Meet the man who moved a mountain
A 16-MONTH homecoming has ended for a man charged with overseeing an $80.5million upgrade to the Toowoomba Range crossing.
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A 16-MONTH homecoming has ended for a man charged with overseeing an $80.5 million upgrade to the Toowoomba Range crossing.
Seymour Whyte project manager Sean Savage gained his civil engineering qualifications at the University of Southern Queensland two decades ago.
Those skills have been put to practical use on a grand scale with the repair of damage caused by floods in 2010/11 and 2013.
Mr Savage and about 25 of his colleagues were among the workers who moved to Toowoomba in March last year to begin the repair job.
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Up to 150 workers have manned the site each day since then.
Traffic and the terrain were major challenges.
"The main process was to improve the slope stability of the works," Mr Savage said.
Large boulders were removed and soil nails put into the ground to improve the site's resilience to extreme weather.
"It is a good feather in the cap.
"It has been a very challenging job.
"Basically, we have finished the work and we are just tidying up stuff now."
He said he would return to his Brisbane home ahead of his next project.
"There was a big change in the city (Toowoomba) after 20 years."
Department of Main Roads and Transport Deputy Director General Paul Smith thanked emergency service personnel for their cooperation in managing traffic during the project.
"It was the particular geotechnical complexity which made the project a very great challenge, not just for the department, but for emergency services and also for the contractor, Seymour Whyte," Mr Smith said.
Range works
- Nearly half a million cubic metres of material had to be removed from the cut faces.
- More than 2km of concrete drains used in the project
- About 23,000 vehicles use the Range each day
- A tricky project in maintaining access for the motoring public and industry
Originally published as Meet the man who moved a mountain
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