More jobs as local manufacturer starts producing Cross River Rail tunnel segments

Work is underway to produce 25,000 concrete segments for the tunnels of south-east Queensland’s new underground rail system.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced today work had begun at the Wagners Precast facility at Wacol, where 70 local workers will benefit.

“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,” the Premier said.

“Hundreds of local businesses are benefitting from work related to the project. 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.

“Because of Queenslanders’ efforts fighting the coronavirus pandemic, we can also focus on rebuilding our economy.

“Investing in major infrastructure projects like Cross River Rail means more jobs, more training opportunities and more support for the economy right when we need it most.”

“7,500 jobs for workers will be created throughout the life of the project along with 450 opportunities for trainees and apprentices – some of whom we met today.

“We’ve been clear and consistent – we want to see Queensland companies and Queensland workers benefitting from the biggest infrastructure project this state has ever seen.

“Wagners’ work with Cross River Rail is a great example of what we can achieve by prioritising local companies and local employees.”

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,” Ms Jones said.

“Cross River Rail is pumping over $4 million a day into the economy, and over $370 million is already being spent with more than 400 businesses that make up the supply chain for the project.

“More than 90 per cent of these are Queensland based.”

Ms Jones 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,” Ms Jones 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.”

In addition to creating more jobs, the work at Wagners is also supporting apprentice and trainee opportunities with more than 570 training hours delivered at the facility in May alone.

“While visiting the facility today, we had the pleasure of meeting Ewan Daniels and Rhys Carr, electrical apprentices and Emma Saunders, trainee who are getting a great start on their career working on the biggest project in town.”

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”

“Covid 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”

Wagners precast concrete fast facts:

• Six concrete segments are used to create one tunnel ring
• 4157 tunnel rings are required to line each tunnel
• 25,000 segments will be produced at Wacol
• Each segment is 27 centimetres thick and 1.7 metres long
• One truck can carry only six segments at a time
• Once in production, the facility will produce 140 segments per day
• More than 105,000 cubic metres of concrete will be used to create the segments

ENDS   

Media contact: Jack Harbour 0419 620 447