{"id":884346,"date":"2026-09-08T10:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884346\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T10:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:52:11","slug":"cross-river-rail-authority-reveals-esky-lid-flood-barrier-at-albert-street-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884346\/","title":{"rendered":"Cross River Rail Authority reveals ‘Esky Lid’ flood barrier at Albert Street Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

Engineers have completed an 80-tonne mechanical contraption named “The Esky Lid” designed to protect Brisbane’s new underground tunnels from flooding.<\/p>\n

The Esky Lid was unveiled today at Albert Street Station, which will be part of Brisbane’s Cross River Rail underground train network.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

The 22-metre by 10-metre barrier will be able to descend from the ceiling over the station’s main entrance, sealing it shut from floodwaters.<\/p>\n

Sliding panels allow the barrier’s modules to click into place, blending in with the station ceiling when not in use.<\/p>\n

During intense flooding, shutters will also close off the entrance to the northern side of Albert Street Station.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Albert Street Station will be the most important line of defence, since it will be the deepest point of the 10-kilometre Cross River Rail network.<\/p>\n

The station itself is in a low-lying, flood-prone area of Brisbane’s CBD.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lid will keep the station flood-proof up to about 10.3 metres above street level, which is rated as a 1-in-10,000-year probability.<\/p>\n

Cross River Rail Delivery Authority program director Jeremy Kruger said they called it The Esky Lid because it could close like the lid of an esky.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Jeremy Kruger says it is unlikely that the company Esky will try to sue them over the name.\u00a0 (612 ABC Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

Mr Kruger said passengers would be evacuated before the esky lid came down in the event of an extreme flood.<\/p>\n

However, Mr Kruger said there was a good chance that people alive today would never see this “ingenious” feat of engineering in action.<\/p>\n

“This will be a nice, open amenity 99.999 per cent of the time,” Mr Kruger said.<\/p>\n

“For that 0.001 per cent flood, it can come down, seal, deploy, and protect the station.”<\/p>\n

A history of blowouts<\/p>\n

Mr Kruger said construction work would finish in early 2027, with safety tests to follow afterwards.<\/p>\n

However, he said passenger services were not due to begin until 2029.<\/p>\n

Cross River Rail was originally due to open in 2024 at a budget of $5.4 billion, but the project has suffered repeated blowouts over the years.<\/p>\n

Mr Kruger said the project was now expected to cost around $19 billion, almost four times the original estimate.<\/p>\n

It will be Queensland’s single largest and most expensive infrastructure project in history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Engineers have completed an 80-tonne mechanical contraption named “The Esky Lid” designed to protect Brisbane’s new underground tunnels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[454232,64,63,99,222340,454233,224882],"class_list":["post-884346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-albert-street-esky-lid","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-cross-river-rail","tag-defence-against-flooding","tag-flood-mitigation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}