WAGNERS ON TRACK TO MAKE RAIL BID
Company wants to help build 8km of tunnels
WAGNERS will enter a bid within months to help build a crucial section of the $10 billion Inland Rail project through Toowoomba.
CEO Cameron Coleman said the company intended to form a consortium of up to four contractors to bid to construct the 8km of tunnels through the Toowoomba Range, as well as the route to Brisbane.
The news comes after Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack announced details of the private-public partnership to construct the section, worth $3 billion.
WAGNERS has put its hand up to help build the massive tunnel through the Toowoomba Range as part of the Inland Rail project.
The publicly-listed Wagners Holding Company said it would put in a bid to provide construction materials on the job when tenders eventually became available.
CEO Cameron Coleman said the job would require an extensive amount of concrete and other materials to create the tunnel, which once finished would be one of the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
“We are in discussions with a number of parties to form a consortium and submit an expressions of interest about 12 months down the line,” he told The Chronicle.
“We’ll register our interest together and then ultimately bid on the job to build the line from Toowoomba to Brisbane.
“There’s a large tunnel and that’ll be a very material-intensive job. It will consume a large quantity of pre-cast concrete, large quantities of quarry materials and other construction materials that we manufacture and provide, such as cement.”
Australian Rail Track Corporation CEO Richard Wankmuller said the corporation had opened the registration of interest for the public-private partnership on the Toowoomba-Brisbane section of the route.
“Private sector involvement in the design, build, finance and maintenance of the PPP section of the Inland Rail program is critical,” he said.
“The ROI process allows ARTC to confirm the likely bidding field for the PPP while also signalling to the market that we are making progress on the procurement process ahead of the formal Expressions of Interest process in early 2019.”
The privately-held Wagner Corporation, which is a separate entity, will also look to build a multi-modal transport hub within a 4km stretch of the corridor that faces Wellcamp Airport.