The workers at Wagners Precast facility in Wacol, Queensland are busy producing 25,000 concrete segments for a $40 million contract on the Cross River Rail project.
A team of 70 are working to create the segments which are 27 centimetres thick and 1.7 metres long. The segments will be used to line the rail tunnels. Once in production Wagners estimates it will produce 140 segments each day.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced work had begun at the facility.
“Construction is a vital part of our plan for Queensland’s continued economic recovery from the global impact of COVID-19, and the Cross River Rail project has multiple aspects – building new stations, drilling tunnels and manufacturing materials,” Palaszczuk said.
“In this case here at Wacol we have a 100 per cent Queensland-owned company employing local workers to build the concrete walls that will line the 5.9 kilometres of twin tunnels.”
She says 7,500 jobs will be created over the life of the Cross River Rail project with 450 opportunities for apprentices and trainees, some of whom work at Wagners Precast.
More than 570 training hours were delivered in May at the Wagners facility alone.
“Wagners’ work with Cross River Rail is a great example of what we can achieve by prioritising local companies and local employees.”
Wagners CEO Cameron Coleman said the company was looking for an opportunity to contribute to this transformational project and is pleased that work is now underway on the massive task to produce the required 25,000 concrete segments.
“This means more job security for existing staff and new job opportunities for the extra staff we will take on now that work has started,” he said.
“COVID-19 obviously has everyone worried, so the start of work couldn’t come soon enough and its fantastic that the Government has been able to keep going with construction of Cross River Rail.”
State Development Minister Kate Jones said it was a significant moment to see work starting in order to deliver the 25,000 precast concrete segments required for the tunnels.
“Major infrastructure projects like Cross River Rail are exactly what our economy needs right now,” Jones said.
She said the magnitude of the Wacol facility was staggering, with more than 70,000 cubic metres of land as well as a storage capacity of 28,000 cubic metres.
“They’ll need every bit of this space to store these tunnel segments.”
Jones said said if you lay the 25,000 segments they’ll produce for Cross River Rail end-to-end you’d reach from Wacol to the heart of Brisbane City with a few segments to spare.
We know many people are working remotely, for a free home subscription to Roads & Infrastructure click here.
Related stories:
- Contracts awarded to local foundation business for Cross River Rail
- New Priority Development Area established for Cross River Rail
- Cross River Rail project to double construction this year