Image courtesy of ARTC Inland Rail
With a focus on benefiting the community, this marks the first big step in building the backbone for a world-class supply chain through regional Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland by 2025.
Detailed design for the 103km-long Parkes to Narromine project was completed for the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) by the Inland Rail Design Joint Venture (IRDJV) led by WSP and Mott MacDonald. The IRDJV is also delivering the detailed design for the Narrabri to North Star project and feasibility design for the Illabo to Stockinbingal project.
The inaugural event marking the beginning of construction was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Michael McCormack who said:
“Inland Rail is game-changing infrastructure. It will deliver jobs, not just during the construction phase, but permanent jobs through increased freight. Farmers will be able to move food and fibre between Melbourne and Brisbane, in larger volumes and more-cost efficiently.”
Jansen Stewart, WSP’s Client Director for Rail said, “This occasion celebrates WSP’s ten year journey with ARTC on the Inland Rail project and it marks the transition from paper and digital models to physical works commencing on site.
“The common thread that weaves through our early planning work on the project to detailed design, and now construction, is that we are striving to change the status quo for the east coast freight network and create something better for generations to come.
“Our teams are dedicatedly working to provide a faster, more reliable and higher capacity network that offers a safer option by moving more goods off the roads and on to rail.”
Inland Rail is the largest freight rail project in Australia and will drive $16 billion in economic benefits, making the nation cleaner and safer by taking more than 200,000 trucks off the road.
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