Excavation of Sydney Metro West’s Hunter Street Station is 30 per cent complete.

Three roadheaders are digging out the future CBD transport hub, which will be 30m underground. They are excavating the Hunter Street Station cavern and turnback tunnels, which are to the east of the new station. The turnback tunnels will allow trains to turn around before travelling back towards Westmead.

Each roadheader weighs up to 120 tonnes.

More than 149,000 tonnes of spoil have been excavated by the roadheaders so far, and the largest area of the cavern excavated is 235m2.

As the roadheaders complete excavation on the station cavern and associated tunnels, two TBMs will be launched at The Bays in mid-2024, to carve out the 3.5km twin rail tunnels below Darling Harbour to Hunter Street.

When Sydney Metro West opens, passengers will be able to use an underground walkway to connect to metro services on the Metro North West Line and City & Southwest line at Martin Place.

Further connections to the Sydney light rail and train network will also be accessible nearby.

In early March, TBMs Beatrice and Daphne were relaunched from Five Dock Metro Station site to build the new metro tunnels from The Bays to Sydney Olympic Park. Their next stop will be 2km away at the future Burwood North Metro Station site.

The two machines made tunnelling history in December last year when they arrived at Five Dock Station site minutes apart to achieve the first double TBM breakthrough in the southern hemisphere.

A few days after the TBMs’ relaunch, the first service tunnel to connect the Sydney Metro West line to a new stabling and maintenance facility at Clyde was completed. A roadheader called Rhonda broke through a wall of rock to complete the 700m-long service tunnel after 12 months of excavation.

The 24km Sydney Metro West – scheduled for opening in 2032 – will double rail capacity between Greater Parramatta and the Sydney CBD, linking new communities to rail services and supporting housing supply.