Thus the British-French pairing of the contracting team is matched by the nationalities of their consulting engineers.
Mott MacDonald has a long association with high speed rail projects around the world and has been involved in HS2 for six years, providing a range of planning, engineering and environmental services. It also played a key role on High Speed 1 as the government's representative.
Internationally Mott MacDonald has been managing the engineering, environmental and public consultation activity on the Palmdale to Los Angeles section of the California High Speed Train Project and is undertaking engineering design on the Fresno to Palmdale section. The company has also been involved in Taiwan’s Taipei to Kaohsiung system; China’s expanding network and HSL Zuid in the Netherlands. It has also undertaken feasibility studies for a high speed network in India and a line that will connect Dresden in Germany with Ústí nad Labem and Litoměřice in the Czech Republic.
Systra has been involved in every high speed rail line in France and 50% of those worldwide. Systra was one of the original shareholders of London and Continental Railways and a member of Rail Link Engineering - the organisation responsible for the design and engineering of High Speed 1. It has since worked on Crossrail and the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme. It is also part of the design consortium with Vinci for the South East Atlantic High Speed line currently being constructed between Tour and Bordeaux.
In March 2016, Balfour Beatty Vinci was shortlisted for four civil engineering packages of work for HS2 worth a combined total of up to £5.4bn. In December 2015, the JV was also shortlisted as one of the enabling works contractors in the running to win a share of HS2’s £900m preparatory works, and was invited to tender in March 2016.
The contractors selected for the main civil engineering packages are expected to be announced later this year with the enabling works set to start in 2017 ahead of the start of major civil engineering works on the first phase of the project between London and the West Midlands.
Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk
