Good afternoon everyone,

We hope you’ve been having a lovely week.

We are writing today with our next weekly construction lookahead.

Tunnelling and TBM support site

TBM Alice has completed 1.6 kilometres of the 1.8 kilometre journey to the Town Hall Station. Currently, she is tunnelling opposite the platforms of Flinders Street Station, and is very close to Town Hall Station.

The slurry treatment plant at Edmund Herring Oval continues to operate, treating the spoil coming from TBM Alice. Trucks for spoil disposal will continue for the duration of tunnelling in the East.

The first rear gantry from TBM Mille has now been pulled back through the tunnel to Anzac Station. Over the coming weeks you’ll see sections of the TBM removed from the acoustic shed and stored to the side ahead of their removal from site via truck.

Anzac Station entrance construction – Tram Interchange

The first concrete pour for the tram interchange station entrance was completed earlier this week.

Next week, work continues on waterproofing and steelfixing in the remaining sections of the entrance, preparing for the next concrete pour.

As we mentioned in last week’s look-ahead, steel fixing is one of the quieter activities as it is done largely by hand, in the coming weeks there may be some steel fixing carried out up until 10pm in the tram interchange. Any steel will be pre lowered into the box prior to 6pm to avoid unnecessary disruption. At this stage it’s unlikely any extended hour steel fixing will be required next week.

Anzac Station entrance construction – Shrine of Remembrance

Backfilling work is nearly complete at the Shrine Entrance, with crews working to asphalt the area ahead of handover to the tunnelling team for storage. The completion of backfilling means that stage one of the Shrine entrance is now complete.

Station box construction

In the southern section of the station box, work has begun to excavate down to the base slab level, which includes the demolition and removal of the next stretch of sacrificial tunnel. We’ve included a picture from the first day of the phase two of excavation, which shows the blinding layer of concrete being broken out ahead of excavation down to base slab level.

As we mentioned last week, we will trial 24/7 excavation underground. Excavators will be running under the concrete decks after 10pm and we will closely monitor the noise during this time. A member of the environment team will be out on site conducting monitoring on the first night of works.

From Monday next week, crews will be loading trucks on the surface up until 10pm with excavated material to drive from site. As with the underground excavation, the lessons learned from last time will be applied – with all light towers running off mains power and the excavator operators barred from using the bucket on concrete to scrape up loose material.  Loadout from 6pm to 10pm will only be of softer materials with no load-out of concrete segments into truck beds.

This Saturday, crews will be loading out on the surface until 3pm, as excavation continues beneath the roof slab.

Over in the northern end of the station box underneath the acoustic shed, the team continues to construct internal columns, and install falsework and steelfixing for the next concourse slab pour.

Albert Road Reserve event

Calling all good doggos!

The Metro Tunnel Creative Program and Shaggy Doo are offering local pooches free dog treats and grooming, including nail clipping, brush outs, tidy clips and deodorizing.

8am-12noon, Saturday 15 May 2021

Albert Road Reserve Pop-Up Park

No bookings required. First in, best groomed.

Thanks,

Rob and Jordan