Echuca locals are contributing thousands of the key components needed to build Victoria’s biggest ever road project – North East Link.
Precast concrete solutions provider Humes is making 4000 box culverts at its Echuca facility, supporting 60 jobs in the regional border town.
The concrete culverts will be placed inside the twin 6.5 kilometre tunnels in Melbourne’s north-east that are being dug by two tunnel boring machines, and will create a service tunnel that will provide clear access for maintenance vehicles and staff when the tunnels open to traffic in 2028.
Humes is manufacturing up to 14 culverts per day, with each one approximately 3 metres wide by 3 metres high and weighing approximately 20 tonnes.
The facility is using a type of concrete that adds alternative material to the cement, including industrial by-products, which can help reduce the environmental impact of building and infrastructure construction projects.
The use of the Echuca facility adds to the regional Victorian expertise being utilised to build North East Link, with almost 43,000 pre cast concrete segments coming from LS Precast in Benalla.
Manufacturing the concrete components is part of the huge amount of work currently underway on North East Link, with two massive tunnel boring machines - TBM Zelda and TBM Gillian - on their journey from Watsonia to Bulleen. Road headers are digging another part of the tunnel between Manningham Road and Trinity Grammar, and work is well underway on the Yarra Link green bridge in Bulleen.
The North East Link tunnels, the Eastern Freeway Upgrades, and the M80 Ring Road Completion will be complete in 2028, slashing travel times by up to 35 minutes, and taking 15,000 trucks off local roads.