Brisbane’s first underground train to be tested before Christmas

The first Brisbane train to run in an underground tunnel will be tested “before Christmas” on the new Cross River Rail line 27 metres below Roma Street.

Cross River Rail Delivery Authority chief executive Graeme Newton revealed Queensland’s new NGR trains would get practice runs on the underground tracks after detailed engineering and safety examinations.

“It will be in the second half of 2024; before Christmas, I’d expect,” Newton said during an exclusive tour of the new underground stations as the final fit-outs take shape.

Inside the Cross River Rail tunnel beneath Roma Street.Credit: Cross River Rail Authority

“But it comes back to the safety issue. We won’t do anything until we are satisfied we have all the tick-offs from all the safety people.”

A high rail vehicle – a truck with rail wheels – has already been on the underground tracks to test engineering loads and pressures, Newton said.

“What you are trying to do is progressively go through the risk assessment,” he said.

“Then the final thing – the ultimate test – is putting a train in very slowly to make sure that everything goes all right.

“But before Christmas, yes, I’d expect so.”

Train drivers are already testing computer-animated simulations of the underground route. Putting a real train on the underground tracks will be a momentous occasion for the project, and the city.

Each six-carriage train on the Cross River Rail will be digitally guided to an exact point along the underground stations’ 220-metre-long platforms, where the state’s first automatic platform screen doors will open in front of the carriage doors.

The simulation of the Cross River Rail tracks tested by train drivers.

The trains will be guided by electronic beacons called balises, which are set discreetly into the tracks and enable the carriage doors to line up perfectly with the platform screen doors.

The aim is to provide high-frequency rail – up to 25 trains an hour – beneath the streets of Brisbane.

Cross River Rail is moving towards its third stage; the tunnelling has finished, fit-out of Brisbane’s underground rail city is half-complete, and the project has begun technical checks.

Two years ago, about 1000 people including journalists, students and competition winners walked a 430-metre stretch of the freshly dug section of the tunnel in Spring Hill when it was little more than a concrete cavern.

A balise, or electronic beacon, on the Cross River Rail tracks at Roma Street.Credit: Tony Moore

Last month, at the Woolloongabba station, the final of 24 escalators was carefully lifted into place. Those escalators will let more than 17,000 commuters get six storeys – or 27 metres – below the ground to the platform.

The canopies over the entrances to the Roma Street and Woolloongabba stations will soon be hoisted into place, giving commuters a taste of what lies beneath.

Brisbane’s Cross River Rail project began in 2007 and five premiers ago, when Peter Beattie unveiled the Inner City Rail Capacity Study, which said the region needed a new rail bridge by 2016 because the Merivale Rail Bridge could not cope.

By “first-quarter 2026”, south-east Queensland’s trains will travel along the 10.2-kilometre Cross River Rail line, including 5.9 kilometres of twin tunnels running under the Brisbane River and CBD between four new underground stations at Boggo Road, Woolloongabba, Albert Street and Roma Street.

The $6.3 billion project also includes a new surface-level Exhibition train station on the northside, while Dutton Park, Fairfield, Moorooka, Yeerongpilly, Yeronga and Rocklea stations on the southside’s Beenleigh line have been upgraded.

Cross River Rail, from Dutton Park to Exhibition Station.Credit: Cross River Rail/Queensland Government