The M1 Pacific Motorway Extension to Raymond Terrace completes a critical missing link in Australia’s east coast transport network, creating a continuous 15-kilometre motorway connection between Black Hill and Raymond Terrace. The new route improves journeys through the Hunter by bypassing long-standing congestion points at Hexham and Heatherbrae, strengthening connections between Newcastle, the NSW North Coast and the Sydney to Brisbane corridor.
A defining feature of the project is the 2.6-kilometre viaduct spanning the Hunter River floodplain, the Main North Rail Line and the New England Highway. Delivered across a complex and environmentally sensitive corridor, the bridge structures required carefully planned construction systems and sequencing to support efficient delivery while limiting disruption to surrounding road and rail networks.
Our Role:
Involved from tender on the Black Hill to Tomago package, CaSE worked with the John Holland–Gamuda site team and permanent works designers to develop integrated temporary works for the viaduct columns and headstocks.
The packages combined modular column formwork, foundation supports, reusable friction brackets at different heights, working platforms and access with headstock formwork and falsework, friction collars, supporting beams and lifting arrangements. Access staircases could serve multiple construction stages without relocation and, when a move was needed, be crane-lifted as a complete unit.
Early collaboration helped rationalise more than 70 headstock shapes into a smaller set of repeatable forms accommodating straight and skew configurations and different column diameters. Reusable formwork and supports could be relocated between piers, reducing repeated assembly and disassembly and supporting the transition to SuperT installation.
Design addressed the full construction sequence: fabrication specifications, installation sequencing and tolerances, operational requirements, and dismantling using simple splice connections. Considering access and lifting throughout helped minimise work at height and made the integrated systems practical to build, use and reuse
