Wagners begins work supplying key Cross River Rail component

WAGNERS has begun work on a $40 million contract supplying a key component of the $5 billion Cross River Rail project – the tunnel walls.

Plant operators Luke Garton and Jason Nattress. Picture: Annette Dew

WAGNERS has begun work on a $40 million contract supplying a key component of the $5 billion Cross River Rail project - the tunnel walls. 

From its Wacol facility, the Toowoomba company will build 25,000 concrete segments. 

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and State Development Minister Kate Jones announced yesterday work had begun on the project, alongside Wagners Holding Company CEO Cameron Coleman and directors John and Denis Wagner.

Wagners will begin batching the 25,000 concrete segments in September.

Ms Palaszczuk said the company would be employing 70 direct staff, five days a week, 24 hours a day, to construct the segments.

"This is an enormous job and it means local businesses are benefiting from working on Cross River Rail, which of course is a mega $5 billion project," she said.

Ms Jones was delighted to see another contract on the Cross River Rail project go to a Queensland company.

"This is an absolutely transformational project for Brisbane and for Queensland and wherever possible we are engaging Queensland contractors so we can use Queensland-made and built material on Cross River Rail," she said.

Ms Jones said the magnitude of Wagners' Wacol facility was staggering, with more than 70,000 cubic metres of land as well as a storage capacity of 28,000 cubic metres.

"They'll need every bit of this space to store these tunnel segments," Ms Jones said.

"If you lay the 25,000 segments they'll produce for Cross River Rail end-to-end you'd reach from Wacol to the heart of Brisbane City with a few segments to spare."

The segments are 27cm thick and 1.7m long and six are used to create one tunnel ring.

More than 4150 tunnel rings will be required to line each of the twin Cross River Rail tunnels.

Mr Coleman said the company was "really excited about this project".

Originally published as Wagners begins work supplying key Cross River Rail component