foreign Australia an industrial Army is called into action no one has ever embarked on the scale of what we're doing deep out of sight beneath the Harbor City a battle unfolds there's constant problem solving every day there's new problems there's new issues [Music] battalions of Engineers pick giant machines against Rock and mud to drive a new Metro system through the Beating Heart of the City we have to get there there's no other way Stakes are high and the clock is ticking you've got to take everybody luck you can get don't you in this game this is for Far and Away the biggest public transport project in Australia's history if I'm honest I probably didn't quite know what I was getting myself into all across Sydney the city's new Mega Metro is at a critical stage 40 000 workers battle to create a 50 billion dollar game changer to tackle the city's traffic nightmare when it's complete this new driverless Railway will have dozens of new stations more than 150 kilometers of track and create a giant loop around Sydney but they're working hard against the clock construction of the four kilometer long elevated Viaduct or SkyTrain as it's known is finally up to full Pace after stopping in the mud under Sydney Harbor the crew on Tunnel Boring Machine Kathleen are now back to full ball and in the Hills district of Sydney crews are feeling that pressure as the clock counts down to the opening of the first stage of the line just a few short months away Australia's first driverless metro line will open here in an area Northwest of Sydney known as The Hills District and at the end of the line a new state-of-the-art Metro trains facility is being constructed the new Fleet of fully automated trains will be maintained here and stabled overnight after the Day's service this extensive stapling yard will be the Metro trains home it won't be long before the first delivery of Rolling Stock arrives but the yard is not yet ready even before the steel walls and roof have been completed a super strong concrete floor is being poured to Bear the weight of enormous train Jacks Phil Milford and Luke Reeves are under pressure to complete this as soon as possible [Music] at the moment we're finishing off the structural steel we're putting the roof on and as you can see we're putting concrete down in place for a 99-year life cycle during all of that time the it's a series of jacks that lift the trains up so the concrete in this area is very thick it has to be to lift the weight of the trains up and the floor has to be really level as well so it's really important we get everything in this area spot on this important facility will not only stable the fleet of trains but also house the most critical part of the new driverless train Network the operations control center the brain and heart of the system from here a small team of controllers will manage Australia's very first Fleet of fully automated trains remotely with 98 on-time reliability and crews are working flat out to get it built in time thank you at Central Station in the heart of Sydney construction director James Pierce and his team have been delayed by the discovery of an early 19th century cemetery on their site they've been waiting patiently for months and now the archaeologists have finally finished exhuming more than 60 Graves great to finally get on with the job we're finished with archeology huge relief James needs to get his dig back on track and at last he can get moving to excavate the middle of Central Station but the huge tunnel boring machines or tvms coming from the south won't be breaking into this station box it simply won't be deep enough in time so instead the tbms will pass underneath and later the team will smash through the tunnels from above so we go down from this level 30 meters deep into Sydney Sandstone to meet where the tbms come through because of the delay James is way behind schedule and needs to make up time but he also needs to be sure the work won't impact the passing passenger train Services as they run right along the edge of the station box on both sides the machine behind us is a piling rig we install piles the entire way around the Metro box into Solid Rock the piles are constructed by drilling down dropping in a reinforcement cage and concreting the poles into place the piles are absolutely critical to ensure that there's no movement on the realm without pile we'd probably have two trains in the Box to make up for some of the Lost Time James has three piling rigs working around the clock all up the station box needs more than 550 piles and 2 000 cubic meters of concrete to fill them 330 truckloads the piles alone are not enough to resist the massive ground pressure that builds as the hull gets deeper it will also take hundreds of rock anchors and sprayed concrete very key part of what we're doing and the piles give us a rigid solution to ensuring that none of the areas are going to move and we've got no displacement on the track [Music] back in the Hills district the two massive launching gantries that will be used to build the four kilometer Sky Train deck have been successfully assembled and now construction is starting to shift into Top Gear when the alignment calls for the sky trains deck to be raised across a road the work can only happen at night when they can close the road below it is the only time when the traffic can be diverted controlled stopped after 842 segments lifted and 93 spans successfully installed disaster strikes in the middle of the night something has gone wrong with span number 60. Marco and his team need to act quickly we are trying to understand what is going on the team have discovered the problem the middle of the span has buckled upwards cracking and crushing the lower part an investigation later discovers the cause the tightening was the last part of the sequence yes of course this was the cause of the backing a concrete Stitch join that was supposed to connect two segments failed when the segments were tightened with steel cables they buckled under the pressure it's a costly error the entire 40 meter span must be demolished we are going to dismantle everything and replace completely despair the entire Viaduct is double checked for safety before progress can continue it gets the all clear but they're losing time suddenly the deadline for completion of the viaduct looks uncomfortably close [Music] not far away the four tunnel boring machines in the Hills district are going full ball carving out twin 15 kilometer tunnels from Bella Vista to Epping after four long months of digging PM Isabel has reached her first major milestone stop [Music] tbms don't stop for almost anything they normally operate deep out of sight hidden by the Earth but today is a rare chance to see these monster machines in action TBM Isabel and her sister TBM Maria Traverse an air ventilation shaft that is still under construction it gives a unique perspective on how they travel beneath the ground moving like a giant mechanical worm creating a chrysalis of concrete as it moves forward [Music] over the coming months as the four tunnel boring machines continue on their way the project team and some lucky members of the public who have been awaiting this new Railway for decades are treated to some spectacular tunnel breakthroughs one after another [Music] foreign ly their missions are complete now their job is over they're hauled back to the surface piece by piece the battle scars from their combat against Sydney Sandstone are rusted on at around 15 million dollars a piece they're now done and dusted under Sydney's spectacular Harbor the job for the crew of TBM Kathleen is far from done their mission is to dig an 884 meter long tunnel deep beneath Sydney Harbor twice engineers mckayley and Vincent have just replaced a giant metal wedge that came loose and threatened to cause damage to the cutter head but just as they thought their problems were behind them something might have gone wrong again 50 meters below the surface of Sydney Harbor a little bit of Ben and I go through and then Project Director Tim Parker gets an unexpected call Early One Sunday morning I get woken to something's going on something unusual is happening in the harbor there's bubbles what is it is it a whale don't know security cameras quickly spot the bubbling and Witnesses on the Harbor capture it on a phone the bubbles and our TVM are in a very similar position bubbles are not good it means that something is going wrong so there's a flurry of phone calls what do you mean by Sunday morning got a phone call announcing Bubba to the harbor I've got to touch with the guys trying to to understand the extent of the problem there is a real fear for the TVM and the crews scrambled to make sure everyone is safe and to find the problem if you think about bubbles you think Warrior is getting in as well when you're a league would have been possible so we just came here straight away after a tense few hours the cause is finally discovered it turned out that there was some compressed air coming out and that was coming up through the surface so with an adjustment of the compressed air the bubbles disappeared on other jobs the bubbles may not have been as obvious as they work their way through cracks in sand or layers of rock but in the middle of Sydney Harbor it's there for all to see there is relief that the problem wasn't much more serious yeah it was quite dramatic from outside and people on the surface were a bit concerned but it was all under control it was actually a relatively simple fix but at the time we didn't know so an anxious couple of hours but a happy ending a few weeks after the sky Train span buckled construction is safely underway again the construction process has been changed however and an investigation concludes that all the spans are sound here at Rouse Hill 50 000 Vehicles use the six Lane Highway Windsor Road every day the rail Viaduct will need to cross this large and busy Road intersection to reach the Metro trains facility on the other side it's a formidable engineering challenge that falls to South African Bridge designer John Anderson he's one of the real constraints for the project is to make sure that the thousands of the cars that go up and down Windsor Road are not impacted in any way the concept that we've come up with is a combination of a number of engineering challenges John's solution for the crossing is a distinctive cable Stay Bridge which will be an Australian first design in addition to building a concrete rail deck over a busy road John has another engineering difficulty to overcome in order to follow the designated rail alignment the bridge must be curved people often would warn you don't do a curved cable State Bridge and people will often warn you don't do a cable State rail Bridge so we had both so it was perhaps a little bit brave but we went for it because essentially it seemed to be the right solution for the site even though John and his team are under pressure to get the bridge built as swiftly as possible they have an ace up their sleeve which allows construction to get underway quickly one of the biggest aspects of us choosing a cable Stay Bridge is that we could use the overhead Gantry to build the bridge these two countries can erect spans in a curve because of their Dimension they are very long normally cable say bridges are erected starting from the towers so it is a revolutionary way of building this piece of structure but building the curve is only part of the problem the completed Bridge with its towers and cable stays will be racked by contradictory forces what happens is those cables want to pull the tower towards the center of the curve and from a design perspective that introduces a whole set of new challenges we had challenges making the deck work we had challenges making the tower work John's calculations have to be spot on if he gets it wrong the trains that will later pass at speed along the curve could exert destructive pressures on the cables and Towers if it deflects too much you get high stresses in the rail and potentially the rail can even crack [Music] the most visually striking feature of the new bridge is its two steel towers built 17 kilometers away in a factory in Western Sydney John personally oversees the progress of their assembly as any misalignment or inaccuracy could delay the completion of the bridge the next hurdle will be to get these 29 meter high Towers weighing more than 200 tons each to the Windsor Road Site there will be a little bit of nerves to make sure that everything goes well no doubt about it under a police escort in the dead of night the towers make their way slowly to their final destination where they will be lifted into position on the viaduct a 55 meter long truck with 18 axles is required to bring the towers to site lying on their side instead of using one huge tower crane it takes two to lift each Tower into a standing position if it's rotating on the ground you could potentially damage the base of the tower you could put all sorts of unwanted stresses into the tub once upright the tower is carefully lowered onto a series of bolts and secured into place [Music] as Dawn breaks the next day The Landmark structure can now be seen taking shape it's a very exciting part of the construction step you put all this effort in and then you know it's large scale it's dramatic the two steel towers are then half filled with concrete and once set they should be solid and rigid enough to carry the weight of the 267 meter long bridge through the all-important cable stays those cables are essentially for carrying the dead load of the bridge without it the bridge wouldn't be able to carry the train load everything depends on the strength of these cables So within one cable you have 127 individual strands overall we have something close to 173 kilometers of strand that are going to be installed into this bridge finally with all the cables secured they are tensioned and the scaffolding removed a landmark bridge now stands on its own it looks fairly simple it was not simple to finally be at this stage after all the hours all the effort all the problems it's fantastic Jon is not the only one impressed with the outcome this cable side Bridge a fantastic Landmark it looks great and people will be able to always recognize where they are just by looking out the window and seeing the bridge all right further up the line the Metro trains facility the enormous maintenance shed for the new trains is just about completed its large roof space is being utilized in a very practical way with more than 3 200 solar panels being installed that will help power the facility as well as the new Metro stations along the line this rooftop array is as big as a football field this sustainable solution will reduce the Network's overall carbon footprint and can generate about 1 million 500 kilowatt hours of electricity per year or enough to power about 270 average homes over in the stabling yard the overhead wiring is being installed and the operations control center is coming to life but there's no Metro without the trains so it's a welcome sight when the first ones arrive on a truck protectively wrapped from the factory with the truck backed up into position next to a ramp the first Carriage is winched slowly but surely down the incline onto the rails it's then hauled along the line and into the vast maintenance shed where it comes to a stop and the chocks are applied only when safely inside its new home is the plastic sheeting cut away to reveal the sleek Sydney inspired design the driving force behind this new Railway engineer and the city's transport Chief Rod Staples is ecstatic nothing compares to what I'm standing in front of here today which is the train this is what it's all about this is what customers will use every day I'm so excited about this this is absolutely the highlight of the project for me so far French designer of the trains Xavier Allard also inspects his creation for the very first time safe to say he's happy with the result it's a very very smooth and very uh elegant shape without any aggressivity so it's it's really really strong it's very pure very simple but very very strong now the pressure is on to complete Sydney's first driverless metro line in time for the opening day eight new stations need to be delivered from the ground up they have to be fully accessible for Australia's first fully accessible Railway five existing Suburban stations and 13 kilometers of existing Twin Tunnels have to be upgraded for driverless trains and the new Metro system with new signaling and new safety technology with the four kilometer Sky Train successfully finished and the trains on their way [Music] an army of almost 20 000 workers descends on Sydney's Northwest to start laying tracks building car parks for 4 000 vehicles and delivering the new stations high above the ground in cuttings and deep below the surface [Music] and part of this construction operation is installing 42 escalators those at Norwest station present a particular challenge [Music] this station alone needs eight escalators including some of the longest on the project this one is 60 meters long twice as long as the Gap it needs to fit through it takes two cranes working in tandem [Music] to negotiate the narrow space and being an escalator it comes in pairs one up one down [Music] the new Line's signature gum Leaf canopies are being installed at six new stations craned into place by giant peace except at Hills showground where the canopies are pre-assembled on the ground [Music] then the entire structure is lifted up and then lowered into place each of these two canopies weighs over 60 tons they're mounted on massive piers then locked into place it's the biggest crane lift of a canopy on the entire project wood paneling on the underside of the canopy is the finishing touch and the overall result is beautifully Australian foreign The Landmark cable Staybridge is also now complete but for passengers to access trains running on the SkyTrain 13 meters above the ground two elevated stations are being built out of glass and steel at this station in Kellyville hundreds of panes of colored glass are being fitted that will create a cathedral-like lighting effect for the customers along the viaduct the track Works have started with a tracks and overhead wiring now being installed the complicated procedure to lay the tracks in the tunnels almost complete halfway along the Northwest Line at Castle Hill a massive underground crossover cabin has been finished this area allows trains to swap tracks in the event of disruption or emergency keeping Services running a safety feature of the Metro is the automatic platform screen doors open when the trains stop at the stations keep commuters safe at every station 36 of these doors need to be installed it's the first time this automatic door technology has been used on an Australian Railway as the finishing touches are added to the stations their designer Ross De La Motte takes a final emotional look and likes what he sees I'm absolutely stoked with the result one of the things I really love about this view in a sense captures the essence of the project you've got the wonderful entrance canopy trees with their seasonal color really bring the station to life you have the foreground with the sculptural Spheres the sort of playful seats sitting in the public room the wonderful Landing of the canopy in the plaza and the forecourt you've got the beautifully lined Timber feet of the canopy where the canopy lands through the buttresses on The Terraces all of that's animated by natural light and these wonderful colored escalators and lifts which really I think entice people to come down and enjoy what is a great public building [Music] at Blue's point on the North Shore of Sydney Harbor it's a huge moment for TBM Kathleen after weeks of tunneling through soft sediments and Clay the most precarious section of the tunneling is over TBM Kathleen has nearly finished her historic first trip under Sydney Harbor and now the Moment of Truth has arrived TBM now is just 700 millimeter far away from here so it's very close this time Journey's End is not a station box but a very narrow very deep shaft all exciting after having done all the all the crossing under the harbor this shaft is its own Grand Central Station for tbms three will arrive here to end their tunneling Journeys on the edge of one of the world's most spectacular harbors it's far too dangerous for anyone to be in the shaft when the Breakthrough happens but an overhang of rock hides exactly where the TVM will emerge which causes a bigger problem when to switch off the flow of the slurry to the cut ahead uh once it starts to crack we've got to be quick to change over to a bypass so we don't lose too much Bentonite the solution they've come up with is for Griffo michaeli and Andreas to drop down 30 meters in a basket so they can have eyes on the Breakthrough so yeah we'll be calling them radio stop bypass good to go the men in the basket will dangle just above to tell Red Dog and Vincent inside the TBM when to switch off the Bentonite just so once we do actually break through there's not a whole heap of it that keeps going can you go for free free on the up here yeah yeah I will go probably up to eight up here now today rookie TVM engineer Jamie chirk is rostered on the night shift but she doesn't want to miss the show as soon as Adam calls will be good okay thanks mate the men in the basket are in position time to fire up the megabora oh we're just about to fire up now yep okay catch a mate circuit going the four men dangle like bait waiting for the mechanical monster to arrive nothing to fall and tonight's still flowing oh no it's flowing all right like a river the idea we are here we go stop stop time to switch off the flow of business here we go boys well done guys well done hello Blues point [Applause] beautiful beautiful give me the telephone one second congratulations guys congratulations to all of you perfect perfect breakthrough perfect give me red yeah everything Double J here go ahead yeah congratulations buddy good job good job mate good job yeah everybody good man Kelly okay it's been a good day textbook breakthrough nice clean profile everything's gone exactly displayed very very good very happy Jamie is ready to do it all again totally key [Music] board very good we are here not for long we're gonna bring the machine out to dismantle in bring it back to barangaroo one Harbor tunnel down one more to go back at the Metro trains facility it's time to put the new trains through a rigorous series of tests Manny manolis is in charge yeah good how are you going man good thanks boys all right yeah that's the way we test until they are 100 lasted we are checking the thickness of the brake patch yeah we are seeing whether Manny has worked on Railways for 20 years and what he has seen of the driverless trains capabilities has impressed him I've seen how other conventional Railways work and coming onto this project it just blows my mind knowing the city commuters is going to blow their minds before any train leaves the yard Manny's team must inspect it from top to bottom today this train will hit the tracks for the very first time oh okay we're good to go just uh creep forward just a green light to quickboard nice and slow Vivian how we're traveling at the moment ah we're good for these first tests the trains are controlled manually the upper head we have a suspension Point coming up yes so I'll be traveling under 15 over it so everything else is quite well yeah yes all good they work each train must pass an array of tests [Music] for Speed and Power signal responsiveness smoothness of ride breaking and synchronizing with the automated platform screen doors hundreds of cameras monitor the Train's progress as it negotiates the tests over the coming months all 22 new driverless trains need to prove they are 100 reliable during testing they travel more than 400 000 kilometers that's equivalent to 10 trips around the equator each train is filled with massive containers of water to simulate a peak hour load of more than a thousand passengers fully laden with one hundred thousand liters of water it crosses the cable Stay Bridge with no problems and not a drop is spilled and then there's a Need for Speed to prove each train can easily reach more than 100 kilometers per hour the final tests are to prove that trains can do it all on their own what I need you to do better is start prepping up train five in the maintenance shed we're going to move that out in the stabling road that's ready to rock and roll for its movement testing this train will travel controlled remotely from the operations control center the OCC the manual controls are locked away if passengers do decide to try to pry it open alarms will go off in the operational control center the control center is actually taking control of the train at the moment the train passes the first few stations and then it picks up speed [Music] it hits a hundred kilometers an hour on the SkyTrain high above Kellyville now can it slow itself down to stop with the next station and line up with a platform screen doors perfect it gets top marks at every station with opening day rapidly approaching multiple teams and thousands of workers all breathe a sigh of relief so the worry factors out the wire factors out yeah they keep on coming big day all good all good nice and slow I'm very confident I'm very positive about how they're going to run I'm kind of proud actually I'll tell you the truth I'm kind of proud of where we've where we came in a short period of time put on your big D ude they're ready to rock and roll yeah now the trains are being tested responsibility for their operation has moved into the hands of the operations control center the brain of the entire network Manny is moving over there too promoted to be one of the chief controllers on opening day so I'll be in the hot seat and just ensuring that everything works correctly and reacting to any glitches all right we kept an eye on that CCTV footage there managed it as we went along and we've done it really well and we'll keep doing it okay for days ghost trains trains without any people on board run along the line testing the automated systems testing the operators in the OCC an evacuation drill takes place high up on the sky train to practice emergency response procedures it looks like all is in Readiness they've made it just in time [Music] thank you the big day is finally here Road Staples and his safety Chief Steve Jones arrive early at The stabling Yard Service Rod buried Earth but I'm sure it'll all go well tooth I know I'm looking forward to it it's actually great they're here to watch the trains waking up something they do all by themselves no one needs to push a button this Train's been sleeping all night when it wakes up it'll go through a whole testing mode [Music] there you go it's waking up right now and I can just tell you I'm so excited you know things things may go wrong as they do on any kind of new technology but we've got resources we've got people in positions to make sure that's minimized as the train prepares to get to work so too does the team in the OCC now we've got a team here we've all worked hard to do this and this is it Manny manolis newly Minted as a chief controller tries to calm the nerves of the people in the hot seat just keep it safe and keep your finger on the pulse and we'll just keep those trains moving we'll keep these passengers happy there's an enormous amount riding on the next few hours and though Manny doesn't know it yet they're about to be tested with just a few hours to go before the grand opening Rod steals a few moments for himself to be able to come out and do it before we get our customers on I just can't help but think wow we've done it I've actually really been a part of creating something incredible the new chief executive of the Railway John Lamont is also excited to be making history a former head of Manchester's public transport system an air Vice Marshal in the Royal Air Force John joined the team in the months prior to the opening eight years in the making finally here it's a great day for all of us this is now Australia's first driverless Railway we're really proud of it he welcomes Sydney Metro's first customer so are you here first I gathered I was the first one here John I got here at 6am and I thought there'd be hundreds if not thousands of people here yeah and I was the very first passenger you're looking forward to it I am really excited Steve Jones just hopes he can make it through the day I'm really really nervous and people say to me are you excited Steve when I said no it's more like it's just nervousness because you just don't want to let the team down and you want it to be absolutely brilliant for the people of sin but the transport minister is just happy the big day is finally here thank you Sydney thank you New South Wales for bearing with us whilst we got it built now it's built today we're running commuter Services done beautiful I love it okay good stuff a couple of hours later it's showtime listening guys the countdown is on [Applause] [Music] all right guys the Metro has been officially opened [Music] some familiar faces show up for the grand opening Ali and Gloria building the city stations on the next stage of the line want to be on the very first train and in five years time this might be years right yeah I know it's really exciting it's a real inspiration we are literally down the track it's a city in Southwest so it's it's actually quite perfect to see this all come together two designers Ross and Xavier inspired separately by Nature are there together without working together we have worked on the on the same approach but the grand architect of Sydney's new Metro system engineer Rod Staples is understandably very nervous if you're looking from the outside there are no hiccups no needles or anything it's like when you're on that passenger jet taking off we run out Runway now so we're gonna go we're taking off there's no going back now Glory better hop one of those you're gonna miss it yeah let's go let's go the first train carrying passengers sets off [Music] got it [Music] oh yeah the train gets to the end of the line passing through all 13 stations without instant so far so good I'm feeling really relieved to get through the first run uh really excited for all the potential in the hours days years ahead it must seem like an eternity it's on the move again over the coming hours there are more challenges to contend with the new Metro is being deluged by eager customers 40 000 people were expected to ride the trains today 140 000 show up the system is stretched and the team encounters the first teething problems they were expecting but hoping wouldn't show up one driverless train overshoots the platform and automatically reverses another doesn't quite line up with the platform screen doors Engineers are quickly on the scene for fine-tuning Manny and his team are under pressure the city's Eyes Upon them for the OCC it's a baptism of fire but for every problem thrown at them they conjure a solution tc1 receiving Kevin yeah she's off and the trains keep moving [Music] too thank you together they pull through the first day is over and a new record set so we've got the defense the biggest opening of a railway in Australian history really proud of the work that the staff the contractors all the people that have worked on building this project have done and created but really we're handing it over to the people of Sydney now to the customers to get in and start to use it that's what it was all about and to me that's the most exciting phase of the whole project [Music] Australia's first driverless metro line is an instant success with customers soon it's carrying 90 000 people a day much more than some other Sydney train lines in its first year it moves 20 million people the trains travel more than 3.7 million kilometers and it's helped take 14 million cars off the roads [Music] all thanks to the imagination resourcefulness and sheer sweat of thousands of workers for eight years they've given their all along with their tvms the Magnificent workhorses of Australia's big deal but there's a long way to go more than 30 stations and over 150 kilometers of new track are under construction now there's a light at the end of the tunnel stage one of this driverless network is up and running revolutionizing travel around this Global City this is Sydney's Mega Metro [Music] thank you [Music]
2023-08-13