CRL Connection October 2018

CRL Connection Milestone reached in Albert Street

construction

October 2018

City Rail Link CEO, Sean Sweeney, says the milestone marks the start of the last stage of the Albert Street works before the road can be reinstated and returned to road users and pedestrians – expected late 2020.

“Anyone who has walked, cycled or driven past the Albert Street site over the last three years will have seen just how much work is underway to get this complete, “he says. “The team has been working very hard to get to this point, relocating services, piling, supporting utility services, bulk excavation and constructing the tunnel box itself.”

Backfilling of the trench up to road level will take until mid-2019 to complete and it will take a total of 50,000m3 of materials to fill it. That’s the equivalent of 20 Olympic-size swimming pools.

People using Albert Street will see an excavator sitting on the construction deck moving materials down onto the roof. The project team will then use small diggers to spread the backfill within it.

Mr Sweeney says the project is grateful for the support of those who work on, live on and travel along Albert Street during this busy construction period.

The reinstatement of Albert Street is one step closer as the City Rail Link (CRL) reaches another significant delivery milestone.

This week, contractor Connectus Joint Venture started backfilling CRL’s Albert Street trench.

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“Building New Zealand’s largest transport project in the middle of a built-up city is no small task and it is not without its impacts,” he says.

“We’re grateful for the patience and understanding of our neighbours as we work to complete the project as quickly as possible.”

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Green light for CRL tunnel excavation at Britomart When Britomart’s Chief Post Office (CPO) building opened in 1912, no-one would have imagined that one day the stately building would be put on temporary foundations so that train tunnels could be built underneath.

CRL contractor Downer NZ Soletanche Bachy Joint Venture has been gradually transferring the weight of the 106-year-old Category 1-listed heritage building onto a series of underpinning frames, to protect it from movement while CRL infrastructure is built underneath.

The last remaining section of the building, the eastern façade, has now been load transferred onto the temporary foundations.

CRL tunnel excavation under the CPO and into Britomart Station can now proceed at full steam.

The steel underpinning frame that is now taking the weight of the eastern façade

When the CRL opens in 2024, Britomart will no longer be a dead-end station but a through station with two new CRL platforms on either side. This enables twice as many trains to travel through Britomart, effectively doubling the capacity of Auckland’s rail network.

CRL will also bring shorter journey times and better connections, with two new city centre stations (at Albert Street and Karangahape Road) and a redeveloped Mt Eden Station where the CRL will join with the existing Western Line.

Customs/Albert intersection excavation reaches halfway mark Excavations have reached the halfway mark under the busy Customs/Albert Street intersection in preparation for building a key section of CRL tunnel box.

It is at this point that the CRL twin underground tunnels being built under Albert Street will connect with those that have been built under the adjacent Commercial Bay development site (formerly the Downtown Shopping Centre).

Thanks to the concrete bridge structure built across the intersection last year, traffic can still flow above ground while CRL construction works are carried out underneath.

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Temporary struts and walers have been installed to support the walls of the cut and cover trench. The wall separating the site from Commercial Bay can be seen at the end.

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Albert Street excavation more than 90 per cent complete Behind the CRL hoardings on Albert Street, contractor Connectus Joint Venture is in the last stages of trench excavation.

When excavation is completed in mid-November, a total 77,000m3 of spoil will have been removed from the trench – a volume equivalent to almost 31,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Meanwhile, more than half of CRL tunnel box construction has been completed under Albert Street, including 240 metres of floor, 192 metres of wall and 108 metres of roof.

The 350-metre-long tunnel box is being constructed in 29 sections, from the southern (Wyndham Street) end to the Customs Street intersection. The total length of tunnel box along this section of Albert Street is 350 metres and each tunnel.

A view of completed tunnel box at the southern end of CRL’s Albert St trench

Pile wall breakthrough to begin later this year Prior to Christmas, CRL is expecting to start removing the western secant pile wall that separates CRL’s Lower Queen Street construction site from the CRL rail tunnels built under the neighbouring Commercial Bay development site.

Bulk excavation works will continue in both the northern and southern trenches under Britomart’s Chief Post Office (CPO) building until late November.

Large steel struts will be installed this month to ensure stability of the trench walls while excavation continues to the 13-metre depth required before CRL tunnel box construction can begin.

Excavation down to five metres in the northern trench under the CPO

Check out the latest project information online Watch the latest CRL timelapse videos of the Albert Street trench excavation and tunnel box construction and Lower Queen Street, Britomart’s Chief Post Office building and Commercial Bay.

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CRL excavations turn up more exciting archaeological finds More interesting archaeological items from the mid1800s have been recovered during excavation works beneath Britomart’s CPO building.

Workers excavating in CRL’s southern tunnel alignment uncovered a small cache of broken black beer bottle bases within one of the building’s original concrete piles. A stoneware bottle, pickle bottle and whisky bottle were also found in reclamation fill during excavation works for the northern CRL tunnel.

Workers Raj and Noel (pictured right) were excited to uncover a complete stoneware mineral water bottle, produced in the west German Duchy of Nassau, famous for its mineral springs. It was discovered in reclamation fill, about five metres under modern ground level.

Meanwhile, excavation works within Lower Queen Street uncovered remnant piles and basalt blocks from the original Queen Street wharf, dating back to the 1850s. Multiple wharf piles, some of which had survived in-situ, were found at one to four metres below modern ground surface. Some of the piles showed a tapered point that retained the scallop marks produced by shaping with an axe.

Raj and Noel with the German mineral water bottle they carefully removed from reclamation fill.

Broken black beer bottles stuck in the concrete on the top of the CPO foundation pile.

Location of the black beer bottle cache in the old foundations.

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An 1850’s wharf pile located along the eastern edge of the Queen St wharf alignment with a basalt block, which appears to have remained in-situ.

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Trench excavation reveals 110-year-old piles Within the CRL trenches under Britomart’s CPO building, a number of 109-year-old piles have been uncovered.

The piles were etched with the date 8/10/1909 Etched with the date 8/10/1909, these piles are part of the original foundations that held the weight of the CPO but must be removed to enable the CRL rail tunnels to be constructed.

To ensure the CPO building is protected and remains stable during CRL tunnel excavation and construction, 3,380 tonnes of building weight was successfully transferred onto new concrete diaphragm walls through 350 tonnes of steel underpinning beams, with movement limited to only about 1mm!

Pipes for stormwater diversion arrive this month More than 200 new concrete stormwater pipes are due to arrive at CRL’s Mt Eden construction site this month.

Each measuring two metres long by two metres diameter, the pipes will be laid across a 420-metre distance between Water Street and Nikau Street to replace the existing stormwater main, which is in the way of the future CRL tunnels at Mt Eden.

CRL’s mini tunnel boring machine, Jeffie, will install the new stormwater main using a technique called ‘pipe-jacking’.

Excavation of the 15 to 17 metre shafts for launching and receiving Jeffie will start shortly.

Last week, a blasting technique was used to fracture basalt rock located underground at the Nikau Street site to clear the way for shaft excavation. The short underground blast was considered a much less disruptive way of dealing with the basalt than many weeks of noisy hydraulic rock breaking to get the same result.

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Jeffie will start installing a new 420m stormwater main in December.

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