Staged packages from April 2025, ongoing. Perfect Contracting is delivering specialist demolition, precision concrete cutting and structural modification works at Roma Street Station in Brisbane for the CBGU Design and Construct Joint Venture, as part of the Cross River Rail program. The work has come through as a series of separate packages inside one live station precinct: Platform 2 demolition, slab and wall demolition, stair demolition, the Stage 4 demolition at the viewing platform level, wire saw cutting of a reinforced concrete capping beam, structural wall penetrations in the underground levels, core drilling, road sawing and hand sawing.
Every package has been delivered inside a working station, next to a live busway and above and around underground levels that were still being built. Perfect Contracting was engaged directly by the joint venture and has been the one contractor across all of it, with the same Queensland crew and supervisor returning for each stage.
Services delivered
- Platform 2 demolition: saw cutting and breaking out of the reinforced platform slab, rebar exposure and capping at the cut lines, and demolition support works inside the live busway corridor
- Slab and wall demolition at concourse level: reinforced concrete and block walls removed, slab strips cut and broken out to the design line with a clean retained edge
- Stair demolition and structural modification to suit the new station layout
- Stage 4 demolition at the viewing platform level: slab and structure removed under scaffold and screens, night shift, with the retained structure propped to the engineer's design
- Precision wire saw cutting of a 12 metre reinforced concrete capping beam forming part of the underground station structure, cut into sections for controlled lifting and removal
- Structural wall penetrations at the lower basement level using high frequency wall saws and pre-coring, with the cut sections rigged and lowered through a confined stair access
- Robotic demolition with a Brokk 200 in the underground levels: block walls, slab and pile cropping where noise and vibration had to stay low
- Core drilling, road sawing, hand sawing and concrete scanning across the precinct as the joint venture called for them
- Controlled load out on Perfect Contracting tippers, concrete and steel to recycling
The challenge
Roma Street is one of the busiest interchanges in Brisbane. Trains, buses and pedestrians kept moving through the station the whole time the work was on. The demolition zones sat right up against the busway, under the new roof structure and around the entrances the public were still using. Some of the cutting was two and three levels underground, in confined rooms with one stair for access, where the section being cut had to come out through the same stair.
Everything we cut was attached to something that had to stay. A platform slab that continued as the live platform. A capping beam tied into the permanent station structure. Walls carrying services for the levels above. The method for each package had to prove to the joint venture's engineers that the retained structure would never be loaded by the breaking, and it had to do that with the vibration and noise kept low enough for a station that never closed.
Perfect Contracting's role
Perfect Contracting was engaged directly by the CBGU joint venture as its demolition and cutting subcontractor and has been called back package after package. Our estimators priced each scope as it came out, from a two day core drilling call to the multi week Stage 4 demolition, so the joint venture had one supplier and one method style across the precinct.
A Perfect Contracting supervisor ran every shift with our own Queensland operators and cutters, our Brokk 200, compact excavators and tippers. The same faces came back for each stage, so the inductions, the site knowledge and the relationship with the joint venture's engineers carried from one package to the next.
How the work was done
Cut first, break second. Every package started with the set out and the saw cuts: road saw through slabs, track saw and wall saw through walls and hobs, wire saw through the capping beam. Once the separation lines were in, the retained structure was isolated from the breaking and the demolition could run at pace inside the cut zone. On the platform and concourse slabs a compact excavator with a hammer took the slab out in strips, working back from the free edge, with the crew finishing the cut line by hand and capping the exposed reinforcement.
The capping beam was cut into sections with the wire saw so each piece could be rigged, lifted and taken out under control, with no impact on the surrounding structure. The wall penetrations at the lower basement were pre-cored at the corners then cut with the wall saw so the openings came out square with no overcut, and the sections were rigged and lowered through the stair. In the underground levels the Brokk 200 did the breaking, with the operator standing clear and the machine small enough to work between the columns and props.
Most of the heavy breaking ran on night shift inside screened and barriered zones, with water suppression on the cutting and breaking and every load out coordinated with the joint venture's traffic team so tippers came in and out of the busway side in the agreed windows.
Environmental controls
- Saw cut separation before any breaking, so the retained station structure was never loaded by the demolition
- Water suppression on all cutting and breaking, with slurry captured and removed rather than run to drain
- Low vibration methods: wire sawing, wall sawing and remote controlled breaking in preference to heavy hammering next to the permanent structure
- Concrete and steel separated at the face and taken to recycling, general material to licensed facilities on tracked dockets
- Noisy work scheduled into the night shift windows agreed with the joint venture and the station operator
Safety in a live station
The station stayed open, so the exclusion zones had to be right every shift. Work areas were hoarded, screened and barriered off from the public and from the busway, with the zone walked and checked at every pre-start. Each package had its own demolition management plan, work method and permit to excavate or penetrate, reviewed by the joint venture before the first cut, and the propping to the retained slabs was installed to the engineer's design before anything was broken.
Underground, the confined rooms ran on ventilation and lighting set up for each shift, with the rigging and lowering of cut sections planned as lifts in their own right. Nobody worked inside the swing of the excavator or in front of the Brokk while it was breaking.
Rail and infrastructure work in Queensland
Perfect Contracting delivers demolition, concrete cutting and civil and detailed excavation in Queensland for Tier 1 contractors and joint ventures across South East Queensland from its Brisbane yard, alongside its rail and tunnel and TBM demolition work in New South Wales. Live station and corridor work, where the structure has to be cut and removed without disturbing what stays, is what the Queensland crew does most.
The later packages, 2025 and 2026
The joint venture kept calling us back after the big demolition stages. These are the smaller packages the same Queensland crew delivered around the station through 2025 and 2026:
- July to August 2025: services penetrations in the WSB building, starting with the wall penetrations at level B3.5: corners pre cored and openings cut through the shaft walls
- September to October 2025: a further set of core drilled wall penetrations at B3 in the WSB building
- October 2025 to February 2026: saw cutting on the Platform 2 side, including a services trench cut and dug out for new conduits
- March 2026: the Platform 2 temporary substation: ceilings and walls demolished inside a hoarded silica dust zone, wall linings broken back and the waste carted to our yard
- March to May 2026: night shift works on the live concourse: tiles removed from the floor and columns, ceiling boards stripped with the services covered in protection, and a rebate prepared at Gate 4 for a new angle, using jackhammers, a scarifier, chasers and an air scrubber
- May to June 2026: core drilling at Gate 5, worked from a scissor lift through a wall braced with steel walers
- September 2026: back on site for more wall penetrations
None of these are big on their own. What matters is that each one could go to a crew that already knew the station, its access routes, its permits and its night shift rules, so the joint venture did not have to induct and brief a new contractor every time a small scope came up.
Lessons learned on this job
Every job teaches the crew something. These are the ones we took from Roma Street, and we use them on every job inside a live transport hub.
What worked
- Keeping the same crew and supervisor on the station from package to package, so the access, permits and site rules never had to be learned twice
- Cutting first and breaking second, so the retained structure was separated before any breaking load went into it
- Wet cutting, water fed coring, hoarded work areas and air scrubbers wherever the work was enclosed, so the silica dust stayed inside the work zone
What was difficult
- A station that never closed, with night shifts and short work windows next to trains, buses and the public
- Underground rooms with one stair for access, where cut sections and waste had to come out the same way the crew went in
- A long run of separate packages, big and small, each needing its own method, pre start and access plan before any work started
The outcome
Every package delivered inside the live station without disruption to the transport operations around it. Platform 2 slab out, concourse slabs and walls out, stairs out, Stage 4 structure removed, the capping beam cut and lifted clear, the basement penetrations cut square and handed over. The joint venture keeps coming back with the next scope, which is the result that matters.
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