Project Update

A new underground line through the heart of the rail network will help unblock a bottleneck at the core of South East Queensland’s rail network.

With the Merivale Bridge currently the only inner-city river crossing for trains, when one service experiences a delay it can impact the whole network.

A second inner-city river crossing will help unlock South East Queensland’s rail network by allowing services to operate independently of each other.

To make the most of the second river crossing, the rail network will reorganised into three separate “sectors”.

If a train travelling in one sector experiences a delay or another problem, it won’t impact services running in the other sectors.

The first sector will see Sunshine Coast, Caboolture and Redcliffe trains run directly through the new tunnels to and from the Gold Coast and Beenleigh.

These trains, which will also benefit from Logan and Gold Coast Faster Rail in the south and The Wave on the Sunshine Coast, will become faster and more reliable.

Sectors two (Shorncliffe, Airport and Doomben to Ipswich and Springfield) and three (Ferny Grove to Cleveland) will then use the existing rail bridge and surface rail path. Separating services into these three sectors will improve reliability and provide the ability to run more services more frequently on all lines.

This is just one of the once-in-a-generation improvements coming to South East Queensland’s rail network to deliver more reliable services, more often, and get people home sooner at the end of the day.