New MetroRail project: southern suburbs railway overview

There is a major revival in rail mass transit in Perth as the community addresses an unsustainable dependence on private car usage. In 1982, there were just 42 route kilometres of urban passenger railways in Perth. This increased to 63 kilometres in 1983 with the re-opening of the line from Perth to Fremantle that had been closed. By 1993 there were 92 route kilometres with completion of electrification and construction of a new line to the Northern Suburbs. By 2007, there will be 172 route kilometres through implementation of the New MetroRail (NMR) Project. The NMR Project grew from the examination of public transport needs for the Perth Metropolitan Region. The railway to Mandurah has been in the planning stage since the early 1990's and much of the present route was detailed in the South West Metropolitan Railway Master Plan in 1999. The extension of the Northern Suburbs Railway to Clarkson was detailed in the Northern Suburbs Transit System Extension Master Plan in 2000. After the State election in 2001, the new government chose to make a significant change to sections of the railway to Mandurah, significantly in the route through Rockingham and the Direct Route along the Kwinana Freeway between Glen Iris and Perth. This was documented in the Supplementary Master Plan in 2002. The NMR Project is the largest public transport project undertaken by the Government of Western Australia. It includes extensions to the Northern Suburbs Railway, significant improvements to a section of the Armadale line and a new spur line off the Armadale Railway to Thornlie that have been completed over the past 12 months. The major part of the NMR Project, the construction of the Southern Suburbs Railway (SSR) from Perth to Mandurah, commenced in 2004 and has now passed the halfway mark. Services to Mandurah are planned to commence in April 2007. Rollingstock to service the extensions to the existing system as well as the SSR is being progressively delivered. Twenty seven of the 31 three-car electric multiple units are already delivered, 15 of which are in peak hour service on the existing network with the remainder of the railcars to be delivered by mid 2006. When complete, the SSR will connect with and provide through-running train services between Clarkson (33 km north of Perth) and Mandurah (72 km south of Perth). The additional rollingstock and infrastructure almost doubles the size of the existing Perth passenger railway. This paper provides a brief overview of the New MetroRail Project and examines in some detail the procurement approach and infrastructure contracts for the Southern Suburbs Railway between Perth and Mandurah. There follows a review of the major challenges faced in the implementation of the Southern Suburbs Railway.