Chatswood to Sydenham
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The Chatswood to Sydenham component of Sydney Metro City & Southwest involves the construction and operation of a new metro rail line from Chatswood under Sydney Harbour and through Sydney’s CBD out to Sydenham.
Tunnelling under Sydney Harbour
A specialised tunnel boring machine (TBM) designed for the geological conditions under Sydney Harbour excavated twin metro rail tunnels from Barangaroo to Blues Point.
How Sydney Metro's tunnel depths compare to other tunnels across Sydney. View text version of this diagram.
How we retrieved the TBMs at Blues Point
Building the tunnels
TBMs were used to excavate 15.5 kilometres of new twin rail tunnels between Chatswood and Sydenham.
Sydney Metro City & Southwest required five TBMs. Two were launched and removed from the Chatswood and Marrickville dives sites, with the fifth from Barangaroo.
Building the stations
The new underground stations on Stage 2 of Sydney Metro are designed to be as close to the surface as possible to allow customers to get in and out easily. At Crows Nest, Barangaroo, Central and Waterloo the stations have been excavated from the surface in a cut-and-cover construction method. At Victoria Cross, Martin Place and Pitt Street the station caverns have been mined out underground.
Excavating a station
Single span cut-and-cover design
Single span mined station design
Binocular mined design
Laying the tracks
Track laying in the 15.5km twin tunnels between Chatswood and Sydenham for the Sydney Metro City & Southwest project has been completed.
Construction of the tracks took 18 months and more than 500 workers to complete. More than 40,000 cubic metres of concrete - enough to fill more than 16 Olympic swimming pools – was used to embed about 45,000 sleepers which supported 62 kilometres of Australian steel rails with a combined weight of about 4,000 tonnes.