{"id":13864,"date":"2024-02-22T08:04:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T22:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railexpress.com.au\/?p=115389"},"modified":"2024-02-22T08:04:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T22:04:25","slug":"crl-completes-tunnel-track-laying-green-light-for-train-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=13864","title":{"rendered":"CRL completes tunnel track laying \u2013 green light for train testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Auckland\u2019s City Rail Link<\/a> project has completed installation of the second and final railway line below the central city.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The newly laid 3.4 kilometres of track will carry trains underground north from Maungawhau Station at Eden Terrace and connect with the two new central city ones \u2013 Karanga-a-Hape and Te Waihorotiu \u2013 and downtown\u2019s Waitemat\u0101 Station (Britomart). CRL\u2019s southbound line was installed last year.<\/p>\n

Dr Sean Sweeney, Chief Executive for City Rail Link<\/a> Ltd said there is plenty to celebrate.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompleting the two tracks brings us one big step closer to the next phase of the project – testing trains inside the tunnels mid-year, and from there handing CRL over next year to Auckland Transport and KiwiRail, who will operate and maintain it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

CRL Ltd\u2019s main contractor, Link Alliance, and railway infrastructure company, Martinus New Zealand, installed the track on what is one of the steepest sections of railway in New Zealand. From Maungawhau the line drops 70 metres to Waitemat\u0101, which sits below sea level. At its deepest point, CRL runs 42 metres underneath Auckland\u2019s busy Central Motorway Junction.<\/p>\n

The final section of the northbound line was installed near Te Waihorotiu Station.<\/p>\n

The project\u2019s tunnel boring machine, named in honour of M\u0101ori rights activist Dame Whina Cooper, excavated most of the tunnels to clear the way for track laying. \u00a0Other sections of tunnel, near Waitemat\u0101 Station, were built by first digging trenches and then covering them over.<\/p>\n

Link Alliance Project Director, Francois Dudouit, says conditions under Auckland were challenging with tight curves, a steep gradient and no room for heavy machinery to pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe became New Zealand\u2019s first construction organisation to gain a Rail Operators and Rail Access Provider licence under the Railways Act \u2013 an innovation that gave us the flexibility we needed to plan the job and get it done to the highest standard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The focus for 2024 shifts to train testing and the fit out of the stations and tunnels, alongside landscaping and urban realm enhancements. \u00a0The fit-out programme includes the installation of lifts, escalators, security systems, CCTV, electricity, signalling and communications.<\/p>\n

All track laying across the project\u2019s three sites is now complete. Altogether, New Zealand\u2019s largest transport infrastructure project laid 11 kilometres of line.\u00a0 In addition to the underground lines, new tracks were laid at Maungawhau to connect CRL and the Western\/North Auckland Line, and a short section of track was laid at the eastern end of Waitemat\u0101 (Britomart) Station.<\/p>\n

Over three years, CRL\u2019s project-wide track laying programme used more than 1100 tonnes of steel, poured almost 11,000 tonnes of concrete, laid 4,000 sleepers and completed hundreds of rail welds, which smooth out the \u2018clickety-clack\u2019 joins where track sections meet, to give Aucklanders a smoother ride.<\/p>\n

The post CRL completes tunnel track laying \u2013 green light for train testing<\/a> appeared first on Rail Express<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Auckland\u2019s City Rail Link project has completed installation of the second and final railway line below the central city. The \u2026 <\/p>\n

The post CRL completes tunnel track laying \u2013 green light for train testing<\/a> appeared first on Rail Express<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165,163,1167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-infrastructure","category-rail-industry-news-australia-new-zealand","category-tunnelling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13865,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13864\/revisions\/13865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}