Press release - The Melbourne Metro Tunnel Project’s twin rail tunnels are now halfway to completion, with the state’s biggest ever public transport project forging ahead over the past month.
Tunnel boring machines (TBMs) Joan and Meg have now both finished digging between the tunnel’s western entrance in Kensington and the site of the new Parkville Station, with Meg breaking through at Parkville late last week .
The third TBM, Millie, completed tunnelling between the new Anzac Station site under St Kilda Road and the eastern tunnel entrance in South Yarra on Friday. The fourth TBM, Alice, is just weeks from completing a parallel route.
The TBMs have so far excavated more than 364,000 cubic metres of rock and soil and installed more than 30,000 individual concrete segments, each weighing 4.5 tonnes, to line the tunnel walls as crews worked around the clock with stringent health measures in place.
Both TBM Meg and TBM Joan, which broke through at Parkville Station in late August, are being moved through the station site before being cleaned and recommissioned.
TBM Joan will be relaunched in the coming weeks to dig towards the new State Library Station, with TBM Meg following soon after as they make their way towards the heart of Melbourne’s CBD.
TBM Millie’s cutterhead and shield will be lifted out of the South Yarra tunnel entrance site by crane then transported to the Anzac Station site. The rest of the TBM will be pulled back through the tunnel to Anzac Station, then reassembled and relaunched towards Town Hall Station later this year.
The four TBMs are named after ground-breaking women: Victoria's first female Premier Joan Kirner, Australian women's cricket captain Meg Lanning, Victoria's first female Member of Parliament Lady Millie Peacock and wartime medical hero Alice Appleford.
Construction on the Metro Tunnel Project has continued throughout September, with workers adhering to strict COVID-19 safety measures in line with the Victorian Government’s stage 4 restrictions.
The Metro Tunnel Project will create additional capacity for more than half a million passengers a week during peak periods and transform the way Victorians travel around Melbourne.
The project will connect the Sunbury Line to the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines via two 9km-long rail tunnels up to 30 metres below the streets of Melbourne, with five new underground stations, linked to the existing network at key locations. For further information please click this link https://metrotunnel.vic.gov.au/
