Cross River Rail in Brisbane (Australia) will test underground blasting at the site of the new Albert Street underground station and the new Woolloongabba station site, in a move to speed up excavation works and reduce longer term construction impact on local residents and businesses. The low-impact controlled blasting trials are being undertaken ahead of a program of controlled blasting from late July through August.

Both of these sites contain very hard rock such as Brisbane Tuff and Neranleigh Fernvale, and these trial blasts will be monitored to give an understanding of the ground conditions. Controlled blasting breaks up areas of hard rock not able to be broken using construction machinery and reduces the amount of time to spend excavating.

In May tunnelling had officially started at Roma Street site on Cross River Rail project. The project’s first roadheader (22 m long, 115 t weight) began breaking rock and excavating the first part of a tunnel section at the Roma Street site, where a 280-m station cavern will be excavated at 27 m below ground. The roadheader has been assembled in the access shaft  12 m wide, 16 m long and 18 m deep. A second roadheader will begin to work at Rome Street in September.

On the Woolloongabba site two roadheaders have been delivered and will have finished being assembled within the next few days, allowing them to begin excavation work of the cavern. The Woolloongabba site is the epicentre for the tunnelling works  for the Cross River Rail project. The 2 TBMs and the two roadheaders will be launched from here to excavate the tunnels towards Boggo Road. A TBM will be launched towards the north and they will link Albert Street, Rome Street and the northern portal. The TBMs will both be 150 m in length and 7.3 metres in diameter. The TBM will drive 30 metres under the Brisbane river. Their deepest point will be 56 m from the top of Kangaroo Point Cliff. The Cross River Rail will have 5.9 km of twin tunnels and 4 underground stations. Click here and au/37 for the tunnelbuilder archive. Visit https://crossriverrail.qld.gov.au/  and http://statements.qld.gov.au/. 30/20.