Photos held by the Public Record Office Victoria show the extent of the disruption to Melbourne's CBD caused by the construction of the City Loop in the 1970s and 80s.

Does not appear to be a lot of disruption there in that photo.  Where is the cut and cover?

Does not appear to be a lot of disruption there in that photo.  Where is the cut and cover?

I heard it was only Melbourne Central Station that was done using cut-and-cover.

I heard it was only Melbourne Central Station that was done using cut-and-cover.

Melbourne Central and some of the approach tunnels were the only ones dug using cut-and-cover. Anyone who's ever used the escalators at Parliament could tell you it was tunnelled, and as I understand it Flagstaff had some tricky geology which precluded the use of cut-and-cover.

If their argument is that the disruption caused by building the tunnel would outweigh the benefit of the tunnel being built at all then clearly someone has a screw loose. Imagine if they never built the City Loop because of the disruption it would cause!

Reading through the article myself, to be honest, I think it's written to be informal about the construction of the city loop and provide people with the fresh idea and awareness of the challenges that will come and have to be managed to construct the Metro Rail Tunnel.

The passage begins by saying the disruptions were caused, however that is everything it says about disruption from then on, the rest of the passage indicates Premier Andrew's statement of disruption there will need to be there for safety. Most of the body talks about some of the construction methods that were used.

The passage with the hyperlink 'originally uncovered last year' links to another summarised documentary of city loop construction, with brief passages about the construction stages and images. The paragraph this is in is what I think was used to speak out against, if I should say immature and ridiculous the statements from the former politicians that 'divide Melbourne worse than the berlin wall' and 'your going to see years of disruption' are. The pictures showing diversions date back to the 1970s and 80s and they do present that it was managed very well. We've built the city loop with the diversions that were put in place to maintain safety to the public and they managed, and now we have this benefit just like 712m says above, what if we didn't have the city loop? How would Melbourne function?

There isn't anything in the article to suggest the city loop's necessary disruptions for safety caused unacceptable disruption, everything depicted was prepared in advance and the temporary alterations in traffic flow were managed accordingly.

The last few paragraphs state the city loop construction time period expectations and their completion. It ends with the statement of the Metro Rail Tunnel's scheduled construction start date and it's opening.

It hasn't said anything to imply the disruption for city loop construction was bad, only the amount and it was manageable, it's likely to be written up to inform us a general basic idea of what was necessary to ensure it was delivered on time and minimizing the risk to danger and hazard, as we all need to be informed that Metro Rail Tunnel has to arrange these diversions. Yes there are more people in the state and cars, but we can manage it, and as long as everybody is considerate and being responsible for the tasks they are assigned to it will be opened and the people of Melbourne will benefit.

Articles like these are good in going into the history and bringing out this information where we can be encouraged to look back on it and see how the information it provides to us applies today in the present age. They also help neutralize unintelligent and politically motivated agendas that interfere with the responsible governing and the progress of maintaining, developing and advancing society.

Does not appear to be a lot of disruption there in that photo.  Where is the cut and cover?

The major disruption was a giant hole well braced on latrobe st between Swanston and Elizabeth st's. It was there for ages. I cannot now remember what they did with the trams on Latrobe st during construction.......................... Are I see Latrobe st was diverted south to just north of the Shot tower (see photo of shot tower half way down the article). The excatvation where latrobe st ran is in the back ground, top left hand side behind the shot tower is Burkes store.

Hence the disruption was quite minimumal. They certainly cannot divert Swanston st in the same way.

woodford

An obvious question. Why does Swanson street need to be closed the entire distance ?

Why can't the route be tunnelled ?

An obvious question. Why does Swanson street need to be closed the entire distance ?

Why can't the route be tunnelled ?

Precisely.

I have not ready any reports which actually state the a TBM cannot be used for the most part.

From the commentary on there the only time the ground was opened for the City Loop project was for railway station construction.  I never remember the city being opened up for long stretches during construction.

Does anyone else?

Precisely.

I have not ready any reports which actually state the a TBM cannot be used for the most part.

From the commentary on there the only time the ground was opened for the City Loop project was for railway station construction.  I never remember the city being opened up for long stretches during construction.

Does anyone else?

The loop was started around 45 years ago so memory is getting a bit hazy these days, but at the time I was regularly attending a training establishment near the Flag staff gardens and the only obvious operations was the unholy mess at Latrobe st for the museum station. You could see a large very deep hole crossed braced with a good number of universal beams to support the sides. It was a long time after till I returned to the city and I remember being stunned at the amount of buildings that had sprouted south of Museum station as a large amount of that block was cleared.  

I used to have lunch in the Flagstaff  gardens (Note 1)  and from memory all that existed there was a construction fence around what is now the station entrance in the park. I cannot comment on Parliement Station as I never went up to that end of the city.

The only real obvious work was at the site of Muesum station. When the work was finished they did have an open day to allow the public to walk the tunnels, unfortunately I could not get down for this.

Note: I was up there having lunch when the West Gate bridge colapsed, heard a thump and a large quantity of dust was rising.

Note on the above post, I would only have been around the city up to sometime late 1972 after that I rarely left NE Victoria, and always then by train. The Albury train then on Friday and sunday nights being 9 or 10 cars and packed to the rafters. In order to get a seat one had to be standing where the carriage doors stopped when the cars arrived, both at Spencer st and Benalla.. There would still be people standing when the train got to Benalla. VLIne these days does not what over crowding is .  

woodford