Good afternoon everyone,

I’ve spoken to, or emailed many of you yesterday about the works going on some 20m underground in front of the Botanica.

I thought I’d provide an update on progress, and the plan for works going forward.

Progress last night was not as good as expected as one of the excavators broke down in front of the excavation work face. As you can imagine this significantly slowed process and has caused a re-think from the program that I outlined to many of you yesterday.

Works will continue this afternoon once the excavator is repaired, but will stop at 10pm.

There will be some sections of the blinding that will need to come down during these works, as you’d be well aware these blinding sections have been causing the vibration as they hit the ground.

I’ve included a photo below to show the remaining works. You can see in the photo the smooth ceiling sections and the rougher sections around it. The rougher sections is where the blinding has yet to come down. For orientation, the corner you can see in the far right of the picture is in front of the Botanica at the Bowen Crescent end. The curtain at the end of the tunnel is the end of the station box.

The team will start works this afternoon focusing on the western tunnel closest to the Botanica, then into the evening they will move to the section furthest from the building to help reduce the vibration.

On Saturday morning we will resume during normal working hours, starting at 7am and work through until 1pm.

The program from here will become clearer once we see how much has been completed on Saturday.

For those who are interested, the critical interface in these works is the electrical connections into the tunnel. these connections power everything in the tunnel between Anzac Station and the Eastern Portal, including the lighting and cross passage works. The excavation can’t move forward until this power is disconnected and removed and once the excavation is complete, power needs to be reconnected as quickly as possible. With last night’s delay these disconnection works will happen early next week.

My apologies again for the disruption during these works, as always, If you’ve got any concerns, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

I’ll provide a further update on Monday.

Thanks, Rob

There will NOT be a crane tomorrow… Will be rescheduled

I know it has been really bad – I have been talking to CYP.

Seems that it was not the concrete rings but the ‘blinding layer’. Let me try and explain.

Deep underground they have a dirt surface. They lay a ‘blinding layer’ of concrete. On top of that they lay the steel reo and then the thick layer of concrete that becomes the floor of the concourse.

Once all that thick concrete layer is cured and secured to the walls, they dig underneath it all – that is all the dirt you see coming out. Once they have dug underneath they need to remove that blinding layer, it is just a working layer. It is concrete and they let it fall.

The big thuds are big chunks of concrete falling. I have asked if they can do in smaller chunks and not after 10pm…not sure that they understand the impact.

Several people have asked about building damage, this is the CYP reply (the thud at 930am today was 2.8mm/s)

The limit for the project for structural damage is 5mm/sec with our warning being 3mm/sec. We hit just under 2.5mm/sec, so whilst it was a big thud – it’s very unlikely to cause damage to any buildings.

James has included a bit of commentary of what levels of vibration mean:

~ 5.0 mm/sec Damage to very sensitive buildings may start to occur

~ 4.0 mm/sec and above – scary.  Very concerning.  Uninhabitable if exposed to vibration for long periods

~ 2.0 mm/sec RMS (2.8~3 mm/sec PPV) very annoying, concerned

~ 1.0 mm/sec RMS (1.4 – 2 mm/sec PPV) very clearly perceptible, annoying

~ 0.4 mm/sec RMS (~0.5 mm/sec PPV) clearly perceptible, potentially annoying during the daytime

~ 0.2 mm/sec RMS (0.28~0.3 mm/sec PPV) perceptible, potentially annoying during the night-time in sleeping areas

~ 0.14 mm/sec RMS (~0.2 mm/sec PPV) just perceptible

~ 0.1 mm/sec (0.14~0.2 mm/sec PPV) threshold of perception

< 0.1 mm/sec RMS (0.14~0.2 mm/sec PPV) not perceptible

I understand that apartment 608 will be available from June 3.

It has one large bedroom, one bathroom, one study nook and it has a car bay. Priced at $380 pw for 6 or 12 month lease.

Call Dixon Kestles in S Melbourne

There will be traffic management and they will allow access for delivery people / intercom access. Obviously if they are in the process of lifting then the delivery person may have to wait 10 minutes type time period.

Bottom line is that there will be a human on duty and you can talk to them if any issues.

Please note that a crane will be being used on Saturday for an owner. This will make access a bit limited…see below

A number of you have commented to me that there was an almighty crash at about 845 pm tonight. Seemed so close it seemed to be inside the building.

CYP have admitted they dropped this large concrete ring onto a hard surface at that time. It is right in front of our building. They are supposed to place some soft soil underneath….but clearly didn’t.

Bad news is that there is still another coming off tonight…hopefully they get their process right this time

Feel free to call 1800 105 105 if you want to comment directly.

Public comments on Station and surrounds

Will occur around Q3 this year is my best guess so maintain that rage for another few months!!

Tunnelling

Complete at last – the vibration should be over.

They are now removing rubble and sacrificial tunnel material plus constructing the cross passages. These are emergency escape routes between the two tunnels.

Much of the gear at Edmund Herring Oval will now be removed. Most gone by end of August EXCEPT the power station. The oval will now be used as a set down area – ironically at the public hearing all those years ago, it was to be only used for setdown

Other info

The actual steel rail to be used in the entire tunnel from South Yarra to CBD (through the Domain Station) will be pulled in from South Yarra. This is great news for us as it means we won’t have massive volumes of rail deliveries during the night!!

Good afternoon everyone,

We hope you’ve been having a great week.

We are writing today with our next weekly construction lookahead.

ANZAC STATION WEEKLY LOOK AHEAD

Please be aware that Monday is an RDO. Tunnelling support related activities will continue both underground and at EHO, but there will be no other civil works on these days.

Tunnelling and TBM support site

In exciting news, and a major milestone for the project, TBM Alice broke through at Town Hall Station earlier this week! We’ve included a picture of the breakthrough to this email for you.

She now joins TBM Millie, having completed their 1.8 kilometre journeys to the CBD, underneath St Kilda Road, Queen Victoria Gardens, the Yarra River and Flinders Street Station. This means that tunnelling in the East is now complete.

From here, work will continue stripping pipes from the completed tunnels and then disassembling the TBMs and returning the gantry pieces to the Anzac Station site.

The slurry treatment plant at Edmund Herring Oval will now be thoroughly cleaned, before work begins to dismantle and remove all of the equipment. This will take a couple of months, and then the area will be used for equipment laydown and storage.

Anzac Station entrance construction – Tram Interchange

Similar works continue in the tram interchange next week.

Waterproofing and steelfixing are ongoing to prepare for the next concrete pour to construct the base slab. Works are also continuing on preparing the area for the construction of some of the internal walls and columns.

At the moment, the next base slab concrete pour is scheduled for Thursday 13 May. As we’ve mentioned in the past, to ensure structural integrity of any concrete pour, works must be continuous and may be required to continue outside of normal construction hours.

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. Where possible, steel will be lowered into the box earlier in the shift 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

The Shrine of Remembrance station entrance site has been backfilled and asphalted. It has now been handed over to the tunnelling team who will use it to store TBM parts as they are returned to site before they’re taken away by the supplier. As no works will be occurring in this area for a while, we will not be including it in lookaheads moving forward.

Station box construction

In the southern section of the station box, work continues to excavate down to the base slab level, which includes the demolition and removal of the sacrificial tunnel.

Excavation will continue to operate underneath the roof slab 24/7. While excavators will continue underground after 10pm, surface works of loading trucks with material to remove from site will stop at 10pm.  

This second stage of excavation was originally due to be completed by the end of the month, but the team is progressing very well and it is looking likely that we will be finished before then. We will keep you updated through these emails.

We’ve included a photo this week of how far along the excavation has progressed. Last week’s photo showed the start of the works, this week’s photo is from the same position, highlighting how far the works have progressed as the team head south breaking out the sacrificial tunnels and excavating down to the base slab.

Our environment team will continue to monitor these works closely, with supervisors on site working to ensure noise is minimised where possible.

In addition to the sacrificial tunnel demolition and excavation, work has begun on formwork to construct some of the permanent columns and walls on the concourse level of the south box.

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. The next column is due to be poured next Tuesday 11 May.

Thanks,

Rob and Jordan

Just had notification of this for Thursday 9am – 1pm