Original subtitles

In Australia, Sydney is on a mission.

There's still a huge amount of work that we need to do.

To relieve chronic traffic congestion.

Sydney's traffic problems are incredibly difficult to solve. By building a new

state -of -the -art metro system right through the heart of the city.

But can it all be built underneath five million busy people?

Huge logistical nightmare.

Without bringing them to a standstill. A lot of things have to go right.

In sequence.

So an expert team of men and women from around the world... Quite scary.

There's a lot that can go wrong.

...are stepping up to this challenge with some pleasure... Oh, wow, this is

amazing. ...and pain... I am.

...along the way.

That's my station here. That's what we built.

After years of tunneling, the five megaboron machines on the $21 billion

line have completed their mission and have left the building.

In their wake, more than 30 kilometres of 7 -metre -wide concrete tunnels

remain.

The colossal station cabins are also excavated, so it's time for this mega

-metro build to enter a new phase.

The project's really flipped around. We've gone from that massive excavation

tunnelling stage to just as big a mega problem, which is how do we deliver

everything into the tunnels and into the stations and complete that build.

It's the build of the stations, but it's also the track, the power, the systems

going in.

That's what's going to be the next critical path to getting this railway

At Blues Point...

Deputy Project Director Nathan Hofmeister can't wait to start getting

railway tracks down so train testing can begin.

Now that we've removed all the earth, we've got these lovely concrete line

tubes, we now need to pack these things with rail infrastructure.

It's not as easy as it sounds.

The main way into the tunnels is through the giant excavations where train

stations are being built at the same time.

We need to feed all our tunnel infrastructure through the station while

station's being built. There's a constant juggling of priorities.

Who needs to go first? Who needs to go second?

The rail crews will have to compete for access at nearly every point because the

station builders have their own mega challenges.

The first job we now need to do is get the rail into the tunnels. We're going

thread the steel rails, 110 metres long each.

through the tunnels all the way along so we can start building the train.

As there is no train station being built at Blues Point, Nathan and his team can

use the 35 -metre deep shaft as an access point for equipment and

In the tunnels, the steel rails are pulled to either side to allow

sections of concrete sleepers to be brought in and laid one after another.

Once the sleepers are in, the rails are lifted from either side of the tunnel

and carefully placed on top.

They are then manually attached to the sleepers with metal clips and pan

pullers. And we have a dedicated specially built concrete train that

delivers concrete to the front of the track build. Nearly 100 ,000 tonnes of

concrete is needed to level the tunnels and lock the 45 ,000 sleepers into the

ground.

Once the sleep is a place, the tunnels are essentially blocked to heavy

machinery.

All it takes is one machine in the wrong place.

If we get our sequencing and logistics wrong, we end up with hundreds of

thousands of dollars worth of plants potentially stuck in a tunnel behind a

concrete floor. It could be there for months, it could be there for weeks.

a huge amount of downtime.

But the tracks are just the beginning.

As soon as the rails are locked down...

Services like power and data need to be installed, and the big machines need to

go back into the tunnel.

We're just about to lower down a shaft, a 10 -tonne high -rail truck, specialist

kit, down onto the newly formed track down below the harbour so we can start

fitting off the bracketry on the side of the tunnel.

We have millimetres either side as we're lowering it down onto the track. The

skill of the operators is second to none to make sure we get this pattern

safely. The high rail truck is a work platform to carry and install cable

and walkways.

All the containment, all the services are all hanging off the wall. Each one

those brackets needed dozens of holes drilled.

We had an automated drilling rig that we actually set up to drill holes all the

way along the full length of the tunnel.

The team must also install an elevated metal walkway to enable maintenance and

emergency access.

That train will fly through those tunnels in the future at 100 kilometres

hour, unmanned, driverless train.

Those brackets need to be millimetre perfect. Those nuts and bolts need to be

tight. They've got to be triple checked.

Every little job, no matter how small it seems, is critical, and everything's

being done to such a high level of detail and quality.

But all this attention to detail takes time, and the train testing team are

counting down the days until they can launch.

About 35 kilometres northwest of the CBD is the Sydney Metro Trains Facility.

It operates the first stage of the driverless railway, and it's where the

are stabled and routinely maintained.

It's also home to a vital component of the metro railway called the Operations

Control Centre, or the OCC.

I'm very excited to show you where we are right now.

Pretty much like the brain in your body, the OCC is the brain of our metro

railway. This brain is currently operating the north -west line and will

the city line when it opens.

Our metro railway is unique.

The main difference between our metro and other networks is that it is fully

automated. What that means is that our trains are driverless.

Our stations are automatic and what that actually also means is that you're able

to step into the train, head right in front of the train, look outside the

window and see where you're going. The system operates on a closed network,

protecting it from cyber threats as hundreds of CCTV cameras monitor every

of the automated trains and stations.

OCC is...

connected via our network.

It's like the nervous system with all the real -time information coming back

into the OCC to make real -time decisions.

Melbourne heads to the maintenance shed to get a closer look at this 21st

century rolling stock.

Technically, the train is one big robot and the magic of automation means

that the train automatically wakes up the train control system has its program

where it will go through all the critical systems that it needs to check

check those one by one and give itself a green light when that happens it will

slowly start to creep out outside the depot onto the main line start picking

passengers with trains traveling up to 100 kilometers an hour

It's critical to know where they are at all times.

So we're actually under the train right now. We're in the pit.

And one of the critical elements of the train and signalling control is the

precise location of each train.

Throughout the metro network, there are hundreds of electronic transponders out

on the tracks called beliefs, which send important information back to the OCC.

We've actually got a belief detector installed on each train. When the train

passes over it, it allows the signalling system to know exactly where each train

is and the speed at which the train is travelling.

With this information, the signalling system can maintain a safe distance

between the trains by speeding them up or slowing them down.

One of the unique features on our driverless train is the safety device.

which is the obstruction detection device.

Should there be an obstruction that falls onto the tracks, this bar will

it, and when it is activated, the train will undergo an emergency brake.

And once the obstruction is cleared, the train and signalling will seem ready to

go, and then it will be on its way.

Not only are the trains themselves automated,

The stations are highly automated as well.

These are our platform screen doors, and this is what makes our metro railway

unique. The main reason why the metro system works so well is, one, it

passengers from falling onto the track and prevents those odd objects rolling

onto the track.

The beauty about that and what makes it very different is that our trains are

able to enter the station at speed.

and stop exactly in the precise location.

The system knows the weight of the train and calculates the amount of braking

required to stop the train comfortably for the passengers.

An added safety feature is the train cannot depart without both sets of doors

closing.

The train automatically knows when it's finished for the day and when it needs

to head back to the depot.

And if it is lucky enough, the timetable will schedule it to go into the train

wash for its nice deep clean and then roll sleepily into its stabling yard

it will undergo its own sleep procedure.

When the 23 brand new trains arrive for the city line, the OCC staff will be

operating all 45 trains, 21 stations and two train facilities,

all from their desktop workstations.

The construction phase at Central Station has given the Metro team plenty

headaches, but nothing like the migraines the station caused in 1901,

was even built.

While the rest of the country was celebrating the Federation of Australia,

workers were clearing the station site.

A very big job, considering it was already a well -established cemetery.

Worse still, no one knew exactly how many burials had taken place.

Archaeologists, like Dr Ian Stewart, think that at least 30 ,000 souls had

rested in what was called the Devonshire Street Cemetery.

Although we knew that there had been a cemetery on that site, the historical

evidence was that the cemetery had actually been removed in its entirety in

and 1902.

Very early in the Central Station Metro work, graves and human remains were

found by construction workers.

But how could there have been less behind?

When it was decided that the station was going to be here, they gave notice to

all the relatives and they gave them opportunity to exhume their family

themselves or have it arranged and reburied elsewhere.

In what would have been a grisly job for relatives.

The remains were collected, then reburied at cemeteries around Sydney.

Some, however, were missed completely.

This is a burial vault.

This is vault four, and that's vault six.

So they are basically vaults that were excavated to put people in. So they're

family vaults.

What was left behind included six vaults and 62 grave cuts.

This is known as burial vault two.

It's the only brick -lined vault that we have.

on site there were at least four people in coffins on the metal brackets that

you can see and then there's a shelf made of bricks on the far side that

have had at least a couple more coffins on top of it social historian penny

russell from the university of sydney has had a decades -long professional

interest in australia's early colonial social life but things got very personal

when she read an article about a nameplate that had been recently found

of the graves.

I opened up the story and here is an account of the discovery of a grave

know immediately is the grave of my great -great -great -grandfather, Joseph

Thompson.

His bones were found in a coffin that had his nameplate on it.

Just Joseph Thompson, 1858, not much more. His wife and his brother had been

buried in the same grave later on, but they seem to have been moved

to Bunurong when the family graves were moved.

So I think his headstone was moved to Bunurong, and Mary and Samuel were moved

to Bunurong, but somehow Joseph must have got left behind.

Joseph Thompson was a draper.

who migrated to Australia in the 1830s with his wife and five children.

He was an active member of the Pitt Street Congregational Church in Sydney,

along with people like newspaper magnate John Fairfax and department store

founder David Jones.

So it's fitting that some of the descendants of Joseph Thompson meet at

same church.

for a memorial service prior to his reinterment at Bunurong Cemetery

his wife and brother.

Joseph, we let you go.

Into the smile of our historical memories, into the cycle of living

and dying and being recycled again, may you rest in

peace.

We knew when we started our work at Central Station we were potentially

find remains from the Devonshire Street Cemetery that was there before Central

was built. I don't think we ever imagined we'd find someone as notable as

Thompson. Today is really a great opportunity for us to pause and reflect

some of his descendants that we've been able to find and connect with, to bring

here, to have this memorial service, to show our respect to him and be part of

his reinterment, you know, in this kind of rightful burial place with some of

the other members of his family.

And now, after 160 years, Joseph Thompson can finally

rest in peace.

About 180 kilometres from Sydney is the port city of Newcastle.

These busy docks are about to receive a very special shipment.

The first consignment of six brand new metro carriages destined for the city

line. To achieve the timetable of a train every four minutes in the peak

the current fleet of 22 train sets will be more than doubled to 45.

At the Sydney Metro Trains Facility, Deputy Project Director Nathan

has come to witness the arrival of the new trains at the yard.

Huge day for the project today. I'm really excited. I couldn't wait to be

today. Trains are arriving in Australia on a boat up at Newcastle. There's one

dock there at the moment. Huge step for the project. One step closer to opening

a railway.

Each carriage is covered in multiple layers of toughened plastic.

to protect them on their long journey over the ocean.

It's quite critical to actually get the unloading sequence right, so we don't

overload one side of the boat, causing it to roll in the ocean.

The ship has two cranes, which are used in tandem to lift the carriages from the

hold. So we've got the two cranes. One picks up each end with these massive

slings. The slings are the width of my body. They're huge.

And the two operators, one in each crane, have to lift up in unison, make

carriage come up.

It pivots out of the hold, down adjacent to the boat onto a waiting truck.

The carriages are most vulnerable to the elements when they leave the safety of

the hold.

Once we've got the carriage up in the air at its highest point, it's where

got the greatest tipping balance of the boat. That's where we really expose the

elements like wind, a gust of wind will put us at risk, but also any

undercurrent or any wash from adjacent vessels coming through also puts us at

risk.

Those two cranes will then lower this carriage onto the waiting truck where

we'll strap it down, take the slings off and get it ready to send to Sydney.

Nathan is relieved to see the first carriage make it off the ship.

But this is just the beginning.

We have 22 more trains to deliver this way. So that's 22 times six carriages

from Newcastle to Sydney to start building up the network so we can get

entire fleet ready for the city line.

A truck arrives at the depot to deliver the first new train carriage.

This is a pretty cool process that we've got to do next.

Truck's now pulled up here in the depot. It's reversing up at the moment to a

specially designed ramp, which is designed to complement the size and

the back of that truck.

As the truck backs up, it'll...

slightly raise its trades, a slight tilt, and allow us to winch the carriage

down onto the waiting ramp, which allow us to then roll it onto the network,

onto the test track.

This may be an automated train, but it has no power yet, so it needs a little

help to get into the shed.

At this point where we need some help from Johnny, Johnny is our resident rail

tractor. He's a little diesel loco which is used to push and pull trains all

around the yard. He can be operated remotely.

We can have a driver sitting on the back of him.

Johnny's going to grab the back of the wagon.

He's going to couple up to the back of that carriage, pull it through the sets

of points.

We're going to switch those points.

We're going to get Johnny to push that carriage through into the shed.

The team starts to tear away the protective covering, the travel

the timber chalk.

This is our early Christmas present. Once we unwrap this carriage, we can see

our first new carriage for the city.

These carriages will get thoroughly checked before they are coupled together

begin the extensive process of testing and commissioning. Testing and

commissioning can be a slow process, but an essential process to make sure that

the train and system runs like clockwork when we open the city line.

The Sydney Metro Trains facility is the brains and the heart of the automated

railway.

With the new train sets continuing to arrive, Delivery Director of Trains,

Melvin Bolas, is on site to begin the next critical phase of the program,

testing and commissioning.

You're always in two minds.

in testing commissioning. One, you hope that nothing happens, but at the same

time, you hope that something does happen, and it's the right time for that

thing to happen.

11 ,000 hours of testing is in front of the team, both on new trains and

existing rolling stock.

If the new trains can't be integrated into the system or fail these tests, the

opening of the city line could be delayed.

It's the pointy end of the spear. It's where design, construction all come

together, and it needs to work.

Melvin is joined by depot operations manager Gus Ells and Stephen Jones, head

of rolling stock.

They're all here to put one of the 22 brand -new train sets through an

wake -up process, something that is vital to the daily operation of the

The first step is to pull the plug on the automatic system.

DTC to gas.

DTC receiving gas.

DTC, I'm going to shut down the train manually. Train set 38 on road 2. Over.

So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to shut down the train manually using

driver's key.

The main metro network is controlled by the incredible OCC, the Operations

Control Centre.

But the yard has its own much smaller but very important control room, the

or the Depot Train Control.

The DTC operator switches train set 38 out of auto mode and hands control to

Gus. Yes, copy that.

Thank you very much. I'm shutting down now.

There's no use for a person to go onto the trains on a daily basis to wake them

up individually.

So this is why we need to test this system. It's very important that we

establish communication from the OCC to the train. But it's Stephen Jones who

looks after the rolling stock.

It will be his problem if the train fails to wake up.

We shut down the train control management system and we'll be

waking the train up.

doing a train wash, putting it through the equipment monitoring system, making

it available for revenue service.

At 130 metres long and 240 tonnes, this is now a high -tech, brand

-new, $15 million sleeping giant.

And then as soon as the train wakes up, we need to make sure that the unattended

train operation or driverless mode is active on the screen.

If not, we will have a problem.

They really need it to wake up perfectly.

DTC, we are going to do a test on the train where we need to test the remote

wake -up functionality.

Is it possible for you to please wake up the train remotely? This is train 38 on

road 2.

History is buried everywhere in Sydney.

Whenever construction crews scratch the surface in the city, they are almost

certain to come across artifacts from the past.

On nearly every metro site around the CBD, archaeologists have been called in

excavate and record ruins and relics, often personal items that are

remarkably well preserved.

But at the Barangaroo site, right next to the harbor, the discovery of a timber

boat has marine archaeologists intrigued.

We think it is the earliest Australian -built colonial vessel ever excavated in

Australia. The find has caught the attention of Kieran Hostie from the

Australian National Maritime Museum.

It is nothing like I've ever seen in boat building.

The other thing we need to be doing is see where that hole's been dug over

there, next to the hull.

That's where we got the keel.

By analysing the timbers of the vessel...

The archaeologists were able to verify the boat's special status.

It's made out of Sydney blue gum, springy bark and spotted gum, so local

tinders. And that's what does conclusively say that it's an Australian

vessel.

But these vessels get wrecked very easily, and the reason we've got this

is because it was dragged ashore near a boatyard and just left to decay until it

got buried. So it's a very rare find.

Built around 1830, the priceless 190 -year -old wreck needed to be

preserved. And the race was on to painstakingly disassemble and remove the

named Barangaroo boat.

So the decision then was taken to actually lift it in pieces and then

it in pieces.

So with the Barangaroo Metro build waiting patiently nearby, an army of

archaeologists volunteered.

and construction workers removed every tiny fragile piece of the boat.

But keeping track of all the pieces is no easy task.

We've recorded every timber in position.

We put a new tag on it that will stay with it for its whole conservation life.

So once we've tagged it and recorded it, we pull it up and we put it on a board

and take it over to be processed.

The biggest danger to the wreck in terms of its being reassembled is if they dry

out and they start warping.

So keeping them wet and in the refrigerator means that they stay wet

until such time as we get them into a tank full of water and start treating

them.

Come on in, please, Karen.

Great, thanks, Jane.

Let me show the artefacts.

The Barangaroo boat was giving up other secrets from Sydney's colonial

waterfront past.

So we've got a range of different types of artefacts.

from the boat.

Archaeologist Jane Rook is examining the treasures found in and around the

wreck.

It's really important to do this kind of work. The boat is unique that we are

learning things from it every day.

It's opened our eyes to the boat building technology that we didn't know.

rethinking everything.

The artefacts and stories of everyday people tend not to survive through the

ages.

The boat and surrounds.

were a Sydney waterfront time capsule.

There's thousands of artefacts found.

Underneath the vessel, we found material.

On top of the vessel, we found material. And underneath the ceiling planks, the

inner linings of the vessel, we found material.

This one was found sitting in the boat.

I'm intrigued.

Is it a whale tooth? It is a sperm whale tooth.

As cataloguing the artefacts continued...

The boat itself will embark on its long voyage of conservation.

Throw out the rule book when it comes to boat building with the Brangaroo boat.

It is totally unique craft.

At the Sydney Metro Trains Facility.

Is it possible for you to please wake up the train remotely? This is train 38 on

road 2.

Copy that. I'm going to wake up train set 38 on road 2 now. Over.

Copy that, EPC.

Thank you very much. The team is waiting to see if train set 38 will wake up

when the control room tells it to.

It looks good.

38 is now fully awake, but its morning routine involves a few processes that

everybody can relate to.

We've now given the command over to the depot control center, and they will

automatically... bring the train through the wash.

Yeah, so we just started moving at the moment.

What we're going to do is just to wash the train, make sure the train is all

clear and all ready for passenger service.

The team are operating the train outside the normal routine, and time is

extremely tight.

But they need to run this test.

Washing is a necessary part of the process.

The trains do get dirty. It operates out in the weather and also through the

tunnel. So it does pick up a lot of grime and dirt.

The train will need to guide itself to the wash bay amongst the maze of tracks

out in the yard.

The depot train control pulled 38 up in the siding.

The system is waiting for clearance to reverse into the train wash.

So the train has currently moved into the head shunt. This enables us to set

mission to any one of the 31 roads that we have in the maintenance shed.

And now we're setting the points, so the automatic route system will set the

points. route us through the train wash.

But the wash will have to wait while they make room for other trains coming

their ships to move in.

Now, train set 38 is in a rush of its own.

We've got an ETA on the train wash because we're going to have to start

launching PM services for Northwest. If we don't launch this plane in the next

seven minutes, we're just better off not doing this test.

Getting track time and access in the midst of the workings of the Northwest

is a difficult process.

It might take time to get another opportunity to test this train.

We're trying to integrate this new city fleet with the North West operation, so

this is actually a pretty good test right now.

A metro train passes, and there's a gap.

I'll have you on the move from Henshan shortly to Road 15 City and for a train

washover.

Copy that, DTC, and again, thank you for accommodating us.

Over.

So at the moment we're train testing within an operational environment.

We've got to fit in with their schedule, but we're also going to make our

program. As you can see, we've made the road and we're going ahead, so that's

just great news.

It's quite unusual for people to be on board for the wash.

This all usually happens without a human touching a train.

The wash plant's got its own software, which is coded.

It also has sensors on the ground, so the sensors actually pick up when the

train is approaching the train wash and will activate the wash sequence.

Seven trains will go through this process every day.

So each train gets a wash every six days, using around 2 ,200 litres per

And 80 % of this is recycled water.

Today, though, the train gets an extra rinse...

courtesy of Mother Nature.

I guess it always happens, eh, when you wash your car it rains?

Yeah.

Train set 38 rolls back into the shed with a clean exterior and a clean bill

health. And they beat the afternoon rush.

How did we go?

Well, we got 10 minutes before PM launch and I guess in an automatic train

system we got plenty of time.

Nine minutes to be.

Nine minutes.

There's only one thing better than being on time.

And that's actually being early. So we did it.

Okay, we're off.

Project director for the city line, Hugh Lawson, is almost allowing himself a

moment to breathe as the country's busiest station, Central, inches towards

completion. Years of work. We're just coming to the end now of its insight.

We started to hand over the first parts of the station back to Sydney Trains.

People are already getting to use the Northern Concourse and some of the great

infrastructure we've built.

Just got to push that finish line now.

The Northern Concourse has already been open to the public and recently so has

the long -awaited... Central Walk.

And you can just see walking around Central how much people love what we've

built. And you see these people racing through the new walkways and taking the

escalators up to the platforms.

It's always been like that.

But we know how much hard work went into delivering it.

Tom Simmons is Delivery Director at Central Station.

He's now in a position where instead of hoardings and hard hats, he can see a

beautiful architectural and technical marvel.

that's changed the way millions of people move through Central.

These are really hard projects, massively complicated and technically

challenging, and at times it's hard to see the light at the end of it, but when

you stand here now and look at it and see people using it and moving through

space, they are really satisfying.

They become quite addictive doing this type of job. The hard ones are the ones

think you get the most satisfaction out of.

Over a million people per week pass through Central, and their journey

the 120 -year -old building...

is made easier by Central Walk.

This is one of the key pieces of the project we've done. It makes wayfinding

travelling around the station a lot simpler. Before that, that's four steps

stairs on and off the platforms, labyrinths of tunnels downstairs, very

get lost and around.

Central Walk cuts right through the centre of the station and links all the

suburban lines.

But a big part of the design was building a brand -new entry on the

of the station, on Chalmers Street.

and enables people to come in from that whole Surrey Hills catchment area down

underground into the station and then seamlessly connect with existing city

trains or the metro services.

From the metro offices here, when you look out the window, we can actually see

Central Station and the new eastern entrance that we'd built as part of the

project.

It was the last big bit of construction we had and really marked the end of the

project for us at that point.

And we'd had the handover walks. We were just ready to finish that part of the

job. It was looking brilliant. Ready to hand it over to Sydney Train to actually

get it into use, to get it open for passengers to use.

We'd finished, achieved the milestone. Later that afternoon, I'm flying off on

well -reserved holiday.

But what happened next, no -one could have expected.

On the very afternoon, the Chalmers Street entrance was handed over.

Hugh walks out of a meeting and is told... There's a fire at Central

In a large shed in Western Sydney, an important conservation operation is in

full swing.

The hundreds of individual pieces of the excavated Barangaroo boat have been

delivered in refrigerated containers ready for conservation.

This sort of work hasn't been done in Australia in over 30 years and it has

never been done on Australian timber shipwreck.

Because Australia has limited experience in this type of specialist work,

experts have been brought in from the UK.

We're used to oats and ash, things like that, whereas here they're using the

local eucalyptus type words, so we have to factor that into the process as well.

The first step is to get a baseline on the conditions and potential threat to

the wreck.

It is quite well preserved.

One of the problems we do have, though, which we'll have to deal with, is quite

a lot of iron contamination and sort of concretion build up on the surface. So

that may have been protecting the wood to a little extent, but we're going to

have to deal with that during the conservation process.

The 190 years spent covered in Sydney mud and seawater required a complex

conservation process to remove iron and stabilise the timber.

But before that process can begin, every last piece is scanned.

to create an extremely accurate digital 3D representation of the boat.

Eventually, we will have a 3D scan of every timber on the wreck, so we can use

that data to reconstruct the vessel digitally.

We also have it for documentation purposes, so we'll be using these scans

look at where the nails are, the channels are, and that will tell us

construction sequence of the ship, which tools were used, how many builders were

on the project.

Kind of gives us a deep dive into the archaeological record.

The 3D scans have revealed secrets of the wreck and the people who might have

built it.

This boat doesn't look like it was built in a very formal shipyard.

It looked like it was done by, maybe by a couple of guys by the side of the

river. It seems to have been repaired over and over, so it means that this is

precious to somebody.

They built it for a reason and they used it for a long time until they could no

longer keep going.

Once the iron has been removed, the timbers are still extremely fragile and

waterlogged. But it's the water trapped inside the wood that is actually holding

everything together.

Conservator Heather Berry gets the timber ready for another bath.

The timbers are waterlogged. So what is actually keeping these cells in their

shape is water.

We need to replace that water with something else and that's where the

polyethylene glycol wax comes in.

These timbers will sit in the polyethylene glycol and they will

slowly start taking up peg wax and then eventually when it is time to take them

out there will be minimal changing of the wood because instead of water

it out it's now polyethylene glycol wax.

The conservation process is forging ahead, but it still hasn't been decided

the boat's fate will ultimately be.

This is a highly significant vessel, and once it's finished its time in the

tank, the idea would be for it to come to some public institution in New South

Wales and put it on display for other people, for Australians, overseas

to come.

And we hope future research will allow us to sort of unravel the mystery of the

Brangley boat.

Central Station security cameras begin to pick up signs of a fire in Randall

Lane. The rear access to the brand new Chalmers Street entrance.

As cinders and debris fall into the laneway, Hugh Lawson is notified of the

fire.

The afternoon, literally the afternoon after we'd done those walkthroughs, get

call, come out of the meeting here and told there's a fire at Central Station.

A fire has broken out in the Heritage Building.

right on top of the Central Station eastern exit.

We can look out the window and you can see our engines and you can see the

building on fire right behind. It's literally across a little laneway and

building's on fire behind our station. The smoke's coming up as well.

20 engines and over 100 firefighters respond and emergency services are on

scene in minutes.

Fire crews act immediately on the huge risk of the old building collapsing.

The R .C. Henderson Hat Factory is a six -storey brick and timber building built

in 1912.

The fire spreads rapidly through the timber work and into the upper levels.

Central Station is at genuine risk.

Once we made sure everyone was out safely, we knew that all our

teams that were in there were in the clear.

then you know we can see disaster unfolding like massive fire a number of

engines down there railway fire service crews arrive inside the charmer street

entrance they'll try to prevent the flame from reaching central station at

point i'm sat in a taxi heading to the airport and one of my senior pms is

messaging me pictures of the fire brigade stood in the entrance where we

earlier that morning With fire hoses fighting the fire out the back and round

the lane with the hat factory burning.

As the old building's internal support burns, there is a high risk of the wall

collapsing.

Firefighters establish a perimeter and send thousands of litres of water into

the fire.

They also focus on saving the building around the hat factory.

And how quickly the blaze happened, you know, that whole building just went up

in flames.

Water from the firefighters.

begins to run down through the rear exit and initiate a new hazard for Central

Station, flooding.

You've got water coming in through this new station entrance and actually

flowing down into Central Station. Between us and Sydney Trains and Fire

Rescue, that was a key thing to get sort of quickly to not just worry about the

new Metro works, but actually protect the operation of Central Station itself,

the main station.

The water is safely directed away, and amazingly...

The trains keep running at Central Station.

The blaze has now consumed most of the old building.

Flames and debris fall into the narrow gap between the Hat Factory and the

Chalmers Street entry.

Firefighters in the street below must remain outside the collapse zone, but

hard to contain the huge blaze.

Inside Central, fire crews are waiting down the rear lane entrance.

trying desperately to prevent further spread into the station.

But as the timber framework is consumed in the flames, the threat to central

escalates as the double brick walls of the old hat factory begin to fall.

One of the biggest milestones on the City Line project is in sight,

and train set 28.

is being prepped for a very special mission.

The panel is unlocked and the train is taken out of automatic mode.

A testing crew are about to take this train, where no other has gone before,

into the new tunnels under Sydney Harbour.

At the Sydney Metro trains facility, at the far end of the North West Line,

Around midnight, they make their way towards the technical and physical

between the existing and the new metro line, Chatswood Station. You

never know what's going to happen.

For Delivery Director of Trains, Melvin Bowling, this is his personal moon

landing moment.

The significance of the first train under the harbour really is, I would

the apex.

of the project.

Just to the south of Chatswood Station, at the very edge of the connection

between the northwest and the new city line, the tracks are blocked.

When we rolled into Chatswood, we still had all the safety, physical safety

barriers. The ground team won't be able to remove the barrier until there's

clearance for the train to proceed.

The crew on the train face an agonizing wait.

Everybody kind of knew that this was the first night of dynamic testing and it

just had to work. Just before 1am, the call comes through.

And the barriers are lifted from the track.

Train set 28 and her passengers are ready to roll into history.

As soon as we got the green light, the train inched forward. We're like,

no turning back now.

The tracks and power in the tunnels have only just been completed.

Everything has been tested and triple -checked.

But for the team running the 240 -ton train under the harbour for the first

time, it's extremely nerve -wracking.

Anything could have gone wrong.

First of all, the number one thing that could have gone wrong is loss of

communications with the OCC.

Wi -Fi systems and transponders to track and communicate with the train are

installed within the tunnel.

But if the team loses contact with the operations control center at any stage,

and for any reason, the whole mission will be called off.

So that was something that we were very cautious of, because if we lost

communication,

we'd have to abandon the night. The train is literally taking baby steps,

creeping along at five kilometers an hour.

The air conditioning was switched off because we wanted to hear everything and

it felt like everyone had stopped breathing.

Sensors and cameras are feeding information back to the OCC and the

testing crew on the train.

My mind was thinking, I hope everything is going to work. The last thing we

wanted to do was a traction matter failure or something and we had to call

whole test off.

The trip from Victoria Cross to Barangaroo Station

is 2 .5 kilometres.

The last 850 metres is in tunnels built into the rock and soft sediment in the

seabed of Sydney Harbour.

You can think about all the tunnelling that's happened, all the stations built

to allow that first train under the harbour. Just remarkable.

In the early hours of the morning...

The train slowly makes its way up and out of the harbour tunnels.

When we crawled up into Barangaroo and the pilot said, we're here at

I had no idea what time it was. It just felt like we had gotten there in a

flash. And I remember coming out of Barangaroo Station and it was like 4am,

in the morning and thinking to myself, what have we just done here? Like, what

have we just done?

What they had just done was to open the way for trains to start down the long

road of dynamic testing, to make sure that by opening day, every minute detail

of the automated system, the tracks, the power, the communication and the

platform systems between Chatswood and Sydenham is working perfectly.

A mega fire burns on Central Station's doorstep.

From the moment the fire crews arrived, they knew collapse was a massive threat

to the 110 -year -old building.

The New South Wales Fire and Rescue Officer in Charge sends out this warning

over the radio.

The Southern Wall is

the first to go.

Then, the wall directly over Randall Lane crashes to the ground.

Debris rains down on Central Station's eastern entrance.

Firefighters inside the passageway see the threat and escape as flames and

explode into the building.

The immense impact triggers a huge piece of the Hat Factory facade to collapse.

sending a plume of flame high into the sky.

When it starts to collapse, it's collapsing onto the station building.

You know, we can see the brickwork falling onto the new station entrance

we've built.

It's pretty strange when you're looking out the window and it's almost like

watching a movie or something on TV.

It's unbelievable. This is a building we've worked on for years.

A new part of the station, we're really proud about it, we're ready to open it,

and yet we're kind of watching it from a distance, right next to this fire,

being damaged in front of our eyes.

Very strange, very strange to see and know there's nothing really you can do

stop it, and just hoping that the damage isn't too significant and we're going

to be able to fix this up.

Railway fire service crews make their way back into the passageway and

to fight.

to keep the flames out of Central.

I think we're all lucky that Fire and Rescue were able to kind of contain the

blaze.

It takes another 12 hours to fully extinguish the blaze.

Central and the surrounding buildings have been spared the worst.

But still, there is substantial damage and the lingering shock.

For the team involved, you know, to be right on the point of handover and

completion, it was heartbreaking, you know, to see the works ready to go and

then have that taken away.

It was just unbelievable. It was so close. We'd finished and pushed hard as

group, so hard to get it done. So that to happen a day or two out from actually

opening it to the public was unbelievable.

Next time.

Emergency evacuation systems are tested on trains deep under the city.

Attention customers, once again I am just conducting a welfare check before

transfer your services.

The team have a well -earned break and take a ride on a 120 -year -old steam

train. Oh wow, this is amazing.

And excitement builds as opening day for the city line rapidly approaches.

Can't wait to see just how many people are waiting for us, but let's make it.

It's going to be a popular train.

Up now, a chilling clue brings a violent secret in this British crime drama,

Verdi. And tomorrow, witness the strained bond of two brothers unfold

the archives of William and Harry, the unseen photo.