Y11 Industry & Enterprise

 The Victorian Tunnelling Centre Excursion

The Industry and Enterprise students enjoyed Tuesday 4 October at the Victorian Tunnelling Centre, located at Holmesglen Institute’s Drummond Street campus in Chadstone. This facility offers specialist training to workers in the construction and operation of a variety of tunnels including rail, road, and utilities tunnels. 

The students enjoyed seeing the new facility which includes a replica mined tunnel and a replica rail/Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) tunnel (the students certainly didn't find it 'Boring'!) similar to the Metro Tunnel, with a full-height entrance, two multi-purpose engineering workrooms and training facilities, including tunnel shaft and concrete lining spray simulators, as well as augmented and virtual reality experiences. A cutterhead, a refuge chamber and the only four-motion bridge and gantry crane located in a TAFE also form part of the facility.

The students' eyes were certainly opened to a new industry they hadn't considered previously for their own careers. Overall, the students really enjoyed the experience and were surprised with the scale of the industry with some students considering taking up a future within the tunnelling industry.

Mr Tom MacDonald

Teacher