Country: Australia
Key Area: Transportation
Services: Structural Engineering,Transportation Infrastructure Design

The newly opened, 12.5km underground rail line from Epping to Chatswood on Sydney’s North Shore provides an effective and pleasant public transport link through the expanding educational and commercial precinct of Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, and North Ryde. Opus International Consultants provided structural and civil services for the $2.3 Billion Contract for the surface works and fit-out of the underground caverns: the Stat-East Works portion of the Epping to Chatswood Rail Line that won the Master Builders Association 2008 Outstanding Construction Award and also the Public Building Prize in the over $150 Million Division, for A W Edwards.

• Epping Station was transformed into an efficient, friendly transport interchange - the reconstruction of a new ‘aerial concourse’ over a fully functioning rail corridor and between two busy roads posed a complex challenge in design, logistics and construction.

• Four new underground stations were constructed, requiring the bulk of material to be brought in through the rail tunnel itself.

• Five elegant, glass-covered curved steel canopies distinguish the surface entrances of the three intermediate stations.

• Excellent engineering solutions were provided to overcome a variety of challenges that defined the project, particularly in relation to the Epping Interchange.