The two 15.6m diameter Herrenknecht TBMs helping build the 6.5km North East Link twin tunnels between Watsonia and Bulleen in Melbourne have broken through at the Lower Plenty Road interchange site – marking a major milestone on Victoria’s biggest ever road project.
Since the TBMs launched in Watsonia last year, crews have worked around the clock to reach this moment.
TBM Gillian and TBM Zelda have travelled 1.6kms to reach the interchange and installed over 13,500 concrete segments to line the tunnel walls.
Now both TBMs have broken through into the 30m deep box at Lower Plenty Road, they will continue laying invert segments at the base of the box before relaunching underground to continue their tunnelling journey to Bulleen.
The machines are being driven by the Spark Consortium, which was awarded the contract to deliver the North East Link Tunnels towards the end of 2021. The consortium comprises WeBuild, CPB Contractors, GS Engineering and Construction, China Construction Oceania, Ventia, Capella Capital, John Laing, DIF and Pacific Partnerships.
Work is powering ahead on the Lower Plenty Road interchange that will allow vehicles to enter and exit the North East Link tunnels at Yallambie, while the new Borlase Reserve parklands will return a vibrant green space to the community and create space for 5 MCGs of new parklands along Banyule Creek.
At the Bulleen end of the North East Link tunnels, the Yarra Link green bridge is taking shape and mined tunnelling is continuing with five road headers chipping away at the rock layer deep underground. Crews are also undertaking major upgrades along the Eastern Freeway and the M80 Ring Road to get ready to connect the freeways to the tunnels.
Tunnelling across the project will continue until 2026, with North East Link expected to open to traffic in 2028. The project is funded in a joint partnership by the Australian and Victorian governments, and will fix the missing link in Melbourne’s road network, taking 15,000 trucks off local roads every day and cutting travel times by 35 minutes.
Herrenknecht
Pioneering Underground Technologies - Herrenknecht AG is the technology and market leader in mechanized tunnelling. As the only company worldwide, Herrenknecht delivers cutting-edge tunnel boring machines for all ground conditions and in all diameters - ranging from 0.10 to 19 meters.
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