Sydney Metro's Windsor Road bridge takes the top gong at Global Best Project awards

Sydney Metro Northwest's Windsor Road rail bridge has taken the top gong in the Rail category at the Global Best Project Awards for 2018.

The awards "focus on the challenges, risks and rewards of designing and constructing in other countries" according to the Engineering News-Record who runs the annual event.

In what is Australia's only example of a cable-stayed rail bridge built on a curve, the bridge connects the skyrail section of the first phase on the new metro line to the surface section near the line's terminus at Tullawong and maintenance and operations centre in Rouse Hill.

The project's facebook page recently published a short documentary which tells the background and focuses on the design and the build of the bridge.

"It's an amazingly challenging project because it's not a recipe.  There isn't another bridge out there that we can open a book and read a paper which tells us how to build the bridge," said John Anderson, lead designer for the bridge.

The bridge was built by Salini Impregilo who also built the skytrain section of the metro track and the bridge deck includes 88 concrete segments each weighing between 70 and 140 tonnes.  

The bridge deck is supported by 127 steel cables that if measured from end-to-end would measure 173 kilometres.  The bridge design solution came about after a community feedback round focused on ensuring the Windsor Road & Schofield Road intersection could be upgraded with ease in future.

Elsewhere on the Sydney Metro project, the factory to produce pre-fabricated components for the City & Southwest tunnels that will run from Chatswood to Sydenham has ramped up production.

130 people work at the factory in Marrickville and they produce a single four-tonne segment every six minutes.  The same factory supplied components for the Northwest tunnels.

The first phase, Sydney Metro Northwest, opens in 2019 and has caused a significant property boom in outer western Sydney.  Toward the end of the line, the Urban.com.au project database is tracking over 6000 dwellings in the development pipeline.

Upwards of 14 projects in Rouse Hill could potentially contribute up to 3111 new dwellings.  Next door in Schofields 7 projects could possibly yield a further 3400 new dwellings in future.

Lead image credit: Sydney Metro on Facebook.