METRONET's last station is open, and a decade of WA rail capability is coming free

Midland Station opened on 22 February 2026 as the final METRONET rail infrastructure project, closing out the construction of a program that has been running since it was Labor's headline transport commitment at the 2017 Western Australian election.

The numbers behind it, as the Public Transport Authority counts them: 72 kilometres of new rail, 23 new stations and 15 level crossings removed, alongside signalling and fleet upgrades. The cost moved with the scope: the 2023-24 State Budget put the program at $10.5 billion, and an ABC analysis at the Midland opening put the total at more than $15 billion.

The more interesting question now is what Western Australia does with the workforce and supply chain that built it.

What was delivered

METRONET was never one project. The Infrastructure Pipeline register lists thirteen infrastructure projects under it, plus the railcar program and the Bellevue facility, procured separately across a decade:

Bayswater Station · Byford Rail Extension · Canning Bridge Bus Interchange · Forrestfield-Airport Link · Greenwood Station Multi-Storey Car Park · High Capacity Signalling · Lakelands Station · Level Crossing Removal Program · Morley-Ellenbrook Line · Victoria Park-Canning Level Crossing Removal · New Midland Station · Thornlie-Cockburn Link · Yanchep Rail Extension

The Morley-Ellenbrook Line — 21 kilometres and five stations, main works contract signed with the Laing O'Rourke-led MELconnx consortium in October 2020 — opened in December 2024. The Byford Extension, opened in October 2025, puts Byford 46 minutes from central Perth and includes a separate platform for the Perth-Bunbury Australind service, which returned on 29 June 2026 with new Bellevue-built trains.

Not every METRONET contract has closed. The $1.6 billion High Capacity Signalling contract, awarded to the Alstom-DT Infrastructure AD Alliance in July 2024, is being delivered in stages over ten years, and railcar production at Bellevue continues.

A station at Karnup is now committed: on 2 August 2026 the State Government announced $10 million over 2026-27 and 2027-28 for final planning, design and approvals, with construction to begin in 2028 on a $156 million station.

The eight-year lesson in how programs convert

The contract award dates are the most useful thing in the METRONET record for anyone planning against a government program announcement:

The Forrestfield-Airport Link was awarded before the 2017 election and brought under METRONET afterwards.

Eight years between the first award and the most recent. A program headline is not a pipeline you can resource against — it is a sequence of separate procurements spread across most of a decade, and the gaps between them are long enough that resourcing has to follow the individual awards, not the announcement.

The railcar program outlasts the construction

METRONET included 246 locally manufactured C-series railcars, 12 new railcars for the Australind fleet, and the Bellevue Railcar Manufacturing Facility built to produce them.

This is the part of METRONET that does not end with the last station. Western Australia's earlier trains were largely built interstate; this time the state built a factory, and a manufacturing facility has an operating life measured in decades rather than a construction program measured in years.

The next milestone is what Bellevue builds after the C-series: a facility established on a founding order is built to carry a second one.

Why the wind-down matters

Western Australia's construction pipeline has long tracked the resources cycle. METRONET has been the public-sector counterweight to that cycle for most of a decade.

With its construction complete, three things follow:

Rail-specific capability is looking for work. Track, signalling, station fitout and rail systems crews built up across thirteen projects. Some will move interstate — Construction Skills Queensland projects an average shortfall of 18,200 construction workers a year over eight years — and capability that leaves a state does not readily come back.

The competitive field for WA civil work tightens or loosens depending on timing. Contractors coming free bid on what remains, which is good for clients pricing work now and hard for incumbents.

The follow-on work is smaller and different in kind. What comes next is the ten-year signalling upgrade, the Karnup station from 2028 and a planned expansion of Perth's ferry network — steady work, but no construction program on METRONET's scale has been announced to follow it. That is the gap worth watching.

What to watch

1. Bellevue's order book beyond the C-series and Australind orders.
2. Karnup's procurement ahead of construction starting in 2028.
3. Where the rail workforce goes — the clearest early signal will be interstate movement of signalling and rail systems specialists.
4. Any successor program in the Western Australian Budget.
5. Final program cost. $10.5 billion is the 2023-24 State Budget figure and the ABC's analysis puts the total above $15 billion; a completed program should have a consolidated final figure.

Published 28 September 2026