The Australian Tunnelling Society in conjunction with the NZ Tunnelling Society, the Australian Geomechanics Society and the NZ Geotechnical Society will co-host a presentation on the City Rail Link Project, Auckland, New Zealand. Overall project outline and key challenges will be discussed. A project update on the design and construction of the 3.45 km twin tunnel underground rail scheme will be presented.
The City Rail Link (CRL) Project is a 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail link allows the Auckland rail network to at least double rail capacity. The detailed design and construction contract C3 commenced in 2019. The C3 Contract comprises two new underground stations, a redeveloped surface station, two bored running tunnels and two mined junction caverns. Nearly 1.5 years into the Alliance Contract, a project update on the detailed design and construction of the underground works is presented, including:

• Geological features along the tunnel alignment
• Challenges associated with ground conditions
• Design philosophy and methodology to get over difficulties
• Construction challenges – time frame, interfaces in an urban area, impact on existing structures, and so forth.

Speakers 

Wataru Okada: Tunnel Discipline Lead, Link Alliance City Rail Link (New Zealand)

Wataru is currently the Tunnel Discipline Lead on the City Rail Link C3 Contract and has 23 years’ experience in design and construction of large civil construction and underground works in New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Singapore. Earlier in his career, Wataru worked as a site engineer on the construction of Tokyo Metro Oedo Line Kagurazaka station and tunnels, and Singapore MRT North East Line trackworks and design coordination. Since 2000, Wataru has been working on a wide range of infrastructure projects in NZ and abroad in the consulting environment. His recent project involvement includes the Waterview Connection (NZ), City Rail Link C2, C3 and C6 Contracts, Forrestfield to Airport Link (WA), Toowoomba Range Clearance Upgrade (QLD), WHBLT (NSW) amongst other major underground projects in Australia.

Florent Detraux: Tunnel Construction Manager, Link Alliance City Rail Link (New Zealand)

Florent Detraux is currently the Tunnel Director on the City Rail Link Project. He has extensive experience in EPB-TBM, slurry TBM, variable density TBM and hard rock TBM as well as traditional excavation drill and blast, design and build works. He has worked on numerous challenging projects including, the Lötschberg basis tunnel in Switzerland, the Liefkenshoek Tunnel in Antwerp and the Saverne Tunnel which formed part of the high-speed rail line connecting Paris to Strasbourg and has been involved in all large bridges and viaducts of the South Europe Atlantic High speed line between Tours and Bordeaux. Florent has recently worked as the Tunnel Director on Phase 3 of Cairo Metro Line 3, where two TBMs will be used to accelerate progress on this 16 km complex project, include one stretch running beneath the River Nile.