This was published 11 months ago
Inside the three-minute trip under Sydney Harbour on the new Metro
The space-age like Victoria Cross station beneath North Sydney is the deepest on the new rail line.Credit: Nick Moir
Within about 15 seconds, the computer-driven train accelerates from a standstill to a speed of 100km/h under Sydney Harbour, whisking its small group of passengers from a massive new underground station at North Sydney to Barangaroo in three minutes. Two minutes later, the train pulls up at another new station at Martin Place in the CBD.
The journey will become a reality for tens of thousands of commuters each day from the middle of next year when the ribbon is cut on Sydney’s first rail line under the harbour, helping overcome the natural barrier separating the CBD from the north and shaking up the city’s public transport system.
Testing on the main section of the $21.6 billion Metro City and Southwest line between Chatswood and Sydenham via the CBD reached a critical point on Wednesday when four trains began operating on the railway at any one time, up from two previously.
As part of the high-speed testing, a computer system commands the trains as they dart through twin tunnels, which are about 40 metres beneath the harbour’s water level.
Testing and commissioning manager Andrew Turner said the focus was on fine-tuning the safe operation of the train to the ride quality, ensuring passengers avoided feeling a sidewards lateral motion in their seats.
“[It is about] optimising the train acceleration out of the platform for passenger comfort as well as train deceleration back into the platform at the next station,” he said. “We want to get the train to the maximum speed to get the shortest journey time between two locations for the passenger comfort.”
In highlighting the intelligence of the operating system, Turner said the driverless trains could communicate with each other. “[They can] self-regulate their speed knowing where they are on the track,” he said.
Testing has been under way on the line since April when trains began inching their way through the tunnels at just 5km/h. So far, more than 2500 hours and 12,500 kilometres of testing has been clocked up.
The project’s delivery director for trains, systems, operations and maintenance, Melvyn Bolus, said the ride quality for passengers was critical. “We can zoom through here, but you don’t want people banging into walls,” he said. “It’s amazing how far we have gone from April 21 to now. We have multiple trains, timetables running – it’s really all coming together,” he said.
Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the metro trains would move more people across the harbour in the busiest peak hour than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Harbour Tunnel combined once the new line opens next year.
“World-class metro services will be the fastest express lane in town when travelling across the harbour from the city’s north. Sydney Metro will extend the CBD,” she said.
She described construction of the first rail tunnel under the harbour as an “incredible engineering feat”, adding that public transport projects of the scale of the Metro City and Southwest line were how “great global cities grow and evolve” and one that would encourage more people to travel by rail.
Averaging about 31 metres beneath city streets, the Victoria Cross station at North Sydney will be the city’s deepest. Yet, Victoria Cross – one of six new stations on the line – could have been almost double the depth if engineers’ early concept designs had been realised.
Sydney Metro City and Southwest project director Hugh Lawson said it had been a balancing act between ensuring that the line’s gradient from the lowest point beneath the harbour was not too steep for trains, but steep enough that a super-deep station did not have to be built under North Sydney.
Transport Minister Jo Haylen takes a driverless train under Sydney Harbour on Wednesday.Credit: Nick Moir
“As the stations get deeper, you multiply some of the challenges of getting customers down to the trains and in and out in emergencies. Customers want to get from the street to the trains as quickly as possible. They don’t want to spend a long time going around various escalators,” he said.
“Luckily, with the metro trains, one of the benefits is they can take steeper gradients than the heavier rail network.”
Victoria Cross station’s northern end is about 50 metres beneath the surface due to North Sydney’s hilly topography, while the southern end is about 31 metres below.
Featuring Australia’s largest excavated railway cavern, the massive underground station underscores the sheer scale of the $21.6 billion project, one of three metro lines under construction across Sydney. Workers built Victoria Cross by squeezing materials, supplies and equipment through an access point of just 2.5 square metres, or the size of a standard garage door.
The station’s southern entrance will serve as the main access point for commuters, sporting three banks of escalators to get people from shops and offices on the surface to the platforms below. At the northern end, the station’s 50-metre depth there has resulted in lift-only access. The four lifts can each take 27 people, which will be a key access point for local schools.
The station’s 14 lifts and 19 escalators have now all been fully installed, as well as almost two dozen Opal gates across the station’s two entrances, leaving Victoria Cross more than 85 per cent complete.
When it opens next year, it will be the busiest station on the new metro line outside Sydney’s CBD. More than 15,000 passengers are forecast to pass through Victoria Cross between 6.30am and 10am, reducing pressure on the existing North Sydney station, which at present has about 15,000 commuters passing through its gates during the morning peak.
Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan said it was a historic moment for the city to run driverless through the twin tunnels under the harbour, which had proven “very difficult” to excavate. “It’s been a big feat. There is very significant pressure under the harbour, and it’s very different to excavating elsewhere,” he said. “We needed special tunnel boring machines to be able to do that work under the harbour.”
The second section of the Metro City and Southwest line from Sydenham to Bankstown is due to open by mid-2025.
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