Final Crossrail tunnelling contracts awarded

Crossrail has announced its intention to award the final tunnelling contracts for construction of Crossrail, worth around GBP 225M (USD 367.0M) in total. The contracts and winning contractors were:

C310 – ‘Thames Tunnel’ between Plumstead and North Woolwich (Drive H) – joint venture of Hochtief Construction and J Murphy & Sons, worth approx. GBP 190M (USD 310.0M).

C315 – Connaught Tunnel refurbishment – Vinci Construction UK, worth approx. GBP 35M (USD 57.1M)

In addition Crossrail also awarded a contract to Morgan Sindall (Infrastructure) for construction of the Pudding Mill Lane Tunnel portal, valued at GBP50M (USD 81.5M).

A Hochtief and Murphy JV carried out the previous under-river ‘Thames Tunnel’ for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Phase 2 (now called HS1). Vinci Construction UK recently constructed a mock-up of an underground Crossrail station for better visualisation and testing of various operational systems.

These awards completed the contracts required to construct a total of 42km of bored tunnels (21km twin-bore), including portals, to create the passageways for the Crossrail scheme at depths down to a maximum of 40m.

Crossrail confirmed that selected TBM manufacturers will be announced later this month. Further contracts for necessary equipment and services, worth in the region of GBP 1.5bn (USD 2.45bn), are due to be awarded before the end of this year.