Sydney Trains’ mission is to keep the city moving by delivering safe, customer-focused, reliable, clean rail services and effective paths for freight. In the past year alone, Sydney Trains carried 375 million passengers.

The Cockle Creek Railway Bridge is a steel bridge structure across Cockle Creek at Argenton and part of the NSW railway network. It is a double track, 2-span, riveted steel Pratt truss bridge, painted with a lead based grey micaceous paint.

Duratec is being contracted by Transport for NSW (Sydney Trains) to remove and replace existing lead based coating with a new coating system and carry out structural steel strengthening works to the bridge. A major part of the scope was to design, engineer and install a tunnel containment structure to access all bridge elements to carry out remediation works, ensuring the tracks remained open for train operations.

Following 12 months of planning, Duratec, in conjunction with our subcontractors RKR Engineering and BG&E designed, fabricated, and assembled modular structures at RKR’s factory in Sydney prior to transporting and installing at Cockle Creek Bridge.

The containment structure was installed during a 36 hour weekend track possession. The structure has enabled Duratec to carry out remediation works during normal operating hours, with no disruption to train movements.

It was a remarkable result, installing one of the first tunnel containment structures in Australia, while working to extremely tight time frames.

Click here to view a time lapse video of the tunnel construction.