On Friday 15 February, Minister for Transport Rita Saffioti, Mining and Pastoral Region MLC Stephen Dawson and Pilbara MLA Kevin Michel joined Roy Hill staff and executives to open the completed Roy Hill Rail Bridge in Western Australia.
The Roy Hill funded bridge is an $18.66 million single span rail bridge carrying the Great Northern Highway over the Roy Hill rail line, leading into Port Hedland’s port.
The new bridge replaces an existing level crossing, enabling traffic to freely move over the rail line and removes the potential for a railroad accident at the intersection.
Since August 2018, Main Roads WA oversaw the design, procurement process and construction of the project, and now that the project is complete, will oversee the future operations and ongoing maintenance of the bridge.
Main Roads WA appointed Georgiou Pty Ltd the contract to construct the bridge and local Pilbara Aboriginal business Gebro Contracting as the project site supervisor, with the construction of the bridge generating 65 jobs.
Aerial image courtesy of Georgiou Pty Ltd.
More than 11 per cent of the workforce on the project were local Aboriginal people, with Main Roads committed to the implementation of the State Government’s Aboriginal Participation Policy.
Roy Hill CEO Barry Fitzgerald said he was pleased that the rail bridge was completed on budget and ahead of schedule.
“With our trains passing through the intersection up to 13 times a day, and the ore trains taking on average 3.5 minutes to pass through the crossing – this rail bridge will not only remove the risk of a road user collision with one of our trains, but significantly reduce road user travel time, and improve traffic flow.”
