Craigieburn Rail Project
With the rapid growth of the urban area of Melbourne, the capital city of the State of Victoria, there is a demand for better public transport in the ‘growth corridors’. As part of this ongoing improvement of the public transport infrastructure the State Government recently extended the metropolitan train system from Broadmeadows to Craigieburn in the North of the city. Under a contract from the Department of Infrastructure, Thiess were employed to extend the electrified rail network and build two new railway stations.
Because of previous successful projects, Thiess approached AA Radio Services to assist in the project. AA Radio were required to design, supply, install and commission an additional ‘Cell’ on the MPT1327 trunked radio system utilised for the Metropolitan train network. In addition there is also a three site conventional radio voting system for communications with Country train services as they enter the Metropolitan corridor, plus the re-location of other existing radio equipment.
As part of this extensive contract AA Radio had to supply a 24-metre self-supporting radio tower at one radio site, with 8-metre radio masts at two other sites, as well as all of the radio equipment. The MPT Cell comprised a 1+2 system which was configured as an extension of the existing radio system and featured specialised multi-coupling and line signalling equipment which had to interface to an Optic-fibre network supplied by others.
At the Craigieburn Signal Control room a Zetron DCS5020 digital switch control system was installed to allow the signal operators to communicate with trains and there were also some 26 Signal Post Telephone circuits interfaced to the Zetron Console. As with many railways projects, some work could be done within normal operating hours, but critical parts of the process had to be done outside of train running hours – between the hours of 1.00am and 5.30am.
AA Radio technicians were able to complete the installation and work closely with the many other contractors involved in this very large and major contract. Thiess were able to deliver the contract to the State Government on time and within budget, thus allowing the suburban trains to commence operations on the new facilities within the projected time-frames.
The Thiess Project Manager, John Spicuglia, was very complimentary in his comments to AA Radio Services and highlighted that it isn’t necessarily the size of the company doing the work, it is their attitude towards what has to be done and when, and that he will be looking forward to the next project where the two companies can work together.