Building Sydney's Underground Metro Tunnels!

[@BP3232]

I live in Claremont Meadows and have done a few repairs on equipment down the hole. I can confirm it's a bloody long walk. Love the Aussie content mate keep it up!

[@dezmondw7927]

That's wild to hear they have to use a compression chamber before working on the front drill.

[@TheJttv]

Thats only needed on soft soils and under water tbms. rock tbms dont have it.

[@jablewit]

It's probably best called an airlock and the crews would have to spend extra time in it AFTER they exit the higher pressure cutting face zone to avoid decompression sickness.

[@dezmondw7927]

@@jablewit thx for the correction 🙌🏿

[@seldoon_nemar]

@@jablewit Decompression sickness only applies for more extreme pressures.

[@who-gives-a-toss_Bear]

You decompress after you've been in a pressurised zone. NOT before. Like diving, to much time at pressure equals decompression.

[@KnowArt]

damn! you always get the best access to these kind things. awesome stuff. Kinda jealous

[@AaronWitt]

most of my time is spent acquiring access haha

[@TBird89]

Finally someone showed us what’s going👌🏻… my wife and I took the stage 1 metro driverless train from Petersham to Chatswood and I made sure I was in the last carriage to see through the windows the engineering that went into it and I love how it snaked it’s way through the Sydney harbour, the tunnel was lit up and the best part was seeing it decline and incline under the harbour and you can also feel the pressure change at its lowest point and wow this thing is super fast. Glad to see you back… it must be having best coffee in the world in the mornings and Halal snack packs for dinner right 🤣

[@clyde9767]

don't usually comment but just wanted to say absolutely love your videos

[@AaronWitt]

thank you for watching!!

[@footedFanboy]

As somebody who lives in Sydney it is nice to see what is going on down there beyond the public eye, nice video though keep it up!

[@Eli04664]

Very interesting, and as Sydneysider who uses the completed stretch of the metro almost every day it’s amazing to see the precise engineering that goes into this amazing project.

[@jimsvideos7201]

That remote-control hammer just makes sense; all that vibration can’t be helped but there’s no reason to shake the operator’s guts loose.

[@brianjin9592]

Great amount of info! Good job!

[@upgradeNEVER]

Travelled on the new city extension of the Metro recently in August/September when visiting Sydney. Truly world class public transport. So damn awesome to see some behind the scenes of how it's all done (albeit different projects, but similar)

[@Brian-M37]

This stuff is incredibly cool! Thanks for everything you do Aaron 👍🏼

[@blueman5924]

Wow ! This could have been twice as long, and I’d still want more info. Great insight to the workings. Cool digs. 👍🇨🇦🤙

[@stco2426]

Great, and well covered. Would have liked to learn a bit more actually, but very impressed and thanks to the company. I had no idea about the airport 'upgrade'. Good work!

[@Guoenyi]

This is so cool!

[@UncleManuel]

Building such a tunnel is a boring job. ... And that was the pun of the day. You're welcome! 😁🤘

[@Noosa21]

Thankyou for sharing this.

[@brianminsk8]

THAT WAS INSANE!!!!!

[@tomrogers9467]

Toronto, Ontario, Canada also tried to build a light rail line along a major city street. It’s been ten years of boondoggles, and the line is still in “testing” stage. But there have likely been lot of brown paper bags of cash between our politicians and the builders.

[@StevenRides]

If you're referring to trillium LRT that's Ottawa, unless toronto has had issues with theirs but havent seen any news about it.

[@tomrogers9467]

@@StevenRides No, it’s the Toronto LRT . “ Eglinton Crosstown.” Been ten horrid years, everything appears finished. Hasn’t carried a single paying passenger. Billions over budget. Still in never ending “ testing” stage, been going on for over a year. Complete corrupt 💩 show.

[@mjcats2011]

Eglinton Line in Toronto.

[@BrettLin-z9r]

Very impressive

[@NSPOOL]

I live there, its mega. The stations are amazing.

[@TOPTECH-r3r]

Imagine the engineering that goes into building one of these beasts!

[@timpratten2258]

I love your videos. I just wish they were longer.

[@AaronWitt]

yeah... we're working on it

[@codyapplegarth]

I was a kid flying into Kingsford Smith (old Sydney airport) in the early 80's and it was dated then. There have been talks for 30 plus years and fighting about the new airport. It was probably cheaper to build way back then, but new technology and design will make this way better.

[@Bigsoot7393]

Great job to be on, plus we get 300k a year to boot!

[@LeonardTavast]

I have wished for some underground content from Aaron for a couple of weeks. Thank you!

[@janlou14]

Thanks for this video. I travel past these areas multiple times a week so interesting to see what's going on underground. Not so sure I'll be enjoying living under the flightpath of the new airport though.

[@darryl3392]

When you live 5km from the new airport these videos help explain what’s going on in the area

[@hanswoast7]

Sounds like there is a gap in public communications.

[@-Osiris-]

Sydney keeps winning

[@csil2863]

Very interesting project. My favorite part of the video was coming out of the tunnel and back out into the daylight. I’m not a fan of tunnels, nevertheless the technology and the people who make it all work are amazing!

[@BigBlueMan118]

Yeah but more than half the line is above ground, and the whole trip through the main tunnelled section will be less than 10 minutes I believe.

[@steelshepherd6843]

Wow, that pretty cool.

[@Rohit_uv12]

TBM rings, Cross passage support lining, designed by HATCH Aus Pty Ltd.

[@allawa]

How much power does theis unit draw, this is really big

[@vincentgrinn2665]

just the cutting disc alone is 2.8mw wouldnt be surprised if the whole tbm required atleast 10mw

[@TheRealTanSeeker]

Eyyyyyy! I see some old mates!

[@lokesh303101]

Yes!

[@Mike-pf1ru]

The body of water Sydney Airport is surrounded by is Botany Bay, not Sydney Harbour, which is a few miles northwards. Botany Bay is where Captain Cook landed in 1770.

[@DimasFajar-ns4vb]

yeah more amazing things please

[@mikeklein318]

That was awesome the planning that goes into job of that size have they but a completion date .

[@mattzecevic8537]

Just when i start really getting interested in your videos they end... 9 minutes isnt long enough Aaron.

[@AaronWitt]

we've got longer ones in the works -- this one was tricky as we didn't quite know what to expect and couldn't talk while we were in the tunnel

[@mattzecevic8537]

@@AaronWitt i live in Ivanhoe in Melbourne. Around the corner from me is the Melbourne tunnel project. Theres sites in Bulleen and Watsonia. They're huge bro, are you coming to Melb to film those??

[@shopshop144]

Why so short? Ad they are installing the ring sections, what do the individual pieces go up against? It didn't look virgin earth.

[@Bigsoot7393]

It's inside a big steel tube then as they push forward steel tube moves away from segment and leaves the virgin earth there, but they fill with grout as they move forward so segments don't really touch virgin earth

[@JohnJohn-ts6ux]

Thank you so much this is really interesting, I don't work in the I'm BTM, Amazing Engineer stuff, I was just wondering is it still the TBM the German company, everything etc, thanks😊

[@anthonywalsh2164]

They should keep the TBMs in the ground building all the future tunnels, even if the track laying,etc comes 5 years down the track.

[@TimothyHarmont]

When is it scheduled to finish?

[@MrCzech78]

Metro will become more local as people from the Sydney CBD or people from Palm Beach for instance doesn’t want to spend another couple hours travelling home after a long journey from Europe or US. A new type of transport will be required and that is a high speed trains with only a couple of stops in between. For instance one line directly to Sydney central with a stop in Parramatta. Then another direct line from the new airport to Newcastle perhaps with one stop in Gosford.Third line from the new airport to Canberra. Fourth line to Wollongong and finally the fifth line to Katoomba or Lithgow. That’s right to make it work properly there must be very few stops where you can change onto more localised transport. Luck of planning and using common sense prevails in NSW as a good instance is the newly built M12 which just going to choke existing M7 even if they build 5 lanes each way on it. Of course we need a junction between M12 /M7 but why don’t M12 continues straight through Liverpool and beyond to CBD and on other side all the way to Silverdale for now? The new M9 should’ve also been built before the new airport opens at least a small segment for now between Campbelltown and Richmond than extend it later on all the way so at the end it’s linked between Wollongong and Gosford. Anyway that’s a completely different topic.

[@Harry_Gersack]

Interesting, I never heard of a pressurized cutting head. So it's just pressurized with air I guess? Otherwise you wouldn't be able to enter it, would you?

[@antonio3199]

Epb is just measuring earth pressure so you don’t create a dip or hump on the road above you or damage the TBM

[@Harry_Gersack]

@@antonio3199 They're obviously not only measuring. He said multiple times that the CUTTING HEAD IS PRESSURIZED. He even said that people entering the head have to stay multiple hours in a (de)compression chamber before they can enter the actual head. Sure they'll measure the movement or pressure of soil surrounding them, so they know what's going on. But that has like absolutely nothing to do with my question HOW the cutting head is pressurized.

[@Bigsoot7393]

Big air compressors mate, when going under water you have to adjust air blow to not blow bubbles on the surface!

[@peterwaugh9416]

As they put the tunnel segments in place, the wall of the tunnel already had a concrete surface. Where did that come from?

[@SYDTrainsFilms]

Shotcrete! its like this spray on concrete that they use.

[@Bigsoot7393]

No not shotcrete, it's steel, look at a TBM before they go underground they have a big steel tube at the back of the shields, the ring is built at the back of the tube then machine pushes forward off ring leaving it behind

[@Bigsoot7393]

​@@SYDTrainsFilmsnah it's steel mate

[@MrBricks148]

I have the same oil can at 5:40

[@cameronprior6190]

When ya gonna do a Longwall video

[@treechimp4949]

Do Adelaide Australia there starting a tunnel as well🎉🎉

[@Dobuan75]

Correction: "The Harbour" here is Sydney Harbour. KSA (Sydney Airport) at Mascot is on Botany Bay. A bay, not a harbour.

[@maxwalker1159]

Cool

[@entropyachieved750]

Look at the size of it... Makes Musks vagas tunnel look like drainage systems

[@antonio3199]

Funded by Australia Vegas tunnels funded by musk no city money

[@TheHalo14aus]

He only started that "company" to prevent cities from building public transport as he's dead against it. Moronic.

[@vincentgrinn2665]

to be fair a good chunk of the point of the boring companies tunneling was that it can be made smaller, as its use didnt require it to be as big which makes it faster even then tunnel boring machine scome in all kinds of sizes, from 1-19m in diameter

[@entropyachieved750]

@@vincentgrinn2665 yeah you still need room for services and both ways for people to escape in an emergency as well as responders to get to U in an emergency... Musks is a death trap... Imagine being in Musks tunnel and there being a fire....

[@craigjones6557]

Because CPB are involved this project will be at least 5 years late

[@JayJayGamerOfficial]

Stage 1 was finished early and under budget while stage two which tunnels under the CBD and the harbour opened a few months ago was a year behind schedule and over budget which was no surprise since It was tunneling under the city. The airport line appears to have most of the tunnels and viaducts constructed and on schedule to open for 2026 stage three of the first line is 2 years behind schedule i believe and is currently taking over an existing rail line which just had the last suburban trains run on it a day ago. The western line between the city and Parramatta seems to have a lot of progress done already and with the opening set for 2032 it appears to be on schedule.

[@navaho5430]

Do one on the Snowy 2 tunnel that keeps getting stuck and costing hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers money wasted.

[@vincentgrinn2665]

its a real shame what they did to snowy 2.0 it was known before they even started digging that the ground there was no good, and that itd cause issues, but turnbull wanted it there so thats where it got built

[@steveo1600]

Yes well when your playing with Granite rock things are certainly going to get mangelled! But when its finally done it will be worth it.

[@willleslie2745]

More like $3billion after all the delays because the tradies sit around eating pizza for $70 an hour all day

[@TawDrago]

Reads like a management, logistics fiasco.

[@floydwilliams3321]

❤❤❤

[@LetsGo-qw4wu]

How do I get a job here ?

[@jimsvideos7201]

Aside, Saint Barbara is also the patron saint of explosives workers and cabbies; if your taxi happens to have a small figurine of a hand grenade hanging from the mirror that's why.

[@Gregemio]

There is an awesome sandstone layer under most of Sydney, which is perfect for tunnels. The last 20 years or so, everything is a tunnel. Hill in the way of your motorway - tunnel. Need to acquire these houses for a new motorway? nah just tunnel. Need a whole other type of train, aight - build it all in tunnels. Need another crossing over the harbor, should we build another bridge? Nah.. you guessed it - just build ANOTHER tunnel. The bad news? All these roads are toll roads that make a private company rich & guess what, they pay NO TAX. Despite charging up to $10 - $15 dollars for some routes. Most people avoid them, so despite having all this epic infrastructure, it does nothing for traffic. Its our own fault for keeping the libs in power (previous political party, were greedy & corrupt.)

[@peejay1981]

A lot of the recent road tunnels are tunneled because previous governments sold off the land reservations. Bloody dipsticks!

[@robman2095]

Tbf you should check how much infrastructure was put in by the previous long-term labor government. It was close to nil under Keneally and Co.. At least the Libs and Gladys finally did something that had been put off for far too long

[@peejay1981]

@@robman2095 I remember when Parramatta to Chatswood was first announced by Bob Carr when I was in highschool - I thought "Oh great, I can catch the train when I start uni!". Lol !!!! At least my kids can now.

[@Gregemio]

@@robman2095 I would rather no infrastructure, than infrastructure that exists to serve the corrupt 1%. Even worse that the capacity on the existing free routes gets reduced every time a new toll road goes in. The fact - that so many people "fall for it" day after day - just makes me sick. I don't care how important you think you are / if you can afford it - until the majority of people avoid these roads, the same problem will keep happening. These morons are the same people who vote for the Liberals... yet they consider themselves smart & I cant help but sit here and think.... "Were not going to make it.. are we?. (Humans I mean). As a society, we are doomed".

[@ljr869]

A claustrophobic’s nightmare.

[@-PORK-CHOP-]

Sounds like someone wasn't too happy about missing the inbound train to the TBM 😂😂🤣🤣 it's a pity you weren't here when they tunnelled across the Sydney harbour again to put the new metro tunnel in, while your here would be interesting if you could take a visit to the Snowy 2.0 Pumped Hydro project, we don't hear much about it except it's run over budget, and the TBM is stuck again 😂😂🤣🤣

[@BigBlueMan118]

Was meant to open this year (2024) when construction started on Snowy Hydro, I did some work on the construction modelling!

[@AaronWitt]

we flew over the snowy project in April

[@Oldschoolrules123]

4 BOT comments that are brand new , before a comment from a regular viewer. KZbin deletes 90 percent of my comments but allows BOT comments to remain.😂😂😂😂 Can you imagine the kickbacks to politicians on this project. As a retired heavy equipment operator who sat and loaded on and off road trucks for years and the boredom it brings... I couldn't imagine standing there holding little levers on a control box all shift. But maybe they grew up holding on to their video game box and cellphone and are use to it .😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@alexdrockhound9497]

They get through the filters by copying real user comments or making generic vague comments. This is i think the actual cause of us users getting our comments false flagged so much.

[@tristenklein5940]

Yup YT censorship is 100% pure political to push the narratives of the radical left extremism!

[@Harry_Gersack]

Wow you must be fun at parties 👎🏼

[@Oldschoolrules123]

@@Harry_Gersack You must be a loser 👎

[@gustech136]

tunnel boreing machines sound boring

[@Jacopski]

Can't wait until they sell the metro to a private company and charge $20 to get to the airport. Oh wait... its already done, i guess well just do the same to the west ydney airport too then

[@ionageman]

North shore will never have a metro railway ..

[@Mike-pf1ru]

They named the all tunnels after women, when it's all men down there working doing the dangerous jobs.

[@a9503128]

Builds a new airport with a single runway and you said “planning” 😂

[@jenimcniven8704]

that is only stage one of the new airport you are seeing.

[@MaxS-hn8we]

The airport has been designed to expand over time as demand increases. Thats called planning.

[@SYDTrainsFilms]

If you have actually read any of the planning documentation that went into this you would know that this is only stage 1, and that the airport has the capacity to expand to a second runway with up to 45 total gates. THAT, my friend is planning.

[@vincentgrinn2665]

it has 2 runways, the second one is just being built in a second stage when needed its actually insane how much throughput that one runway has though, when complete it will be the highest designed throughput runway in the world, with more flights per day than even heatthrow

[@joshsaxon4114]

Much prefer Aaron's funny on-site intros. The formal business is boring and gets rid of a lot of the character of early vids. This scripted stuff sucks!

[@HumbleHonkingEnthusiast]

You're complaining about better production quality? Lol

[@matt45540]

This video literally wouldn't exist without it so.... They took the time to explain that to us so people wouldn't complain.

[@joshsaxon4114]

@@HumbleHonkingEnthusiast Better production quality sure, buts it's way boring.

[@Harry_Gersack]

Completely disagree. Quality has gone up, and he has more facts on the projects and machines being used. Especially on this video if prefer the voice over instead of him only talking three sentences and that into is mask. And in other videos (where doesn't wear a mask and the background noises are lower) you get both. Him talking on site and voice over. That makes it TV production quality

[@blueman5924]

well…I dig it.👍(Cat pun)😂

[@nt3611]

Are you a local???? American reviewing Sydney??? Joke right!!??? 😀😀😀 Mate...Shut the back door

[@wazaagbreak-head6039]

An airport with a curfew? aussies just better apparently

[@oberstleutnant787]

Tunnel boring machines used in the construction were Made In China.

[@Bigsoot7393]

You can buy 3 Chinese built ones to 2 German built ones? China is also a lot closer than Germany so which would you pick?

[@DanielKing-dk5nr]

More billions of dollars spent and putting us MORE in debt lol all we need now are tunnels under paramatta rd, and the main rd connecting to the cross city tunnel to the eastern suburbs.

[@imtheslothking]

Australia is run on 4 things. 1. Construction 2. Sport 3. Pub. 4 gambling

[@hypercomms2001]

You're missing out on a bigger project... That is the suburban rail loop project in Melbourne.... Check it out!

[@mjcats2011]

Which is a total fantasy and should be canned.

[@74Spartan]

One big sewer pipe

[@Jumbo-k4t]

We don't need to see you and you're expensive microphone just the video

[@edwardcarberry1095]

If they are not drilling with """""" DeFlaggeration """ then it is old technology so costs more to do with more Profit for those doing the job. More kickbacks for those who push this job.

[@SYDTrainsFilms]

Deflagration explosives is a much more expensive method of creating a tunnel, and doesn't work for most circumstances. There is a reason why tunnel boring machines are used all over the world.

[@Unknown70896]

Some fake info

[@Bigsoot7393]

Like what?