- Published:
- Wednesday 5 February 2020
Construction of the Metro Tunnel Project’s new State Library Station is well underway, with the main station cavern now excavated and work starting on the permanent station.
Premier Daniel Andrews and Minister for Transport Infrastructure Jacinta Allan were deep below Swanston Street this morning to inspect progress on the station and meet the workers bringing State Library Station to life.
The cavern under the CBD has been excavated using three road headers, each of which can excavate around 500 tonnes of rock every day. They are equipped with cutterheads that smash through rock three times harder than concrete.
The road headers have finished more than a year of work under the city, digging 36 metres under Swanston Street while also excavating the station length of 240 metres between Franklin and La Trobe Streets. Later this year, they will go back underground to dig out the rail tunnels on each side of the central station cavern.
The first permanent building works for the station are also now underway, with a concrete floor installed that will form part of the future platform.
State Library and Town Hall stations feature ‘trinocular caverns’ – three overlapping tunnels dug by road headers to create an open space for passengers, and allowing the concourse and platforms to be integrated on one level.
State Library Station will be 240 metres long and 30 metres wide, and its 19-metre platforms will be some of the widest underground metro platforms in the world.
The station will include an underground passenger connection to Melbourne Central Station, so passengers can easily change between Metro Tunnel and City Loop train services.
When finished, the Andrews Labor Government’s Metro Tunnel will create capacity for more than a half-a-million extra passengers per week across Melbourne’s train network during peak periods and slash travel times.
Quotes attributable to Premier Daniel Andrews
“While our city keeps moving, people are hard at work below the ground building the Metro Tunnel.”
“A huge amount of work continues to be done at State Library Station, with the platform already take shaping. We’re not wasting a minute getting on with this important project, to deliver more trains, more often for Victorians.”
Quotes attributable to Minister for Transport Infrastructure Jacinta Allan
“We’re building new world-class train stations deep beneath some of Melbourne’s busiest areas, while doing everything we can to minimise disruption at street level.”
“We’re delivering the road and rail projects we need to get to people where they need to go sooner, including the Metro Tunnel – the biggest public transport project in Victoria’s history.”