With freight movement expected to double along the East Coast between Brisbane and Melbourne within the next ten years, ARTC have awarded two Major Concrete Sleeper Upgrading Contracts.

A total of 2,600,000 concrete sleepers will be supplied over two and a half years by sleeper manufacturers Rocla and Austrak. Four sleeper plants will be used in strategic locations, feeding automated track laying machinery.

Construction of the upgrading works was divided into two main alliance based contracts, North (Sydney to Brisbane) and South (Sydney to Melbourne). The northern alliance consists of Laing O’Rourke, Balfour Beatty and Union Switch and Signal. The southern alliance contract consists of John Holland Rail, MVM Rail and O’Donnell Griffen.

Several bids from around the world were submitted for the supply of rail fastenings, including generic ‘e’ Clip versions and Vossloh.

The chosen fastening system was the narrow FASTCLIP FC1509 system due to significant cost savings in construction as inherent in the advantages of FASTCLIP.

Supply Facts :

• 2,600,000 FASTCLIP Fastening Sets
• Delivered in 890 full container loads (22,000 tonnes), and 17,800 pallets / baulk bags