Preferred bidder announced for SRL East tunnelling works

A major milestone has been reached on Victoria’s transformative rail infrastructure project – the Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) – with the announcement of a preferred bidder for the first tunnelling contract for SRL East. 

Suburban Connect will be delivering a 16-kilometre section of twin tunnels between Cheltenham and Glen Waverley. The consortium is made up of global leaders in tunnelling that includes CPB Contractors, Ghella and Acciona Constructions – all with extensive experience in delivering projects in Victoria and Australia. 

The first contract is set to be awarded at the end of the year and a second contract for tunnelling works between Glen Waverley and Box Hill will be awarded next year. 

SRL East will require up to 10 tunnel boring machines (TBMs) to dig out the full 26-kilometre twin tunnels, with launch sites at Monash, Burwood and Heatherton. Tunnelling works are on track to begin in 2026. 

Meanwhile, early works on SRL East are well underway at several locations across the project route including at Heatherton, Glen Waverley and Burwood. 

SRL East will run from Cheltenham to Box Hill and will deliver six new underground stations at Cheltenham, Clayton, Monash, Glen Waverley, Burwood and Box Hill. Once completed, it will connect major employment, health, education and retail destinations in Melbourne’s east and southeast. 

This section of the Suburban Rail Loop alone is estimated to create up to 8,000 direct jobs during its construction. 

SRL East is expected to begin taking on passengers by 2035. 

“We’re getting on with a project that will slash travel times and make it easier to travel around our communities, while connecting people to jobs, education and housing,” Member for Ashwood Matt Fregon said. 

In addition to the announcement of a preferred bidder, the Victorian Government has also released the SRL Precincts Discussion Paper that will kick-start a massive program of community consultation for housing choice and affordability in areas surrounding the new stations. 

Local residents, businesses and stakeholders are now encouraged to have their say over the coming weeks before detailed draft Precincts Visions for each of the six station precincts are released for further community feedback later this year. 

SRL map (source: Victoria's Big Build)

The Suburban Rail Loop will deliver a 90-kilometre orbital rail line that will link every major train service from the Frankston Line to the Werribee Line via Melbourne Airport. 

This massive development is going to be delivered in stages: 

• SRL East – Cheltenham to Box Hill 
• SRL North – Box Hill to Melbourne Airport 
• SRL Airport – Melbourne Airport to Sunshine 
• SRL West – Sunshine to Werribee 

There will be three transport super hubs at Clayton, Broadmeadows and Sunshine that will connect regional services to SRL, enabling passengers outside Melbourne to travel to work, hospitals and universities in the suburbs without passing through the CBD. 

Construction on two of the four stages – SRL East and SRL Airport – are already underway, with SRL Airport expected to be completed first. 

SRL from Cheltenham to Melbourne Airport is estimated to support up to 24,000 jobs across the Victorian economy during the delivery phase, including thousands of direct jobs for SRL East (8,000) and SRL North (5,100). 

“We promised Victorians we’d get on with building the Suburban Rail Loop and that’s exactly what we’re doing – this first major contract is a major step towards tunnel boring machines being in the ground by 2026. 

“SRL will not only transform our public transport network, it’ll reshape how Melbourne grows in the decades ahead – taking thousands of cars off roads, delivering 24,000 jobs across the life of the project and boosting hundreds of small local businesses. 

“We need to boost housing choices and affordability in established areas, which is why our SRL Precincts have been so carefully selected – they are places with easy connections to existing transport and have enormous potential for high quality jobs,” Minister for Suburban Rail Loop Jacinta Allan said. 

Source: Premier of Victoria – Media Centre; Victoria’s Big Build – Suburban Rail Loop (1, 2, 3); The Maitland Mercury