What it’s like to ride through Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel

Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel will be running dress rehearsals with passengers and staff on trains by the middle of next year, with new footage giving a glimpse of what it will be like to catch a train on the new underground railway.

High-Capacity Metro Trains are currently being tested through the tunnel, with Premier Jacinta Allan accompanying media on an invitation-only first ride.

Jacinta Allan and the Minister for Public Transport Infrastructure Danny Pearson taking a train trip from Anzac Station to Parkville station Credit: Penny Stephens

The tour started at the new Anzac underground station at the Shrine of Remembrance before moving to Town Hall and State Library, under Melbourne’s CBD, and out to the new station at Parkville.

Testing of trains has switched to a new phase trialling their ability to communicate digitally to other trains, stations, and a central control centre. This technology, known as high-capacity signalling, will allow services to run much closer together than they currently can on the network. It is a key feature of the tunnel’s promise to provide a turn-up-and-go service to passengers on the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury lines.

This testing is expected to continue until the middle of 2024 when the project will then move to dress rehearsals where services are simulated with real passengers and staff.

Internal documents show the project has a goal of starting ticketed services by as early as September 2024. Publicly, the government has not budged from its planned completion date of 2025.

Allan on Sunday said test trains had travelled more than 9500 kilometres through the Metro Tunnel since the process began in July, with staff measuring down to the millimetre to see if trains were stopping in the correction position.

“This is a big and complex task that doesn’t just take days or weeks or months. It literally takes years,” she said.

“All of that has to be worked through and then that goes into the dress rehearsal phase … That’s why we’re continuing to work towards that 2025 completion date.”

Transport Infrastructure Minister Danny Pearson said the next phase of tests would include further trials of signalling, distances between trains and braking.

“There’s a lot involved in terms of the way in which the trains integrate with the platforms, the way in which the concourse area works and the way in which they all operate together,” he said.

A flagship achievement of former premier Daniel Andrews, Metro Tunnel commenced major construction in 2017 and will eventually connect the Sunbury and Cranbourne/Pakenham lines, with projections it will carry 12,000 commuters every morning.

Jacinta Allan addressed the media before riding on the test train.Credit: Penny Stephens

The $12.6 billion cross-city rail line between Kensington and South Yarra includes the nine-kilometre tunnel under the CBD with five new underground stations located at Arden in North Melbourne, Parkville, State Library and Town Hall in the CBD, and Anzac on St Kilda Road at the Domain.

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