Workers at Waterloo Corner are celebrating a manufacturing milestone, with 1,000 precast tunnel-lining segments now completed and ready for installation on the $15.4 billion River Torrens to Darlington (T2D) Project.
More than 55,000 concrete segments will be manufactured at the Waterloo Corner facility to line both the Northern and Southern Tunnels, supporting approximately 60 local jobs at peak production.
Up to 160 tunnel-lining segments weighing about 12 tonnes each will be manufactured every day during that peak period inside the 285 metre long shed.
Supporting the operation is the facility’s on-site concrete batch plant, which will supply the 280,000 cubic metres of concrete required for the segments – equivalent to approximately 112 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Once manufactured, the segments will be transported to the tunnel boring machine (TBM) launch areas, where they will be placed on high-tech battery-electric multi-service vehicles (MSVs), which will deliver them to the TBMs to construct the tunnel walls.
Inside the mega machines, a specialised segment erector will progressively install the precast pieces into rings to form the tunnel walls, with each ring made up of 10 concrete segments.
In an Australian first, a new nationally recognised Certificate III in Manufacturing Mineral Products (Precast) has been introduced to support the Project’s growing precast workforce, creating training opportunities for South Australians entering the industry.
More than 60 workers have already enrolled in the traineeship, helping lay the foundations for a skilled local workforce long after tunnelling is complete.
The Federal and State Governments have each committed $7.7 billion towards the project.
The first tunnel-lining segment is expected to be installed in the second half of 2026.
“With over 100,000 vehicles travelling across the corridor each day, the project will improve travel efficiency and facilitate job growth across the region,” said Federal Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Minister Catherine King.
“The project is another example of the State and Federal Labor Governments working in partnership to deliver the infrastructure Adelaide needs.”
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