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Work on Gautrain's airport station is steaming along nicely, and the route may well be finished in time to ferry 2010 football fans from their planes.
Sakkie van Zyl, the South African member of the elite international team of TBM operators
CONSTRUCTION of the Gautrain airport station is well advanced, and it's most likely that the airport route will be ready to receive and shuttle 2010 fans to Sandton come June next year.
"Construction of the external shell of the OR Tambo International Airport Station concourse is substantially complete and is visible above the elevated drop-off road," reads the latest Gautrain progress report.
Barbara Jensen, the spokesperson for the Gautrain, said the construction team would be able to tell by July this year whether it was on track to complete this route by June 2010.
"We will ascertain by June or July this year whether it will be ready. If not, we will then have to decide whether to accelerate work, and whether we can afford to accelerate construction."
Within the airport concourse, finishing touches are being made to the station structure, with the installation of the technical equipment having begun. The Gautrain airport station is directly linked to the departures level of the airport's new central terminal building, but is one level below it.
The largest viaduct or bridge on the Gautrain route is the one leading into the concourse, at 1,5 kilometres. This viaduct carries the double track line over the R21 and R24 road networks to the airport.
Two phases
Inside the massive structure of the future Rosebank Station
Construction of the 80km Gautrain, running between the airport and Johannesburg and Pretoria, began in September 2006, and will be completed in two phases.
The first phase is expected to take 45 months to complete, and will hopefully be done in time for the start of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ in early June. This includes the track linking the airport to Sandton, via stations at Rhodesfield and Marlboro, as well as the depot and operations control centre near Allendale Road in Midrand.
The second phase, also under construction, is expected to be completed in 54 months, in 2011, and includes the remainder of the network, with the station in the Joburg CBD linking through to Hatfield Station in Pretoria, via Midrand.
In all there are 11 bridges along the airport link, and construction of these is "substantially complete".
The last station before the airport is Rhodesfield, which is elevated above the existing Metrorail lines running between Isando and Kempton Park. The station entrance, concourse and parking area will be at ground level, and passengers will take a lift up to the platform.
Sandton and Marlboro stations
The steel framework of the Rhodesfield Station
The station is Sandton is 10 storeys underground, and excavation of the three-level underground parkade is complete. "Piling, foundations, column construction and casting of the suspended slabs of the parkade structure are ongoing," indicates the report.
The tunnel going south from Sandton towards Rosebank is over a kilometre in length already. The tunnel that links Sandton to the next station to the north, Marlboro, was completed in October 2008.
The two-storey concrete platform of the Marlboro Station is complete; this station is the point at which the Gautrain will exit the underground tunnel from Park Station in the CBD.
Bus and train depot
Construction of the depot facilities in Midrand is substantially complete, while the installation of the control centre is almost complete.
"This centre will be the heartbeat of the Gautrain from where signalling, telecommunications, automatic fare collection, traction power and overhead distribution CCTV cameras and maintenance will be managed using world-class, high technology systems."
The train maintenance workshops, including the washing bay and a sand-filling facility, are also complete. The trains contain a sand dispensing mechanism that deposits sand on to the tracks to improve traction between the wheels and the track.
The Gautrain's 24 train sets - comprising 96 rail cars - and 125 luxury shuttle buses will be housed at the depot.
Tunnel boring machine
Viaduct 14 entering the airport concourse
The tunnel boring machine, or TBM, which was used to bore a tunnel southwards from the Rosebank Station, completed its task at the end of January, and has been dismantled.
TBMs are operated by an elite group of specialists who travel the world to operate the machines. Sakkie van Zyl is the only South African operator, and he was called upon to return home to pilot the Gautrain's TBM. He has worked previously on TBMs in Singapore and Hong Kong.
He has also worked in the United States for a company that assembles and tests TBMs before they are shipped to be used in projects around the world.
Van Zyl began his career as a TBM operator working as an electrician for the Lesotho Highlands Project in the early 1990s, where six TBMs were employed to excavate three tunnels. He worked in Lesotho with other members of the team he assembled to work on the Gautrain.
"Because of the experience gained in Lesotho, South Africans' skills compare to the best in the world," he said.
"I am part of a very small TBM community. Although we work on different projects around the world, we always stay in contact." As a result of the close confines within which a team works underground, members form close bonds.
"Our biggest challenge on the Gautrain was the changing geological conditions," said Van Zyl. The TBM encountered variable grades of hard granite, in places 10 times stronger than concrete, and all below the water table.
"It was very difficult to keep making adjustments and to know what was going on at the cutter head."
To deal with the complex geological conditions that the TBM had to manage, the Gautrain had its TBM custom-built over 12 months in Germany and shipped to South Africa in the last quarter of 2007.
"Until the end of September I will be involved in laying the concrete floors inside the completed TBM tunnel as well as cable ducting," Van Zyl explained.
"But I have no idea what I will do after the Gautrain. I am just happy to be home again. I missed the people and the food. It is wonderful to work overseas and to meet people from different cultures, but home is where my heart is."
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