upgrade to Central Station – Australia’s busiest – represented the “biggest improvement” to it in decades, and was an “extraordinary” engineering feat as it was carried out beneath the surface as suburban trains operated above.

A worker helps install the escalators at Central Station.Credit: NSW government

Central Walk is due to open in the final quarter of this year.

Across the project at Central Station, 42 escalators are being installed, four of which are already in use by commuters. If put end to end, the escalators would extend 955 metres.

Mr Elliott said a canopy for a concourse at the northern end of the station had been installed, providing an extra 540 square metres of open space.

“The roof over this transformed pedestrian thoroughfare, made in the Hunter Valley, sits 16 metres above ground and weighs 330 tonnes,” he said.

The City and Southwest line is the second stage of Sydney’s emerging metro rail network.

The Metro West rail line, which is the city’s biggest rail project and will extend from central Sydney to Parramatta and Westmead, is due to be completed by 2030 at a cost of up to $26.6 billion.

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