Work commences on tunnel segments for Cross River Rail

Wagners Precast has commenced the manufacture of 25,000 concrete segments for the twin tunnels of the underground portion of Cross River Rail in Brisbane, Australia.

The work is being carried out at the Wacol facility of the company, which is completely Queensland-owned.

Last December, Wagners received the A$40m ($27.5m) contract to provide precast concrete tunnel segments.

The A$5.4bn ($3.84bn) Cross River Rail is a proposed rail line between Dutton Park and Bowen Hills, two major suburbs of Brisbane.

It includes the construction of 5.9km twin tunnels under the Brisbane River and CBD and four new underground stations. It also covers the refurbishment of existing stations.

Due to the Cross River Rail, the workforce at the facility will increase to 70 from the previous 15 as the segments are delivered over the next ten months. The facility is spread across 70,000m² and has a 28,000m² storage area.

Wagners CEO Cameron Coleman said: “This contract means more job security for existing staff and new job opportunities for the extra staff we will take on to fulfil the contract, now that work has started.

“Covid obviously has everyone worried, so the start of work couldn’t come soon enough and it’s fantastic that the government has been able to keep going with construction of Cross River Rail.”

Six concrete segments will be used for the creation of one tunnel ring and a total of 4,157 tunnel rings are needed to line the twin tunnels.

The 27cm-thick, 1.7m-long segments are produced at Walcol, which aims to develop 140 segments a day.