The Metro Tunnel Project in Melbourne is building twin nine-kilometre rail tunnels and five new underground stations at North Melbourne (near Arden Street), Parkville, State Library at the northern end of Swanston Street, Town Hall at the southern end of Swanston Street and Anzac at St Kilda Road.

Conquip has been engaged by Tunnels and Stations contractor CYP Design & Construction to implement the BulkX system at the Federation Square work site, which provides direct-to-truck spoil discharge. Due to space constraints at this site, the BulkX system provides cost and site efficiency advantages from not having to stockpile spoil on site.

Our design team worked with the CYP D&C project team to come up with some options for a best practice solution for bulk excavation at the site. We considered vehicle movements, truck capacities, and available space around the shaft opening.

The solution that we proposed was simply our Direct-to-Truck BulkX system. It is a relatively new system for Australia, which allows contractors to discharge directly to a truck without any discharge gantry. The muck skip was 8000 litres capacity, with a working load limit of approximately 16,000kg. This system enables quick and hassle-free spoil removal for space-restricted excavation sites.