Track Team Tames Tough Australian Outback

By Mary Buckner Powers
A 16-year McGraw-Hill veteran, Powers has reported
on a number of design-build projects in Design•Build
and its sister publication Engineering News-Record.

(Photo courtesy of KBR)

After 100 years of planning and several false starts, the final leg of the north-south cross-Australia railway finally is nearing completion. The landmark project, meant to celebrate the country’s centennial, came together when a design-build consortium pushed design to overcome harsh conditions while keeping costs in check.

The $715-million, 1,420-km line connects the town of Alice Springs to Darwin, the closest port in Australia to Asia. It traverses the sparsely populated Northern Territory through the Macdonnell Ranges, Tanami Desert and tropical woodlands. The project also includes operation and maintenance of an older line that runs 835 km south from Alice Springs to Tarcoola, tying the new line into an existing rail system that links all of the continent’s major coastal cities.

Booting Up

Leading the rail consortium is Houston-based Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), considered the catalyst that made the project happen, says Franco Moretti, former CEO of Asia Pacific Transport. APT holds a deed from AustralAsia Railway Corp., which was established by the Northern Territory and the South Australian governments to push the design, build, own, operate, transfer (BOOT) project. APT is 50% owned by KBR. Other partners include three Australian contractors.

APT, in turn, formed ADrail, which includes KBR, John Holland Group, Barclay Mowlem and Macmahon Holdings to design and build the system and Freightlink, which includes Australian Railway Group and South Australia Northern Territory Holdings, to operate and maintain the line for 50 years.

One responsibility of the organizations is developing the market for the new line. “We have to identify the market, size it and win it,” says Moretti. APT divided the potential market into two components. One is the freight market within Australia. The other is international trade fostered by the railway’s link with a new deep-water port under construction in Darwin that will handle freight to and from Asia. “The financing was related to how we segregated the two, so we have strong incentives to develop both businesses,” says Moretti.

The complex deal took two years to negotiate and had 25 parties and 112 signatories. Private investors committed $480 million and Australian governments, which include the Commonwealth and the two territories, committed the remainder. A cornerstone was a set of guidelines negotiated with the Commonwealth allowing companies wanting to compete with the concession holder access to the railway. “It was fundamental to allow the project to proceed,” says Moretti. Click here to view map

KBR began putting the team together in 1997 and construction started in 2001. “The project needed companies that had experience in remote construction, civil construction and earthwork and they had to be able to self-perform,” says Moretti. Each firm has critical expertise. John Holland Group, Melbourne, is the largest bridge builder Down Under; Barclay Mowlem, Pymble, has a significant rail division; and Mcmahon Holdings, Welshpool, is a large earthmoving outfit.

Under the BOOT agreement, the consortium had just three years to build the line and get it into service. Land acquisition was not an issue. The rail corridor is owned by the Crown and indigenous land trusts, similar to U.S. Indian reservations. The necessary surveys, investigations and design to develop the link were done in 1981. The government also provided quarries for materials needed in construction.

Penny-Pinching

Railroad construction teams had to bring virtually everything with them as they pushed across the Outback. (Photo courtesy of KBR)

Finding the most efficient construction methods for the remote locations and the widely varying topography and weather were critical issues. There is little access to construction materials and equipment in the Outback. The population of the Northern Territory, which is twice the size of Texas, is only 200,000. Alice Springs, population 31,000, is as far from the nearest big city, Adelaide, as it is from Darwin, a city of 70,000. Darwin is closer to Singapore than it is to any city in Australia. There are two intermediate towns, Katherine, with 9,000 people, and Tennant Creek, which has 3,000. “This is 10 years worth of work for the Territory,” says Charles Duncan, ADrail’s design manager.

Otherwise, the rail job is straightforward. “We’re not pushing the bounds of technology in railroad engineering. We were driven by our desire to find clever ways to do ordinary engineering quicker and cheaper, so the design effort was aimed at questioning traditional ways of doing things,” says Duncan.

The project had to be built within a tight budget to make it viable. “It only got off the ground by the skin of its teeth, so we were pushing the limits of good practices to save costs,” Duncan says. The $715-million budget is about two-thirds of the normal cost of a railroad of that size.

Shaving Costs

Many decisions that may not affect costs much on a small project became significant on this one. The team decided to place railroad ties 60 mm farther apart than normal and shaved 100,000 units off the job. “We just trimmed around the edges,” says Duncan. Another major decision was to reduce the depth of the ballast from the standard 250 mm to 150 mm. The thickness eventually will be increased during routine maintenance, deferring the cost until the line is operating.

Huge costs were also saved on the 510-m bridge across the Elizabeth River, near Darwin. Constructors were concerned that they could not build it within the schedule and early estimates put the cost at $15 million. The bridge eventually was built alongside an existing highway bridge, which simplified the railway structure and allowed the lateral load to be shared between the two bridges. The cost was reduced to $6 million and the schedule was met.

All of the design solutions were driven by construction requirements, says Duncan. “We developed a smart set of standard bridge designs with interchangeable components that worked successfully,” he says. The project includes about 100 minor bridges and 7 major bridges. Small bridges were all built with 12-m prestressed concrete spans and large bridges had 30 m spans. The sizes and weights were picked so they could be transported without a highway escort.

In most areas of the desert, there was no historical information on hydrology. Contractors could decide during construction whether a small bridge or a culvert was most appropriate for the dry streambeds and catchments that flooded during infrequent but torrential rains. They also used method specs for varying terrain. “It gave crews true flexibility and maximized the borrow material,” says Al Volpe, ADrail’s project director. A geotechnical crew worked ahead of construction, selecting materials and doing compaction tests.

The project required about 1,400 culverts. The 1.8-m-diameter culverts were manufactured on site out of rolls of steel plate to avoid having to truck in precast concrete units.

Everything was standardized and refined with a production line mentality, says Jock Chudacek, design and construction manager for ADrail. Chudacek kept tight control on design and its timeline. The design shop was set up completely separate from the four design and construction companies involved in the project. “It was done at a distance for results and communication,” Chudacek says. It also kept team members away from the external influences and selfish motivations of the parent company. “That does happen in joint ventures,” he says. He also required designers to be 100% devoted to the railway project and not also assigned to other jobs by their employers.

All drawings had to be approved by 10 stakeholder companies, each of which assigned a representative who was a renowned expert, notes Chudacek. “So when they required something, it was for a reason, not a want,” he says. Supervision by this committee worked well because the members were so well respected.

The project was on a fast track and design was never more than a few weeks ahead of the bulldozers. The earthwork was mobilized on the day the concession was signed, says Chudacek. Twelve months of planning went into the project before that day. “We had a small construction team that convinced the partners to put in the necessary resources to be ready to start quickly,” says Kevyn Brown, ADRail construction manager.

Four Fronts

Rails were welded into 357-m lengths. (Photo courtesy of KBR)

The key to the project’s success has been the planning, says Volpe. Originally, the team thought the line would be built from Alice Springs north to Darwin. But plans changed to save time. Construction depots were set up at the two intermediate towns, Tennant Creek and Katherine, giving constructors four work fronts. Earthwork progressed simultaneously north and south from each town. Each earthwork site had two 10-hour shifts a day for 13 days a fortnight. Each shift built 1 km a day.

Ballast was produced at a quarry north of Katherine. About 2 million railroad ties were manufactured at plants in Katherine and Tennant Creek. Rail was trucked from a steel mill in Whyalla in 27.5-m lengths to both towns, where they were welded into 357-m lengths. Two work trains were loaded everyday with ties and six pairs of rail and rolled out to the working front. The two tracklayers worked toward each other from the two towns. After meeting last December, they headed south from Tennant Creek toward Alice Springs and north from Katherine to Darwin.

Construction was scheduled around the 3-1/2 month rainy season in the north and around the three weeks of torrential rains in the desert. “Nothing could stand in the way of working continuously,” says Volpe.

Work camps were set up every 100 km so the maximum travel each way for workers was 50 km. Mobile machine workshops were built and wells were dug for both drinking water and construction water. “There was no infrastructure,” says Alan McCann, ADRail logistics manager.

Every six weeks, workers had a week off. “We had to fly everyone to where they were from, at least 2,000 km away. That’s what happens in Australia,” says McCann.

But good planning has produced good results. The track laying will be complete Sept. 15, 5-1/2 months ahead of schedule. Operations should begin by the end of the year. “We’ve had some close calls, but we’ve squeaked by,” says Volpe.

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