Sydney Metro’s new cable-stayed railway bridge over Windsor Road at Rouse Hill is nearing completion.
The cables which support the bridge deck have been tensioned and secured, the scaffolding around the towers is being removed, and the temporary piers holding the deck up have been demolished.
The bridge is now supporting its own weight. The deck is supported by 127 steel cables which stretch 173km.
The bridge’s two towers, which reach 45m above Windsor Rd, were installed in May 2017 then each filled with 336 tonnes of concrete.
Then, 16 cable pipes – the longest 62m – were installed from each tower to the deck. The pipes hold 127 steel cables which support the deck.
It took about seven weeks to tension all the cables, with the bridge being progressively lifted off the temporary support columns during the process.
With the cables tensioned, the temporary scaffolding around the two towers is now being removed.
Similar in design to Sydney’s Anzac Bridge, the Windsor Road bridge is the first cable-stayed railway bridge built on a curve in Australia.
Sydney Metro services start in the first half of 2019 with a new metro train every four minutes in the peak.
