Balfour wins its biggest ever contract in US

BALFOUR Beatty has bagged its biggest-ever US contract to transform a 52-mile stretch of Californian railway.

The British infrastructure firm will electrify the line from San Francisco to San Jose, a track used by 65,000 commuters a day.

More than 300 people will work on the £524m project at its peak, including 50 apprentices.

America’s passenger rail network has long been perceived to lag behind those in Europe due to the country’s historic fondness for cars. It does not have any high-speed rail systems to compare with those on the Continent, with domestic air travel generally used instead for long-haul journeys. Balfour’s deal will see the Caltrain rail corridor made suitable for cleaner and more advanced trains. It will boost reliability and capacity, the builder said, improving links between the 17 cities connected by the track.

As well as being a vote of confidence in British expertise, the contract is also the latest development in a successful turnaround at Balfour. Shares crashed in 2014 after it was forced to issue the fifth profit warning in less than two years due to a string of problem contracts. But Balfour has since gradually restored credibility under chief executive Leo Quinn. Losses fell to £199m in 2015, down from £304m the year before. Shares rose 1.4pc, or 3.4p to 244.4p yesterday.