Metro tunnel photos 2017-2025: disruptions, digging and those damned roadworks

Roadworks are a common sight around Melbourne.  Digging deep into the ground to make the new Metro underground train tunnels took the disruption to another level (literally).  It was fascinating to watch the progress though frustrating getting about as the landscape constantly changed.  I am sharing here some of my photos I took during the years 2017-2015 where Parkville and Town Hall Stations were work in progress.  (I have written about the opening of the tunnels on 30 November 2025.)

All photos are in chronological order except the top photo which is March 2023 and shows a heritage-style sign in Flinders Street promoting the new Town Hall Station boasting about its many entrances and other features.
 

April 2017 - The City Square at the Corner of Swanston and Collins Street was closed for construction work on what is now the Town Hall station.  Above is the plinth of the Burke and Wills statue of the famed (and failed) "explorers".  At the time the statue was removed but the plinth was about to be. This statue has not returned to the re-opened City Square.  You can read more about history of this space at Wikipedia's entry on the City Square, Melbourne.
 

January 2018 - When we next visited City Square, it had become a building site with a barrier up around it.  I loved that the design on the barrier made the wall look like the doors to a metro train. 

 

January 2018 - This was the view through the faux-train windows in the City Square.  There was a lot of digging going on!

 

Apriil 2018 - Meanwhile in South Carlton, machinery was digging up the ground and there was a huge scar in University Square on the south side of Grattan Street.

 

April 2018 - also in South Carlton, Grattan Street was blocked off to traffic so they could dig up the road because the station and train tunnel was to run under it.  (If you have ever watched Peppa Pig you will know what I mean when I say that I could hear the voice in my head saying "Mr Bull is digging up the road!")

Grattan Street was blocked to cars for year, which made a huge difference to crossing to the other side of the University of Melbourne.  Crossing by foot or on my bike was an ongoing challenge with the path across the street constantly changing.  Even driving around the streets off this part of South Carlton was an ever shifting maze.

 

April 2018 - The view from Grattan Street towards the Royal Parade intersection where most of the station exits come out.  In the right is the University of Melbourne Medical Building which now has one of the Parkville station exit canopies on this side  In the photo you can see that the ground was being dug up as part of the Metro Tunnel work.

February 2021 - I find this photo amusing: it says "welcome to the new Parkville Station" almost 5 years before the station opened.   It still looks like a building site.  The sign is either a joke or extremely optimist! 

February 2021 - This is the view of the roadworks on Grattan Street behind the welcome to the new Parkville Station".

Feb 2021 - Possibly it was on the same ride that I took this photo of the hoardings in front of the State Library station site.  By now we were in the midst of Covid lockdowns and a lot of change was going on in the CBD unseen by most Melbournians.

 

April 2021 - The City Square building site was built up so high by now that impeded the views of the Town Hall on one end and St Paul's Cathedral on the other.  I was sad.  It was also both sad and inspiring to see the stories on the hoardings.  

It was a photo exhibition called Surge by Phoebe Powell & Kate Disher-Quill about the health care professionals.  You can see more photos of the exhibition on my blog post about Street Art in Melbourne's CBD in 2021.

January 2023 -  The above photo is from the Doherty Institute building looking towards the Royal Melbourne Hospital across the Grattan Street and Royal Parade intersection.  Not only was Grattan Street closed to traffic but the barriers to road works in this intersection were also constantly changing.

April 2023 - more hoardings.  This series were about heroes and this particular one has Prof Frances Separavic, Deputy Director Bio 21 Institute and Pioneer Researcher in Membranes and Proteins.  

It constantly shocks me that she was the first female professor of chemistry appointed at the University of Melbourne and in the state in 2005.  This is shocking compared to the first Australian male professor of chemistry, John Smith, who was appointed in 1852 at the University of Sydney!

 

Sept 2023 - The digging up the road was continuing over 5 years since it had started.  This photo was taken through the wire grill fence that kept the public away from all the machinery.  The Medical Building is in the background.

 

April 2024 - more roadwork on the Grattan Street near the Royal Parade intersection. (Medical Building on the right hand side.)

Around this time, the media loved reporting on electromagnetic waves affecting medical equipment, budget blowouts and delays to the opening. 

 

April 2024 - Despite the delays and feeling that the construction site had been there forever, the signs of the Parkville Station (no pun intended) at tthe Grattan Street and Royal Parade intersection were beginning to be seen above ground.

 May 2024 - I wen to an Open House Melbourne talk on "Rail as civic infrastructure" at RMIT's Storey Hall.  It was quite interesting to hear about plans for Melbourne's new metro rail stations and how architecture could add value to Melbourne with new community spaces, as well as improved public transport infrastructure.

Oct 2024 - I took this photo when, to my surprise, Grattan St between Royal Parade and Swanston St was open again after being closed by the Metro Tunnel construction for years.  It was so odd to be able to ride my bike along Grattan Street with cars travelling alongside me and no roadworks clogging up the road.

September 2025 - The opening of the new stations was getting close but there was still quite a bit of hoardings about the city.  I liked this bright and colourful one by Alice Oehr, called Summer Feasting.  It referred to eating out with family and friends on warn summer evenings, like a reminder to the people of Melbourne to come to the CBD and enjoy all the city's wonderful foodie offerings.

30 November 2025 exhibition.  Despite witnessing a lot of the changing landscapes in Melbourne during 2017-2025, the general public like myself only saw what was happening on the surface.  There is an exhibition in Campbell Arcade of photos of the metro tunnel works that include the hidden works such as archeological digs, smoking ceremonies by First Nations elders, and underground views inside the new train tunnels.  

Below are some of the images in this display in case you are not close to enough to walk through the arcade.  If you are in the city, I highly recommend going to Campbell arcade between Flinders St Station and Degraves Street.

 

30 November 2025 - Finally the excitement of the grand opening.  (For more about this, you can read my post about the new stations along the Metro Tunnel).  The work is not quite all done as there are some finishing touches such as opening all the exits from the Town Hall Station and setting up shops and information stations.  Public Transport in Melbourne is continually evolving but rarely does it have such a huge change as this one.