Monday 20 Apr 2009
NETWORK RAIL AWARDS £130M OLYMPIC RAIL UPGRADE CONTRACTS
- Region & Route:
- | Southern
Network Rail has awarded two contracts worth a combined £130m to deliver vital elements of the London Overground upgrade which will double capacity on sections of the network ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games.
- Carillion has been awarded a £90m contract to carry out design and construction of the civil engineering, track, overhead line and power supply aspects of the project.
- Atkins has been appointed to design and install a brand new signalling system on the line, with a contract worth over £40m.
The £326m upgrade, scheduled for completion in 2011, is jointly funded by Network Rail, Transport for London and the Olympic Delivery Authority, and the Department for Transport. When complete, passengers will see longer trains, more frequent services and benefit from reliable connections to the main London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Park in Stratford.
Patrick Hallgate, Network Rail route director, said: “The investment being made in the North London Line over the next 18 months is an important part of Network Rail’s plans to build a bigger and better railway in the capital. The project will provide vital additional capacity for the Olympic Games and help meet growing demand on the line, which is expected to rise by a quarter in the next seven years.”
London Overground will run up to eight trains an hour during peak times on parts of the network when the upgrade is complete, double the current number and with a more reliable timetable for those trains. New and longer platforms at some stations will also allow more carriages per train, which will increase capacity and reduce overcrowding.
Notes to editors
1. The London Overground network consists of the following lines: • the Stratford to Richmond line; • the Gospel Oak to Barking line; • the Willesden Junction to Clapham Junction line • the local London Euston-Watford Junction line 2. The £326m work package is funded as follows: 76 per cent of this amount is provided by TfL (with Olympic Delivery Authority input of 33 per cent), Network Rail is funding 23 per cent and the Department for Transport 1 per cent. 3. Network Rail is responsible for carrying out the upgrade work. TfL will provide rail replacement bus services through their operator, London Overground Rail Operations Limited. Information will be available to passengers from staff, posters, leaflets at stations and online.Contact information
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We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.
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