PRESENTATION: “The City Rail Link Project” by John Fellows and Darryl Wong of CRL Team

Presentation

When – 5.30pm - Thursday 30th August 2018 //

Where – Lecture Room Theatre Eng 1401 / 401-401 (next to the lifts), University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland.

Agenda –
17:30 pre-presentation refreshments
18:00 presentation

Please register for the presentation below:

Abstract

The City Rail Link (CRL) is a rail project in Auckland. The project consists of an electrified, double-track rail tunnel underneath Auckland's City Centre, running for approximately 3.5 km between Britomart Transport Centre and Mount Eden Railway Station, where it will connect bidirectionally to the Western Line.

Two underground stations will be provided in Auckland's CBD: Aotea Station (located near Aotea Square) and Karangahape Station (located in the vicinity of Karangahape Road). A redevelopment of Mt Eden station with a near surface additional island platform and new station entrance building is also a part of the project. The current project is an adapted version of previous proposals to improve rail access to Auckland's City Centre since the 1920s. The CRL was highlighted as the number one transport project in the 2012 Auckland Spatial Plan Early works (approximately 10% of the project) commenced construction from Britomart to northern half of Albert Street in 2015. In July 2017 City Rail Link Limited was formed as a special purpose vehicle to deliver the project for the Crown and Auckland Council. The procurement process for the remaining portions of the project are progressing.

Benefits

The key benefits of the City Rail Link are intended to be:
• Turning Britomart Train Station from a terminus station into a through station, allowing more than twice the existing train capacity through the core of the network (from a maximum of 20 trains per hour, to a projected 48 trains per hour)
• Providing two new train stations in the Auckland CBD and significant upgrades to two existing stations, making most of the city centre easily accessible by train rapid transit. This will boost economic activity and development in these areas and relieve projected transport access constraints
• Reducing the duration of trips on the Western Line significantly, by removing the need to deviate to Newmarket and around the east of the CBD
• Allowing lines on opposite sides of the city to be through routed via the tunnel, providing direct crosstown rail connections
• Providing train capacity to allow new lines to be added to the network - including, but not limited to, other potential longer-term projects such as North Shore Rail
• Doubling the number of Aucklanders who have 30 minutes duration rail access to the CBD

The presentation will cover the following:
• CRL scope
• Station design and planning
• Current construction work
• CRL approach to systems engineering

Biography

John Fellows
Degree Architecture (North London)

Areas of Expertise
Station Architecture
Design management of major rail infrastructure projects
Management of multi-discipline design teams

Project Highlights
Joined British Railways Chief Architects department in London as a spotty 18 year old in 1974. By the age of 25 John was designing and supervising the construction of station reconstructions and completed a total of 20 new station builds in the south east of England before moving into client side design management of projects, including the design and construction of Ashford International station in his home town in Kent as part of the Channel Tunnel rail link project.

Throughout the 1990’s John was the Architecture and Design manager in Railtrack for the $6Bn Thameslink project, developing the designs for stations and engineering infrastructure and representing the organisation as expert witness at public hearings. He moved into UK’s Major Station team as asset manager and budget holder for the redevelopment of five major stations, including London Waterloo, London Victoria and Birmingham New Street.

In 2004 John became Network Rail’s Head of Station Design for the 2500 station rail network in the UK, leading the national specialist team of architects and designers, being a member of the NR engineering executive, setting design standards and design managing the delivery of station projects to meet growth in rail patronage and the rejuvenation of the rail network.
John joined Mott MacDonald in 2007 as a station design specialist in the commercial team advising Transport for London’s Overground team on the delivery of the $3.2Bn East London Line Project and became package manager for the delivery of the $1Bn Liverpool Street station design package for Crossrail in London. John lectured at Birmingham University for 5 years providing a Master’s Degree module on station and rail infrastructure design.

In 2012 John moved to New Zealand with Mott MacDonald and headed up the station design development in the Principal Advisor Team for the Auckland City Rail Link project, developing the winning design for Sydney North West Rail, peer reviewing the KL Blue Line stations in Malaysia and the Melbourne Metro project.
John joined the Auckland Transport team in 2014 and is currently the Head of Design and Engineering for the City Rail Link team, has married a Kiwi and would not want to live in any other city in the world.

Darryl Wong
BE (Civil), MIPENZ, MICE, C Eng

Darryl has been working as a civil engineer for over 25 years on the design and construction of major infrastructure projects. He returned to Auckland to work on the planning and design of the City Rail Link project in 2012.

Prior to this he worked on a variety of projects in Hong Kong for client organisations and consultants including sections of the Shatin Central Line, West Island Line, Kowloon Southern Link, East Rail Extension, the Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok, LUL’s Jubilee Line Extension and the Eastern Harbour Crossing.
Darryl’s current role encompasses the engineering for Auckland’s first underground rail project.