WSP Wins £300 million Contract

Design and Engineeing Consultant WSP has won a contract from Network Rail to work on a £300million rail link in central Scotland.The firm will act as an independent planning monitor on the construction of a connection between Airdrie and Bathgate.

The scheme will involve upgrading existing links between Bathgate and Edinburgh and Airdrie and Drumgelloch. Speaking to Building Magazine, Andrew Mitchell, senior consultant at WSP Environment & Energy, said: “This is the first time that such a role has been undertaken in Scotland, and so represents a groundbreaking opportunity for WSP...We look forward to working with Network Rail and the appointed contractor to ensure that this development is implemented to the highest environmental standards.”

Ron McAulay, Network Rail director for Scotland, added: “This is a huge project and it presents us with some real environmental challenges whether they are related to minimising the effects of construction traffic, protecting wildlife along the route or designing out the noise and vibration from the new line.”

Construction is due to start early next year and complete by the end of 2010. A contractor is yet to be appointed.

Plans For Mainline Station At Heathrow

Plans for a mainline railway station linking Heathrow airport to the rest of the national rail network, including a high-speed rail link to the Channel tunnel line, are to be outlined to Ruth Kelly, transport secretary, today.

The scheme is being promoted by Arup, the civil engineering consultant, which estimates the project would cost £4.5bn and could be completed by 2019.

The new Heathrow Hub station, which would make Heathrow the first stop on an extended high-speed rail network, would be built to the north of the airport.

Mark Bostock, a director of Arup, said: “Extending high-speed rail in Britain is an inevitability - a matter of when, not if. The rising cost of flying, and growing awareness of its environmental impact, has seen a surge in demand for our existing high-speed rail services, and this trend is set to continue. The finance model we are outlining today would offer business the early opportunity to invest in a growth market.”

Rail Strike Looms

The threat of the first national rail strike for 14 years was raised when the industry's biggest union announced that it was balloting 17,000 workers for industrial action.

The Rail Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) said maintenance and signalling staff will vote over the next week on whether to launch a campaign of industrial action in two separate disputes.

The result of both ballots will be known on May 22 and strikes could start a week later, right at the beginning of the holiday season.

The union warned that if the strikes go ahead the railway system would be paralysed.

Ballot papers will be sent to more than 12,000 infrastructure workers after they rejected an "unacceptable" offer from Network Rail on harmonising terms and conditions.

In another row, 5,000 signal workers and other operational staff will be asked if they want to strike over pay and conditions after turning down an improved offer the union said was worth just 0.1 per cent in the first year of a two-year pay deal.

The harmonisation dispute follows months of talks aimed at achieving a single set of terms and conditions for maintenance staff, many of whom have transferred to Network Rail from private firms.

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, said: "The company has been using the talks to drive down our members' conditions and they can hardly be surprised that their pathetic offer was thrown out by a margin of more than 100 to one...The company is now saying that our members can stay on their existing terms but they are already moving to sneak inferior conditions in through the back door.We know that means an attack on everyone's terms and conditions, not least because the company is looking to cut its maintenance budget by up to 12 per cent year-on-year."

The ballot of signalling workers follows the rejection of a pay and conditions offer which the union claimed would cut living standards.

Peter Bennett, director of human resources, said the company had made a "fair and reasonable" pay offer to signalling workers worth 4.8 per cent this year and the rate of inflation plus 0.5 per cent next year"People in any walk of life would recognise this as a good deal and one that other unions have already accepted as fair. But the RMT want even more. Their demands are unreasonable."

Network Rail said it was in the middle of talks with unions about standardising more than 50 sets of terms and conditions for maintenance workers which the company inherited several years ago when maintenance work was brought back in-house.

The last national strike by signal workers was in 1994 when rail services were disrupted for three months.

Network Rail To Face Select Committee

Network Rail's directors are to go before the Transport Select Committee to explain the why the West Coast Main Line disrupted the travel of 60,000 passengers a day last week.

Last Thursday the company issued a statement saying that chief executive Iain Coucher will chair a "high-level" meeting next week about the delays at Rugby.He said: "I will be summoning our project managers, Bechtel, and the principal contractors involved to attend so they can personally explain to me what has gone wrong. "

Now a Select Committee headed by Gwyneth Dunwoody is expected to widen the inquiry to include Network Rail's relationship with its contractors and with the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), management's conduct during the crisis and director's entitlement to bonuses.
Dunwoody said "I think we will be making the odd inquiry...Network Rail have only got themselves to blame for a lot of this."

More than 250,000 passengers were hit by last week’s problems. Late-running engineering works closed the West Coast Main Line at Rugby for three days longer than planned, and also delayed the planned reopening of London’s Liverpool Street station, used by thousands of City commuters every day.