JHR was contracted by Transport for NSW to manage and maintain the railway lines and associated assets located throughout regional NSW. The network spans over 5,000km of operational and non-operational rail lines, linking regional NSW to cities, farmers to their customers, and resources to market. As part of the management of these lines, a program is in progress to replace life-expired structures with new low-maintenance structures. Repair and replacement of aged assets throughout the network is a continual process with culverts being the focus of this particular project.
The project included concept, preliminary and detailed design aspects, commencing with site inspections to evaluate the current condition of each asset, followed by hydrology assessments to determine the capacity required to convey the rainfall runoff from each.
Optioneering and a multi-criteria analysis were then undertaken to identify the range of possible solutions based on the requirements of location, capital expenditure, disturbance to the network, and the expected lifespan of each proposed asset.
The detailed design aspect of the project then involved structural assurance checks of the replacement culverts to ensure adequacy of the specified materials and the related civil design to ensure reliability in the longevity of the assets.
