Sydney Metro Southwest extension to Bankstown opens to passengers

Crane enthusiasts, this one’s for you! 🏗️

We've just assembled two tower cranes at the Lake Macdonald Dam Improvement Project we're delivering for @Seqwater.

Standing 46 and 67 metres tall, these giants will help our team build the new dam wall and spillway, moving materials, equipment and formwork safely around site while supporting excavation works up to 15 metres deep. They are the largest hammerhead tower cranes that Liebherr produce.

They'll be hard to miss on the Lake Macdonald skyline as they support key, upcoming construction activities.

With the cranes now in place, it's exciting to see construction gathering pace on a project that will support long-term water security for South East Queensland.

#JohnHollandTransformingLives #Seqwater #Crane #Infrastructure #Water

A 130-year-old railway is now a modern driverless metro! 🚆

The Sydney Metro Southwest extension to Bankstown is now open to passengers, completing the final stretch of Sydney's city shaping M1 line and bringing fast, modern metro services to Sydney's southwest for the first time.

Through our joint venture with @laingorourke, our Sydenham to Bankstown team have delivered one of Australia's most ambitious rail conversions to upgrade a 130-year-old-railway and its heritage stations to modern metro standards.

Drawing on our extensive brownfield rail experience, our teams converted nine stations to metro standards, delivering platform screen doors, new lifts, accessibility improvements, upgraded customer information systems and enhanced security technology across the corridor.

We also delivered the new Bankstown Metro Station and Punchbowl Plaza, upgraded overhead wiring and power systems, realigned track and helped prepare the railway for passenger services.

And through our Metro Trains Sydney joint venture, we'll now operate and maintain the driverless metro trains that will connect communities along the 66-kilometre network from Bankstown in Sydney's southwest to Tallawong in the northwest via the CBD.

From transforming the railway to operating and maintaining it into the future, the project brought together the best of our end-to-end-capability in delivering complex transport projects.

It's another proud milestone in our Sydney Metro journey and a huge moment for southwest Sydney.

#JohnHollandTransformingLives #JohnHollandRailAndTransport #SydneyMetro #SydnenhamToBankstown

It takes more than a crane to install nearly 50 tonnes of steel. Just ask our @waterfrontbrisbane team 🙌

Months of planning and coordination recently came to fruition with the successful installation of the North Tower's Y-column structure.

The Y-column is the only structure of its kind within the tower and plays a critical role in the building's design, supporting two tower columns above while helping create more open arrival spaces at ground level.

Fabricated locally in Brisbane, the 49.8-tonne steel element was delivered to site in a custom oversized transport configuration before being safely lifted into place during a carefully planned seven-hour operation.

Installing it required close coordination between engineers, crane crews, riggers and construction teams, showcasing the expertise and collaboration driving Waterfront Brisbane's delivery.

Another huge engineering milestone for the team!

@Dexus

#JohnHollandTransformingLives #WaterfrontBrisbane #BuildingQueensland #Engineering

For the Toms family, a career at John Holland is becoming something of a tradition.

At the Belmont Desalination Project we’re delivering for @ourhunterwater near Newcastle, Rodney, Adrian and Kyle Toms are all part of the team helping deliver one of the region's most significant water infrastructure projects.

But their family connection to John Holland started 1972 with Rodney and Adrian's father, Graeme, who joined the business as a labourer and later went on to become a foreman and leading hand. He spent 35 years with John Holland, helping deliver major roads, bridges and water infrastructure projects across New South Wales.

Today, his sons and grandson are carrying on that tradition together at Belmont.

As a Leading Hand, Rodney helps keep the project running smoothly, while Adrian's all-round construction experience sees him involved in just about every aspect of site life. Between them, they've spent more than five decades at John Holland, with Rodney recently celebrating 25 years with the business and Adrian approaching an incredible 29 years of service.

And then there’s Kyle; a carpenter at the beginning of his own career with John Holland while learning the tricks of the trade from his father and uncle.

It's a special family legacy, and a reflection of the great people at the heart of every John Holland project.

#JohnHollandTransformingLives #BelmontDesalinationPlant #HunterWater #Water

The final bridge replacement on Inland Rail’s Beveridge to Albury section is complete! ✅

The new Marchbanks Road bridge in Broadford, Victoria is partially open to traffic following an intensive eight-week construction program delivered by our Beveridge to Albury Tranche 2 (B2A T2) team.

It took the combined expertise of our Rail and Infrastructure teams to make it happen. After demolishing the former bridge and installing four new girders during September’s 86-hour rail possession, the team worked around the clock to pour the bridge deck, lay more than 4,300 tonnes of asphalt and complete 1.4 kilometres of line marking ahead of the new bridge opening to traffic.

To help deliver the bridge within the timeframe, the team used an innovative low-shrinkage concrete mix for the bridge deck that allowed expansion joints to be installed earlier.

While the new bridge was taking shape overhead, our in-house Rail Services and Plant teams completed track reinstatement and rail grinding works below to deliver this critical stage of works safely and with certainty.

The new bridge is 3.7 metres higher and 11 metres wider than the former structure, providing the clearance needed for future double-stacked freight trains.

It’s the final bridge to be replaced as part of the Beveridge to Albury section of Inland Rail and marks the completion of major road and bridge works for Broadford.

With a single lane now open to traffic, Broadford motorists can once again access the Hume Freeway via the new structure while the remaining works are completed.

A remarkable result delivered by the team in just eight weeks! 👏

#JohnHollandTransformingLives #InlandRail #BeveridgeToAlbury #Bridges

The new Penrith Stadium is beginning to look the part 🏟️

The venue's two giant new scoreboards have been lifted into place and seat installation has commenced on the eastern grandstand as Western Sydney's newest sporting and entertainment destination comes to life.

Measuring 19 metres wide and 8.6 metres high, the new LED scoreboards are almost double the size of the old screens and will help bring every moment to life with sharper vision and faster replays alongside new ribbon boards, sound and lighting systems.

The seating design has been revealed for the first time, with @wearepopulous taking inspiration from Penrith's iconic natural landscapes to shape the look and feel of the new stadium.

The eastern grandstand reflects the heritage-listed Blue Mountains, and the western grandstand is inspired by the native grasslands of the Cumberland Plain.

With seating installation progressing, work continues on the internal fit-out of the stadium, including corporate suites, function rooms, player facilities, food and beverage outlets, amenities and the field of play.

It’s exciting progress on this iconic stadium project, proudly delivered by @johnhollandgroup designed by @wearepopulous and funded by the @nswgov.

Building what Australia had never built before 🎼

When John Holland began construction of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in 1958, there was no local blueprint to follow.

The project would become Australia's first major cable-supported structure of its type and the country's largest purpose-built outdoor performance venue, pushing our team to solve engineering challenges that had never been tackled at this scale before.

The Bowl's distinctive sound shell, which forms the iconic canopy we see today, was fabricated from aluminium-faced plywood sandwich panels suspended between a framework of high-tensile wires.

A massive main cable, slung between two fibreglass and steel masts and anchored deep into the ground on either side, supported 27 smaller cables connected to a huge concrete and steel anchor buried more than 200 feet behind the structure.

The shell needed to be watertight, aerodynamically stable, flexible and acoustically sound. Meeting those requirements led to the development of new construction techniques and collaboration with some of Australia's leading scientific and engineering organisations.

More than six decades on, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl remains one of Melbourne's most recognisable landmarks and is a powerful example of the engineering ingenuity that has helped define John Holland for generations.

#JohnHollandTransformingLives #JohnHollandHistory #Engineering #Melbourne

Progress is becoming more visible every day as the Illabo to Stockinbingal section starts to look a lot like a railway 🛤️

Our team has now laid the first section of new rail track on the Illabo to Stockinbingal (I2S) project.

It’s a major milestone on the first greenfield section of @inlandrailofficial, where we’re delivering 39 kilometres of brand-new railway through southern NSW.

Getting to this point took plenty of work during a recent possession, including commissioning the new crossover and signalling infrastructure at Illabo Junction, completing bridge piling at Billabong Creek and successfully unloading rail at Stockinbingal.

Having our Rail Services workforce deliver the track works, while our plant team provided the key plant and equipment, meant we could deliver with certainty.

The successful rail delivery also means approximately 75% of the rail required for the project is now on site, helping build momentum as construction continues.

Once complete, the new line will provide a more efficient route for freight trains, bypassing the Bethungra Spiral and improving connections across the network.

A huge effort from our I2S team as the railway continues to take shape! 👏

#JohnHollandTransformingLives #InlandRail #Rail #Infrastructure #I2S