Mounting costs associated with the Suburban Rail Loop are fast taking the project to a point of no return, after the Victorian government ordered delivery of four more tunnel boring machines from China.
Premier Jacinta Allan will visit a construction site outside the panda capital of Chengdu on Friday to announce the new order, which doubles the number of machines being assembled and freighted to Melbourne to help build Victoria’s largest, and largely unfunded, infrastructure project.
The additional machines, which are scheduled to arrive next year and be in the ground before the November 2026 state election, will bore twin tunnels between Glen Waverley and Box Hill. Two each will dig in opposite directions from the Burwood launch site.
The $130 million cost of the machines are included in a $1.6 billion tunnelling contract awarded to the Suburban Connect consortium in 2024.
Another four tunnel boring machines already on order and due to arrive in Melbourne by the end of this year will start work from the Clarinda launch site and dig north towards Burwood and south to Cheltenham.
Once the machines are assembled and delivered, the new commitment will add to the estimated $5 billion of taxpayer money already sunk into SRL East, the first stage of a long-term project that, if eventually completed, will circle beneath Greater Melbourne, from Cheltenham to Werribee, at an unknown cost.
The Victorian government has pledged to provide one-third of the estimated $34.5 billion cost of SRL East and make up a third through investment capture methods not yet specified. The federal government has contributed $2.2 billion but says it won’t tip in any more money until the Allan government satisfies concerns raised by Infrastructure Australia about the financial viability of the project.
The tunnelling contracts for SRL East have already been let, but under their terms the government is required to only make payments as costs are progressively incurred by the construction and engineering consortia.
The Age Summary
Great win for Victoria with the new tunnel machines this is great success.
Jacinta also stated she was interested in using chinese railway engineering services more as they were more experienced. This is surekly true the railway engineering is victoria is terrible.
There will be celebrations when this line is completed but nothing like the celebrations we will hopefully see when the Melbourne airport rail link is finished.