The new Anzac Station, located beneath St Kilda Road, has four entrances. Image: Victorian Government
Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel is on track to open this year a full year ahead of schedule as rail trials operate in a 10-day blitz mode.
Trains ran an extra 35,000 kilometres and completed more than 2600 trips in 10 days with 46 more drivers trained on the new high-capacity trains.
Acting Premier Ben Carroll and Acting Minister for Transport Infrastructure Melissa Horne visited Anzac Station to announce that crews had completed 160 hours of ‘dress rehearsal’ work.
Carroll says the trial train “travelled further than the distance to London and back in 10 days, passing their biggest test yet before the project opens this year – one year ahead of schedule”.
Horne says that “thousands of Victorians will use this tunnel every day and we’re powering ahead, training staff and testing advanced technology that has never been used on our rail network before”.
Eight to 12 trains travelled between Hawksburn and West Footscray via new twin 9km-long tunnels along the Sunbury and Cranbourne/Pakenham lines every hour.
The frequency is expected to increase in coming months as operators refine the new technology inside the tunnels and stations, the state government says.
Trial operations will continue throughout the year as the project team runs through more than 100 ‘real life scenario’ exercises.
These exercises will range from manual opening and closing of platform screen doors more than 13,000 times at five new underground stations in the event of a failure, to intruder detection and mass station and train evacuation exercises.
The stations are Arden, Parkville, State Library, Town Hall and Anzac.
Crews are also making progress in completing construction of the remaining two stations, Town Hall and State Library, which sit directly underneath Melbourne’s central business district.
From late January, Flinders Street will be reduced to one lane between Russell and Swanston streets (westbound) and closed between Swanston and Elizabeth streets until the end of this year, the government says.
The Metro Tunnel is the biggest upgrade of Melbourne’s train network since 1981.
