Chinese railways push for double-deck
Sydney Harbour tunnel to fit high-speed rail
China's state railways company is pushing NSW to redesign its $7 billion second Sydney Harbour rail crossing to accommodate a second deck for a high-speed rail line.
Patrick Yu, chief executive of Centurion Group, a developer which is China Rail's local partner, said that it would cost only $250 million more to build one big 16-metre diameter tunnel with two decks instead of the current plan for two single-deck six metre tunnels to carry suburban trains for the new Sydney Metro.
He said that even though a high-speed rail line has not yet been approved it still made sense to build a bigger tunnel just in case. He said China would consider making up the difference in cost. "Another harbour rail tunnel alignment would be extremely difficult to secure and it would take 10 years. It would be a crying pity not to have future-proofed infrastructure."
The China Rail consortium has been pushing for a $25 billion 150-kilometre high-speed rail line from Newcastle north to Campbelltown to the south-west for some years but it has recently secured the support of Fred Nile, leader of the Christian Democrats which controls the balance of power in the NSW upper house.
Reverend Nile said he had written to NSW Premier Mike Baird asking him to consider altering the design of the rail tunnel. "I think the government should make the decision straight away to cater for high-speed rail," Mr Nile said.
He went to China last year to investigate the huge network of high-speed trains and organised a seminar in NSW Parliament in December where China Rail executives made presentations. He says China Rail plans to establish a local office this year. Transport Minister Andrew Constance met a delegation from China Rail in September.
INDUSTRY CONSULTATION
Transport for NSW is holding an industry consultation session on February 6 about the $7 billion second stage of the Sydney metro project which will extend the half-built $8.3 billion North West metro line.
Stage two will involve a long tunnel from Chatswood under the harbour through the city and then out to Bankstown. The government recently approved some details of the route including new stations at Waterloo and Barangaroo.
A spokesman for Transport for NSW said widening the tunnel would add significantly to the cost and stations would have to go much deeper underground which would be inconvenient for commuters.
"The new twin metro railway tunnels under Sydney Harbour are being designed to be as shallow as possible on either end of the harbour to make it easy for customers to get into and out of stations as quickly as possible. The whole point of Sydney Metro is to deliver fast, frequent, convenient services for customers," the spokesman said.
"Doubling the size of these tunnels to more than 15 metres diameter and designing the tunnels to the limitations of high-speed rail would mean CBD metro stations would need to be built almost three times deeper than planned to avoid the underground constraints, like CBD building basements and the Cross City Tunnel."
The Centurion High Speed Rail project was first floated in 2011 but has received only lukewarm support. A federal government report in 2013 found a high-speed rail network would be very expensive and said the most viable route ran from Sydney to Canberra.
The business model for China's Rail's Sydney-to-Newcastle project involves so-called "value capture", which means property development in areas around new stations. But NSW has been reluctant to surrender control for this purpose.
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