CPB Contractors, UGL and Pacific Partnerships, all CIMIC Group companies, successfully helped deliver Australia's first fully automated railway as part of the Sydney Metro North West (SMNW) - Northwest Rapid Transit (NRT) consortium in 2019.
Project Director Scott Hunter has been with CPB Contractors since 2006, starting his metro journey on the SMNW project in 2016 as Operations Manager and later moving up to Project Director, a role he continued as CPB Contractors delivered the Sydney Metro City & Southwest line-wide project with UGL.
Scott says the project's five-year design and construction timeline was a complex logistical exercise where teamwork, meticulous planning and in-depth knowledge were heroes.
"The successful delivery of the NRT project came down to our end-to-end project delivery expertise. Across 14 sites, all teams were committed to their role – be this designing, constructing or readying the alignment for testing and commissioning – to ensure an on-time opening to commuters,", explains Scott.
During the project, crews successfully constructed eight stations, installed over 50,000 sleepers, laid 60 kilometres of rail tracks, poured more than 30 kilometres of track slabs in tunnels, built 30 kilometres of walkways and ran more than 240 kilometres of overhead wires and high-voltage cables.
CPB Contractors, UGL and Pacific Partnership played a key role in bringing Australia’s fully automated railway to life, with delivery involving:
- 30km of tunnelling works associated with the Tunnels and Stations Excavations package
- Construction of eight new railway stations with commuter car parking for 4,000 vehicles;
- Construction of a Sydney Metro Trains Facility for maintenance and stabling of metro trains at Rouse Hill
- Construction of two new services facilities
- Installation of 23 kilometres of new track and rail systems
- Power supply for operations between Rouse Hill and Chatswood
- Conversion of 13 kilometres of existing railway and upgrading five stations on the Epping to Chatswood Rail Line to metro standards
- Delivery of 22 fully-automated, six-carriage metro trains
- A 15-year operations and maintenance lease.
Since then, the CIMIC Group companies have delivered the Sydney Metro City & Southwest Tunnels and Station Excavation package and are now delivering:
Gadigal Integrated Station Development
Sydney Metro City & Southwest line-wide Works
Sydney Metro West - Eastern Tunnelling Package
Sydney Metro Western Sydney Airport - Station Boxes and Tunnelling
Sydney Metro Western Sydney Airport - Surface and Civil Alignment Works.
"Playing our part in delivering Australia’s biggest public transport project is something for our CPB Contractors team to be very proud of;. We’ve been part of this city-shaping project since the very beginning, enabling our teams to apply true end-to-end expertise,", adds Scott.
CPB Contractors and UGL have been part of the Sydney Metro journey since the very beginning and have proudly delivered the largest combined work packages along the alignment.