Landmark Sydney Metro bridge completed
22.10.2017
Major construction has finished on Sydney Metro’s landmark new railway bridge at Rouse Hill.
A symbol of Sydney’s public transport future, it will carry a new metro train every four minutes in the peak when Sydney Metro services start in the first half of 2019.
Track laying activities will soon start on the iconic 270m bridge over Windsor Road, similar in design to Sydney’s Anzac Bridge – but the first cable-stayed railway bridge built on a curve in Australia.
The bridge deck is supported by 127 steel cables which stretch 173 km.
The bridge’s two towers, with reach 45m above Windsor Rd, were installed in May this year then each filled with 336 tonnes of concrete.
Then, 16 cable pipes – the longest 62m – were installed from each tower to the deck. The pipes hold 127 steel cables which support the deck.
It took about seven weeks to tension all the cables, with the bridge being progressively lifted off the temporary support columns during the process.
The bridge deck is made up of 88 massive concrete segments each weighing between 70 and 140 tonnes.
The delicate engineering operation to put them in place occurred 7 metres above ground and mainly at night, resulting in minimal disruption to local traffic.
More than 4,600 people worked on the skytrain project.
The Windsor Road bridge was a design solution to community feedback which means any future upgrade of the Windsor Road and Schofields Road intersection will not be impacted by the new metro railway.
The 4km skytrain from Bella Vista to Rouse Hill is an innovation that keeps the community united – people and cars will be free to move around underneath and it avoids the physical division that often comes with railway lines.