Railways in Melbourne
In February 2015, the State Government established the Melbourne Metro Rail Authority to oversee planning for new twin 9-kilometre rail tunnels through the central city between South Kensington station and South Yarra. The new Metro Tunnel will have five new underground stations and connect the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines with the Sunbury line, creating a new route through the CBD as an alternative to the City Loop. New underground stations will be created at Arden, Parkville, Domain and two new CBD stations, State Library and Town Hall. Enabling works were underway by 2016 and major construction work on the tunnel and stations began in 2017.The project has an estimated cost of $11 billion and is scheduled to be complete by 2025.
Summit Tunnel
The tunnel, between Littleborough and Walsden near Todmorden, was bored beneath the Pennines, a natural obstruction to most forms of traffic. The tunnel is just over long and carries two standard-gauge tracks in a single horseshoe-shaped tube, approximately wide and high. Summit Tunnel was designed by the civil engineer Thomas Longridge Gooch, assisted by Barnard Dickinson. Progress on the tunnel’s construction was slower than anticipated, largely because the excavation process was more difficult than anticipated. On 1 March 1841, Summit Tunnel was officially opened by Sir John Frederick Sigismund Smith; it had cost of £251,000 and 41 workers had lost their lives.