Highly commended

Carillion: Thameslink outer areas packages

The projects bundled into this package stretched from Brighton and Peterborough, and rang in at £ 200 million under Carillion’s management as principal contractor.

It was this single management team that convinced the National Rail Awards’ judges to treat this as a single project rather than discrete components. They were impressed with the health and safety record, and with environmental initiatives that included crushing and reusing 12,000 tonnes of ballast (this saved £113,000) and reusing 9,300 concrete sleepers (saved £ 280,000).

Installing LED lighting at Thameslink stabling sidings is expected to save Network Rail £ 65,000 from its electricity bills every year.

One of the projects within this package was installing slab track in Network Rail’s new Canal Tunnels (linking the East Coast Main Line to St Pancras). Carillion led the installation of new products in new situations, including Sonneville Low Vibration Track and Hy-Drive points for NR60 layouts on slab track.

Carillion delivered its works on time and in line with Network Rail’s requirements, providing better railway connections for the passengers and enhanced stabling capacity for train operators, sharing experiences with the industry to benefit future planned works, and training numerous apprentices to create the rail workforce of the future.

The benefits of Carillion’s involvement can already be seen across the Thameslink route, with extra stabling capacity for new Siemens Class 700s EMUs.

The NRA judges concluded: “An impressive achievement which will bring real benefits to passengers once the full Thameslink project is completed.”