As part of the Victorian Government’s ambitious Level Crossing Removal Project, our Western Program Alliance (WPA) is upgrading Ballarat Station and leaving a lasting legacy beyond construction. A key part of this legacy is our partnership with McCallum Industries, a Ballarat-based organisation with over 70 years of experience supporting people with disabilities.
McCallum was a natural fit for our social procurement strategy. Their mission to empower people with disabilities aligns closely with our commitment to delivering equitable project outcomes and fostering meaningful, long-term benefits in the communities where we work.
Initially engaged for basic recycling services—such as paper and can collection—McCallum quickly demonstrated capacity far beyond expectations. Their strong community presence and reputation were matched by capabilities across safety, commercial, environmental, and technical domains.
Following a thorough procurement assessment, McCallum was awarded responsibility for delivering the project’s soft landscaping package, including the two-year post-construction maintenance phase. This marks a significant evolution in their role—from a support service provider to a key contributor to the delivery team.
One of the biggest challenges in expanding McCallum’s involvement was the requirement for Rail Industry Worker (RIW) accreditation—something many McCallum employees could not meet due to the nature of their disabilities. Rather than allow this to be a barrier, WPA advocated internally and worked closely with rail operator V/Line to chart a new path forward.
Through proactive engagement and innovative thinking, WPA successfully negotiated an exemption to the RIW credentialing requirement specific to McCallum’s scope of work. This exemption was underpinned by tailored safety controls and enhanced supervision, ensuring all team members could contribute safely and effectively in a live rail environment.
This collaboration is more than a commercial arrangement—it is a values-driven partnership that empowers individuals, challenges industry norms, and demonstrates what’s possible when inclusivity and innovation go hand-in-hand.
By engaging McCallum, the Ballarat Station Upgrade project is not only transforming local infrastructure but also helping transform lives.
Read more about McCallum here:https://www.mccallum.org.au/
We’re always on the lookout for safer ways of working and our team came up with some ripper solutions on the Warkworth to Snells Transfer Pipeline project in New Zealand.
To keep our workers safe deep underground in a 1.2 m diameter steel tunnel, we engineered a game-changing upgrade to our tunnel service vehicles (TSVs), and reimagined critical slurry pump components—setting new industry standards in the process.
Our custom TSV modifications transformed factory-standard equipment into life-saving assets. We replaced software-based emergency brakes with a mechanical airbag-drop braking system that physically grips the rails. We added accessible emergency stop cords, rebreathers, fire suppressants, and even bump bars with auto-shutoff triggers. These thoughtful upgrades weren’t just theoretical—they were stress-tested, operator-approved, and rolled out across our full fleet. Combined with new training protocols and ergonomic tweaks, our upgrades are now enhancing safety on multiple tunnelling projects across New Zealand.
Meanwhile, our engineers tackled another critical safety and productivity hurdle—slurry pump failures. Working hand-in-hand with tunnelling specialists and Herrenknecht, we trialled and refined new materials and mechanical seal designs that dramatically improved the durability of in-pipe pumps. The result? Inspection intervals have jumped from 400m to 1200m of tunnelling, virtually eliminating the need for underground maintenance and slashing safety risks and downtime.
By thinking beyond off-the-shelf solutions and relentlessly improving with each project, we not only protect our people but elevate safety and performance benchmarks for the entire trenchless tunnelling industry. These breakthroughs—now adopted by global manufacturer Herrenknecht—are testament to our team’s ingenuity and our culture of ‘Home without Harm’.
Our New Zealand team are proud supporters of the Wonder Project whose mission is to inspire the next generation of creative constructors.
The Wonder Project is Engineering New Zealand's not-for-profit, free schools programme, designed to inspire rangatahi with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths). It includes NZ curriculum-aligned programmes that provide awe-inspiring STEM learning experiences to Year 5–13 ākonga across Aotearoa.
We’re facing a skills shortfall across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics so it’s increasingly important that we support initiatives like the the Wonder Project, that foster future engineers.
Read more about the Wonder Project here.
We recently poured the first calcined clay concrete on an Australian rail project.
Produced in the same way as cement, the clay requires only a fraction of the heat to produce it. Therefore, used as a substitute for 30% of the cement in concrete, it lowers greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50%.
Additionally, the mix demonstrated workability and durability, confirming its suitability for large-scale infrastructure projects.
And the great thing is - there’s an extensive supply of suitable clay throughout Australia.
We used the calcined clay in a temporary site slab as a trial. It was a collaborative effort in partnership with the Low Carbon Concrete Working Group, the University of Melbourne, our customer (the Level Crossing Removal Project), Eifers Civil, and Heidelberg Materials.
Local procurement and the use of alternative materials are just two ways we're reducing carbon emissions on our level crossing removal project in Diggers Rest.
Firstly, the team has sourced more than 10,000 cubic metres of volcanic rock from a local quarry to use as backfill for the new road bridge over the rail line. Transporting the mix of soil and crushed rock from a quarry located just seven kilometres from the site has cut the distance trucks have travelled and saved around 616 tonnes of carbon emissions.
The team is also using glass fibre straps and reinforced polymer bars to support the bridge's 450 concrete panel retaining walls. The bars require five times less energy to produce than the traditional steel alternatives. They are also two times stronger and 75 per cent lighter. That's a win-win-win!
Read more about our work on the level crossing removal program in Victoria here.
