Sydney Launches Major Underground Metro Build With $7.7B in New Contracts

Sydney Metro West, an underground rail megaproject valued at roughly $19 billion, moved into a major execution phase on the finish of final month after Sydney Metro signed 4 main contracts for stations, observe and techniques, trains and long-term operations. 

The contract signings on Dec. 29, 2025, mark the undertaking’s transition from predominantly linear tunneling work to station building, techniques set up and long-term operations planning, amplifying building exercise as a number of complicated work fronts advance concurrently.

Building of the underground community, practically 20 years within the making, lastly started in 2022 after years of planning, acquiring required environmental approvals and conducting geotechnical investigations.

Early works and main tunneling packages established the bodily spine of the 24-km subterranean line linking Parramatta—town’s second-largest industrial heart—with Sydney’s central enterprise district (CBD). 

Venture scope contains twin working tunnels, turnbacks, new underground stations and supporting techniques infrastructure, with a focused opening in 2032, in line with paperwork reviewed by ENR.

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Below new agreements, John Holland, an Australian contractor, received the Linewide Bundle value about $2.2 billion. It contains putting in 60 km of observe, energy, communications, air flow, fireplace techniques and constructing a 38-hectare stabling and upkeep facility at Clyde, an industrial rail precinct close to Parramatta.

The Stations Bundle West, valued at about $1.9 billion, was awarded to Gamuda Berhad, a Malaysia-based tunneling and infrastructure contractor, for the design and building of 5 new underground stations at Westmead, North Strathfield, Burwood North, 5 Dock and The Bays.

Highlighting the function these stations will play within the broader community, New South Wales Minister for Transport John Graham stated, “New interchange hyperlinks at Westmead and North Strathfield will enable metro passengers to attach immediately with Sydney Trains service, strengthening the broader transport community.”

A contract for trains, techniques, upkeep and operations value roughly $2.7 billion was awarded to the Metro Trains West consortium, led by MTR Corp. with CRRC Corp. The 22-year contract covers the procurement and commissioning of the system’s trains, operations and upkeep.

Sydney Metro additionally appointed the Metropolis consortium—led by Lendlease with Mirvac and Coombes Property Group—as precinct improvement companion for Hunter Avenue Station. That package deal, valued at about $1 billion, contains supply of the underground station and two over-station industrial developments within the CBD.

An aerial view of Sydney’s central enterprise district reveals the Hunter Avenue precinct, the place Sydney Metro West will ship a significant underground station and over-station industrial improvement designed to anchor the road’s major CBD interchange.

Photograph courtesy of Sydney Metro West

Hunter Avenue is deliberate because the western line’s principal CBD gateway and interchange, offering direct connections to a number of current Sydney Trains and metro providers beneath town’s busiest industrial district.

Venture paperwork describe the station as a high-capacity node designed to deal with peak-hour passenger flows whereas accommodating turnback operations on the finish of the road, a mixture that concentrates each operational significance and building danger inside a tightly constrained underground footprint.

Taken collectively, the 4 contracts complete about $7.6–$7.8 billion, representing the biggest single tranche of awards since tunneling started on the undertaking.

Venture paperwork determine Westmead Station—a deep underground cease in a dense medical and training precinct—as consultant of the engineering complexity anticipated throughout a number of stations. 

Crews there just lately completed putting in what the state described as the biggest formwork arch within the Southern Hemisphere—a 69-ft-wide short-term construction supporting cavern excavation—adopted by an 82-hour jacking and winching operation and a 1,941-ton concrete pour forming cavern partitions as much as 8-ft thick, one indication of how building depth is growing as station works advance.

Floor Circumstances Form Supply Technique

Environmental approvals and hydrogeology assessments present that Sydney Metro West is being formed as a lot by subsurface circumstances as by alignment geometry. The hall is dominated by Ashfield Shale, with deeper sections of Hawkesbury Sandstone and localized zones of alluvium and disturbed fill close to river crossings and former industrial land.

Groundwater is shallow alongside a lot of the alignment, with regulatory approvals requiring energetic dewatering and steady monitoring tied to set off thresholds for floor motion. In some places, station caverns are anticipated to stay open for as much as two years, growing reliance on staged excavation, short-term ground-support techniques and real-time instrumentation.

These constraints are most acute at Hunter Avenue, the place station and turnback caverns are deliberate beneath dense high-rise improvement and close to current underground rail property. Planning paperwork spotlight tight clearances and conservative motion limits, requiring fastidiously sequenced excavation and steady monitoring to guard adjoining buildings.

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Building Outlook

Sydney Metro has stated tunneling throughout the hall is focused for completion in 2026, with station building, tunnel fit-out and techniques set up accelerating from 2027 because the newly signed contracts progress. Extra station contracts for Parramatta, Sydney Olympic Park and Pyrmont are anticipated to be introduced later this 12 months.

With supply contracts formally executed and technically demanding underground work increasing, Sydney Metro West ranks among the many world’s largest energetic publicly funded city rail tasks. For contractors and engineers, the undertaking illustrates how geology, groundwater administration and dense city interfaces more and more outline supply danger as megaprojects’ transition into station building, techniques integration and long-term operations.

Sydney Metro Chief Govt Peter Regan stated the contract signings place this system for a sustained surge in activity, including, “With these landmark signings in place, Sydney Metro West is ready for a busy and thrilling 2026.”