Is there anything governments can’t stuff up?
As I recently reported, Tasmania’s biggest infrastructure project, building two new cross-strait ferries, has been scuppered for the time being, because no one thought to build adequate new berthing facilities for the huge new boats. We Tasmanians can take at least some comfort, though, that it’s not just us. Victoria and NSW have spent billions acquiring new trains that they’ve just realised they can’t use.
A leaked government report on the new $14 billion Metro Tunnel rail line under central Melbourne reveals delays, potential compensation claims, unresolved issues with cancer treatment equipment in an inner suburb, and plans to dump elements of the mega-project to cut costs.
This comes on top of earlier revelations that the trains were too long for many suburban stations.
It’s not as if they shouldn’t have seen it coming, either.
News of the fresh delays come as the $21.6 billion Metro rail line under central Sydney opened on Monday. NSW Premier Chris Minns hailed that project as “a new era of public transport”.
Yeah, about that… let’s hop into the Wayback Machine, to six years ago.
The NSW Government has an embarrassing problem with $2 billion worth of new trains that are on order – they’re too wide to go through the tunnels.
Fear not, commuters, they had a cunning plan.
They simply changed the safety standards. Oh, and gouged out a chunk of the tunnels. What can go wrong?
In a Review of Environmental Factors report, TfNSW said widening all of the tunnels and realigning the track was prohibitively expensive but doing nothing was also not an option.
Instead, they recommended a “sub-medium electric standard” which will essentially see the current regulations watered down so the wider trains can operate.
“This option would allow the New Intercity Fleet to operate on both lines and pass each other, and therefore ensure better longer term operational outcomes, while also minimising heritage impacts through reduced tunnel lining modifications,” the report states.
In addition, the tunnels would also be “notched” in places. This involves gouging a chunk out of the existing tunnel where the clearance is narrowest to allow the new trains the pass through.
This gouge could be almost 13cm deep, much of which will take place on curves where trains are more prone to swaying.
Everything else will be fixed up with duct tape and number-eight wire.
Trains too big for their tunnels are not the only headache facing the Victorian government, though.
The leaked report details a long-running and still unresolved issue with cancer scanning and treatment equipment at Parkville’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The equipment is affected by electromagnetic interference from the underground rail line, which passes nearby.
The issues have already cost $128 million in capital works and $36 million in extra operating costs to relocate sensitive scanning equipment from Peter MacCallum, the Royal Women’s Hospital and the Royal Melbourne Hospital to East Melbourne […]
The rail project has also affected an electron microscope that sits in the basement of Parkville’s Peter Doherty Institute, which performs infectious disease research.
The high-tech microscope is less than 20 metres from the underground rail line. It is one of only “a few dozen” such microscopes “in the world and [the institute] is the only facility in the southern hemisphere with access to a [microscope of its type] … allowed to handle viruses such as Ebola and Hendra”, the report says.
Because these viruses are so contagious, the report says the microscope “must be located in the same building as the laboratory”.
And you just know all these stuff ups come with a hefty price tag for taxpayers. The rail project in Victoria is already nearly five billion dollars over budget. But what’s a lazy five bill in a state already drowning in 200 billion dollars of debt – $25,000 per Victorian?
Remember: these are the same people who reckon they can centrally plan a global economy and manage the weather 100 years into the future.
