William Scott
The Victorian Government’s Metro Tunnel project has completed its biggest test to date, with trains running a further 35km and taking more than 2,600 trips across ten days.
The project is powering towards opening later this year – one year ahead of schedule.
Victorian Acting Premier, Ben Carroll, and Acting Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Melissa Horne, announced that crews have completed 160 hours of ‘dress rehearsal’ works, as part of the project’s trial operations phase.
Trains travelled between Hawksburn and West Footscray through the new tunnels along the Sunbury and Cranbourne/Pakenham lines at a frequency between eight and 12 per hour.
The frequency is expected to increase in the coming months as operators refine the new technology inside the tunnels and stations.
The ten-day blitz of operations were an opportunity for Metro Trains staff to become more familiar with the project, with another 46 train drivers trained to operate the new High-Capacity Metro Trains – taking the total number of trained drivers to around 200.
Trial operations will continue throughout the year as the team runs through more than 100 ‘real life scenario’ exercises to ensure the project’s complex systems and technology are ready for passengers later this year.
This will range from manual opening and closing of the platform screen doors in the event of a failure, to intruder detection and mass station and train evacuation exercises.
Crews are also making progress to complete construction on the remaining two stations, Town Hall and State Library, which sit directly underneath Melbourne’s CBD.
The Metro Tunnel is the biggest upgrade of Melbourne’s train network since 1981 – freeing up capacity on the City Loop to deliver more trains more often and better connecting Victorians to jobs, health and education.
Victorian Acting Premier, Ben Carroll, said, “Our test trains have travelled further than the distance to London and back in ten days, passing their biggest test yet before the project opens this year – one year ahead of schedule.”
Victorian Acting Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Melissa Horne, said, “Thousands of Victorians will use this tunnel every day and we’re powering ahead, training staff and testing advanced technology that has never been used on our rail network before.”
