When I first talked ab out charging EV’s, a few people asked about fire risks.
We checked with our insurers and they told us they the risk of fire does not increase with EV charging – so long as it is done by a licensed electrician.
I’ve seen recent info that suggests that buildings that have no EV charging infrastructure have increased risk of fires…HUH?? The claim was that if the building has no proper infrastructure then people run cables and power boards all over the place. A bit of a long bow but probably right.
Recently I personally took my EV to an SES / CFA workshop so that emergency workers can see the new generation of EVs.
They pointed out this site that they use and it has lots of great info on EV’s and fires. Basically low risk but different info for people to learn.
Below is a snapshot of the works coming up on site next week.
Anzac Station entrance construction – Tram Interchange
Those with a view of the site will have seen that the station canopy team are making great progress on the installation of the cross laminated timber (CLT) panels. The works started in the middle of the canopy and are progressively making their way to the outer edges. Nothing new to report next week, the team will largely be doing much of the same up on the roof. As has been the case for the past few weeks, some work on the canopy will be ongoing after 6pm, but will be wrapped up by 8pm. Tomorrow, elements of the canopy install are also expected to proceed past 1pm, but is not expected to generate significant noise.
Station box construction
Once again, the works down underground remain largely consistent with previous weeks. The crane on surface next to Domain Road is incredibly busy, as everything that needs to go down into the station box is lowered down by one crane. There isn’t a minute of this cranes day that isn’t accounted for. One of the things you may not have noticed being lowered down is the infrastructure that will support the ventilation for the new station. This includes fans and baffles that effectively slow down the air that comes through the station, pushed by the approaching the trains. This air is slowed down and discharged via the stations ventilation on surface. We’ve included a photo of some of this infrastructure that has been installed at the southern end of the station at concourse level. Similar equipment will be installed at the northern section and connected to the ventilation system there.
Surface Works
In the middle of the site there has been some good progress on the delayed pour strips. As you might recall, the delayed pour strips are the final sections of the station roof to be tied into the walls and effectively lock the station box structure in place, before we demolish the D-wall above these sections. Next week we will start the demolition of the sections of D-wall closest to Melbourne Grammar School, we expect that this will continue for the entire the week.
Earlier this year we trialled large custom fitted noise blankets that wrap around the excavator heads to reduce noise, and saw some decent reduction in the decibels. We’ve purchased additional blankets for the larger CYP owned excavators – they arrived this week and are being fitted to the machines, so if you see excavators wrapped in blankets next week, it’s not to protect from the cold – they’re designed to offer some relief from the noise.
Further to the south, preparation work is well underway for the new temporary diversion road for the southbound lane of St Kilda Road. Next week will see waterproofing of the newly completed delayed pour strip, before we start the backfill and surface preparation commence in this area. This is likely to also include the use of vibratory rollers on this section, the vibratory rollers have been working in the area this week, however the sections they have been rolling have been pre-existing sections of road that don’t require as much compaction. The sections above the delayed pour strips will require some extra attention.
The construction and commissioning of the new section of road will allow us to continue the delayed pour strip/demolition/backfill works further to the south. We’re also aiming to get the noise dampening blankets fitted to the Delta excavators that have recently arrived the southern end of the site too. These machines are operated by a subcontractor, but we’re looking to get some attached to their machines also.
Moving up to the northern end of the station, the newest addition to the landscape on site this week has been the pre-cast sections installed in the north of the site adjacent to Albert Road North. As I mentioned in a previous update these pre-cast panels make up the future ventilation system for the station and will be hooked up to the same type of ventilation infrastructure featured in this week’s photo.
Staying in the northern section, works are continuing the relocation works for the High Voltage cable. The team are moving the cable into its new location above the station box. Next Monday there will some work to demolish redundant piles as the trench makes it’s way across the station box and up towards Domain Road. We expect this will only take 2-3 days to break out.
Welcome to the end of another busy week – and the start of school holidays, for those of you for whom that is relevant.
Below is a snapshot of the works coming up on site next week. A reminder that works will recommence on Tuesday with Monday an RDO.
Anzac Station entrance construction – Tram Interchange
After a few false starts, the cross laminated timber (CLT) panels have commenced installation on the station canopy, you’ll notice that there are two scaffold towers adjacent to the canopy, these will provide access to the canopy roof the installation of the CLT panels. The team will start in the middle of the canopy, install the panels, and then use the panels as a working platform as they make their way out to each end of the station canopy. The centre diamonds within the diagrid of the canopy won’t have CLT panel installation, these sections will house the future skylights within the canopy structure. As mentioned last week, some work on the canopy is ongoing after 6pm, the should be wrapped up by 8pm, so shouldn’t be an extended evening presence for these works. The steel permitter beam around the canopy is also now complete, showing off the shape of the structure.
Station box construction
There will be no shortage of concrete pumps on surface level over the coming days and weeks as the team underground form up the permanent structures on the concourse level, the platform level and the stairwells that connect the two. The emergency egress stairwell in the north and south are both underway – with the south nearly complete and north has just begun. Concrete will also be flowing to infill the network of blockwork walls that make up the back of house rooms and corridors on concourse level. Tomorrow we’ll have a concrete pump out on site to start the first concrete pour will occur for the topping slab, which is poured on the top of those precast panels, which we included in a photo in last week’s update.
Surface Works
For those closest to the southern end of the site – you’ll have seen that we have started breaking up the surface of the site in preparation for the road and drainage works through this section of site.
These road and drainage works will create a temporary alignment for the south bound lane of St Kilda Road. Switching the southbound traffic onto this road alignment will give the team access to the sections of D-wall that sit directly underneath where the southbound lane is currently positioned. There will be more detail about this switch in upcoming construction notifications, but it won’t result in any access changes for buildings. The breakout of the surface in this area commenced in earnest on Thursday this week and also involved pulling up old tram tracks that have been in place since before the project began. These tracks were laid during the projects first St Kilda Road realignment way back in 2018. The removal of these tracks is timely, as we are quickly approaching the third and final tram line alignment, which is scheduled for late November this year.
On the progress of the D-wall breakout and delayed pour strips, we’ve recently completed the waterproofing and the concrete pour for the section of Stage 3 that is closest to Melbourne Grammar School. Next week during school holidays, we’ll be back with the excavator to start breaking back this section of D-wall, as you’d imagine, this will be particularly noisy work.
Those in the northern end of site might notice an excavator making its way along the eastern side of the site, this is trenching the alignment for a future high voltage cable that will be relocated on top of the station roof. Later in July the project team will launch an under-road bore to feed the cable through to the connection point in Park Street. This will require the temporary closure of the left turn from St Kilda Road into Park Street, we’ll send out a construction notification about these works once we’ve got the exact dates confirmed.
I still find it pretty amazing that BP managed to get approval for this servo in St Kilda Rd, but it is going up before my eyes. It is spectacular though, hate to think what it has cost.
I just hope it will have electric vehicle (EV) charging.
This week I’ve had another in depth look at the various documents that I shared some weeks back.
Firstly – confirming that we will get our trees back.
Something that intrigued me was that it seemed like we have ‘garden beds’ between our street trees out the front. This is the final design – so a couple of years away. This is the “picture”
How do you interpret that?? Well the different colours mean different things and different plantings.
The dark green in front of the Massage place will have PLT-321 and the other area will have PLT-229. What does that mean? Sorry the snip is a bit hazy
What are these plants?
Arjuga Reptans – photo by G. Edward JohnsonDianella caerulea – photo by Ethel AardvarkLomandra longifolia ‘Tanika” – photo by Alpine nurseriesFicinia nodosa – photo from Garden Express
I hope you enjoyed the later start today – 730am instead of the normal 7am…..we have been hassling them about it
In case you didn’t read it in their blurb yesterday…
In response to feedback, we’ve pushed back the start time for the jackhammer demolition to 7:30am, as opposed to kicking off right at 7am as we had in the past – It’s a small respite but hopefully makes some difference, particularly on a Saturday. Due to the high noise of the sucker trucks, we’ll also hold them up until 7:30am on Saturday. We’ll start with two and then only add the other machine later in the morning. I appreciate that these are only small wins – but I hope it makes some difference. We genuinely appreciate everyone’s patience as we get through this disruptive work.
..and those sucker trucks. They are essentially vacuuming up the dirt. The feedback on that is…
Right now we have just under 100m of exposed delayed pour strip that we need to clean out with the sucker trucks – we are achieving approximately 4m per day, per sucker truck. While it is certainly annoying to have three of them going at one time, we do achieve significantly greater productivity and all going well they’ll be finished the bulk of their existing task by the end of next week – whereas if we persisted with a single truck, we’d have them on site for another 25 days to work through the exposed area.
Welcome to the first week of June – It’s hard to believe we are half way through 2022 already. We’ll be catching trains to Parkville before we know it.
A snapshot of works happening out on site next week is below – As per last week we’ll focus on the activities on surface and briefly touch on what is happening below the surface.
Anzac Station entrance construction – Tram Interchange
The timber canopy is coming together very nicely, if you look carefully you’ll see that in addition to the diagrid sections, we’ve also installed the first sections of the steel perimeter beam on both the eastern and western sides of the canopy. As the diagrid sections are progressively installed, these steel beams will be attached to the outer edge to make up the shape of the structure.. In addition to the perimeter beams – we’ll start installing cross laminated timber (CLT) panels on top of the diagrid sections. The first of these CLT panels will start to be installed next week.
I’ve mentioned in last few updates that there will be some sections of this work may need continue up until 10pm on some nights (It has also been in the monthly construction update). Up until now we have managed to avoid any work past 6pm, however the first of these extended works will commence next week with these CLT panels being installed up until 10pm.
Station box construction
On concourse level, the teams are progressively building the internal rooms for the station to operate. The southern end is the back of house that will service the operation of trains in the future. The northern section will house the future retail as well as the rooms for the Metro Trains staff and operation of the future station. The rooms at the southern end are well progressed and are being fitted out for their future use, while the rooms at the southern end are progressively coming together with blockwork ongoing. On the platform level we continue to install the pre-cast sections of the future train platform as well as doing the concreting work to tie the tunnels into the station box. We’ve had these tie in works into the update for a while, so this week I thought I’d share a photo showing the before and after. As you can see by the formwork and bracing it is an incredibly intricate piece of work to tie the tunnel into the station box. The emergency exit stairs for the station are also taking shape and have been progressively poured over the past few weeks.
Surface Works
While the surface works have been noisy of late, I’m pleased to report that they have made good progress. The team have slightly revised their sequencing and are now breaking out sections of the D-wall prior to doing the delayed pour strip, this is helping progress the works more swiftly. Today we saw three NDD trucks (sucker trucks) working away on the surface. As I mentioned last week, we realise that these trucks are a particularly grating sound and we are trying to get this work done as quickly as possible.
Right now we have just under 100m of exposed delayed pour strip that we need to clean out with the sucker trucks – we are achieving approximately 4m per day, per sucker truck. While it is certainly annoying to have three of them going at one time, we do achieve significantly greater productivity and all going well they’ll be finished the bulk of their existing task by the end of next week – whereas if we persisted with a single truck, we’d have them on site for another 25 days to work through the exposed area.
In response to feedback, we’ve pushed back the start time for the jackhammer demolition to 7:30am, as opposed to kicking off right at 7am as we had in the past – It’s a small respite but hopefully makes some difference, particularly on a Saturday. Due to the high noise of the sucker trucks, we’ll also hold them up until 7:30am on Saturday. We’ll start with two and then only add the other machine later in the morning. I appreciate that these are only small wins – but I hope it makes some difference. We genuinely appreciate everyone’s patience as we get through this disruptive work.
The Botanica 
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