Firms including Costain, Skanska, Kier and Vinci bid for tunnelling contracts on £16bn rail project

Costain has teamed up with Skanska and German tunnelling specialist Bilfinger Berger to bid for Crossrail work. BAM, Kier and Ferrovial are also forming a consortium aimed at winning work on the £15.8bn project. Last week it emerged Balfour Beatty was joining forces with Morgan Est and European firms Vinci and Beton und Monierbau.

Costain’s chief executive Andrew Wylie confirmed today that the firm was “interested in building the tunnels”. The firm is already carrying out enabling works on the project.

All three consortiums are bidding for the first two of Crossrail’s three tunnelling contracts. Bids were invited for the first two deals, which cover the majority of the tunnelling for Crossrail, last week. The deadline for expressions of interest is 28 September.

The two contracts are:

Package C300 - Tunnels West, comprising the construction of twin 6.2m diameter bored tunnels from Royal Oak and portal west of Paddington station through to the new Crossrail Farringdon Station, with a drive length of about 6.2km.

Package C305 – Tunnels East, comprising the construction of twin 6.2m diameter bored tunnels from:

a launch chamber at Limmo peninsular through to the new Crossrail Farringdon station - length of drive about 8.3km

a launch chamber at Stepney Green through to Pudding Mill Lane portal - length of drive 2.7km

a launch chamber at Limmo peninsular through to Victoria Dock portal - length of drive 0.9km.

This week Transport for London (TfL) said it had secured a £1bn Crossrail loan from the European Investment Bank, which will fund 40% of TfL’s contribution to Crossrail.

Construction work for Crossrail began on 15 May at Canary Wharf. Demolition works are happening now at Tottenham Court Road and tunnel boring machines will be launched in 2011. They will operated 24 hours a day for 4 years.

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