The final two stations of Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel are complete, paving the way for the long-awaited project to open by the end of the year.
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, held back-to-back press conferences on Sunday and Monday to announce the completion of Town Hall and State Library stations, joining Anzac, Arden and Parkville stations, which were handed over to Metro Trains in April.
Allan said the two stations were the most complex of the five, as the twin 9km tunnels had to be constructed underneath the existing City Loop.
The Metro Tunnel sits within Melbourne’s existing train network. Illustration: Lisa Favazzo/Guardian
As a result, State Library sits 36 metres below ground, Town Hall 27 metres – twice the depths of Anzac and Arden.
“The trams running down Swanston Street and directly above us, the City Loop trains continuing to run just a metre-and-a-half above this construction site – all of the city kept moving whilst this complex work was being undertaken deep beneath Melbourne CBD,” Allan said.
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The state’s transport infrastructure minister, Gabrielle Williams, said the stations were “spectacular”, each reflecting their individual settings while demonstrating a “consistency of design”.
State Library Station’s escalators.
“The architecture, I have no doubt, will become an iconic part of Melbourne’s landscape,” Williams said.
Both stations’ platforms are huge and open – thanks in part to the 18-metre wide, 220-metre long platforms built to eventually accommodate 10-car trains. Each has 10 metre high arched ceilings with chandelier lights, giving them a cathedral feel.
Above the platforms are cavernous concrete passageways that will allow underground transfers between Town Hall and Flinders Street, and State Library and Melbourne Central, without the need for travellers to tap their Myki on or off.
The beams adorning the platform ceiling at Town Hall station.
State Library station also features a 42-metre long escalator, which is 12 metres longer than the escalators at Parliament station, which until now were the longest in Melbourne.
The two stations share visual similarities with the other three completed stations, including “way-finding” design cues to help passengers navigate: vertical ceiling baffles are pink on one side, white on the other, to mark exits and entries, while bright yellow drum lights draw the eye toward platforms.
But the stations also reflect the character of their local areas. State Library’s main entrance features 12-metre high columns topped with massive beams, reflecting the classical architecture of the nearby State Library of Victoria.
Murals by Danie Mellor at the entrance to State Library Station.
It also features glass panels containing a large scale artwork by Danie Mellor, titled Forever, based on historic photographs from the library’s archives of Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung women and the landscape.
Meanwhile, Town Hall’s main concourse has a roof supported by huge columns shaped like tree branches. It opens up on to a redesigned City Square.
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The 12-metre columns branch out into beams at Town Hall station.
The $13.48bn Metro Tunnel will connect the Sunbury line in the west to the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines in the south-east via five new underground city stations, forming a single 97km train line.
It will provide more frequent services from Sunbury to Cranbourne and Pakenham and free up City Loop capacity, returning Frankston trains to the loop.
Above ground, preparations have long been under way – dozens of level crossings have been removed along the two lines to allow faster trains into the tunnel and high capacity Metro trains, with end-to-end walkways, began rolling out in 2021.
Williams said the “most comprehensive re-timetabling of our network in living memory” was also under way to make way from the tunnel. She said this work made the project different to New South Wales’ Sydney Metro, which opened in August 2024.
Lamps at the train platform at Town Hall station
“The Sydney Metro is effectively a shuttle. The Melbourne Metro tunnel is not,” she said. “It is integrated with the rest of our rail network, which means that when we timetable for the Metro Tunnel, we have to re-timetable virtually our entire rail network and, of course, connecting bus services and the like as well.”
Allan said the next step was to get final approvals from the national rail safety regulator.
The Sydney Metro opening was delayed for a fortnight after it failed to receive its approvals in time. Allan said “we’ve learned from that” and would announce an opening date in due course.
“I appreciate there’s a hunger and eagerness to know the opening date and to know the timetable,” she said.
On Tuesday, she said it would open in “early December”.
Eight storeys beneath Melbourne: first look inside the city’s new metro stations – video