As one of the most significant construction projects in Great Britain for decades, HS2 will act as a catalyst for growth, boosting growth in the Midlands and North. Phase 1 for these contracts had been awarded in July 2017 for the design of the West Midlands area, where more than 500 engineers and technicians, including the joint venture’s designers, worked successfully to enable the project to switch from design to construction. The construction contract (phase 2) for HS2s main civil engineering works packages Lots N1 and N2 was awarded to the Balfour Beatty VINCI (BBV) joint venture in April 2020. The scope of works for these packages comprise extensive earthworks, ground engineering, viaducts and tunnels along a 90 km stretch between the Long Itchington Wood Green tunnel in the south to the West Coast Main Line tie-in near Litchfield in the north with a major junction into central Birmingham at Curzon Street.
HS2 trains will serve over 25 stations, from Scotland to the South East; they include eight of Britain’s ten largest cities. HS2 is building sustainable, climate-resilient transport infrastructure and will cut carbon emissions from the UK transport sector. As a new railway line, HS2 will reduce the pressure on the existing rail network and add extra capacity (HS2 expect trains will carry over 300,000 passengers a day) by placing long distance services on their own pair of tracks.
Spanning approximately 90km, the delivery of Lot N1 and Lot N2 will include an impressive number of engineering structures, tunnels and earthworks: 51 viaducts and boxes totalling over 14 km and 76 overbridges, 7.5km of twin tunnel, 35 cuttings reaching over 30km, 76 culverts and other underbridges, 66 embankments reaching over 33km, 4 motorway crossings requiring box structures, and 6 interfaces with existing rail requiring both dive-under and overbridge structures. Lots N1 and N2 comprise a total of 1.8 million m3 of concrete and 32 million m3 of cut and landfill.
HS2 will build sustainable, climate-resilient transport infrastructure and cut carbon emissions from the UK transport sector. Alongside the new railway a Green Corridor is being created, it will be a home for wildlife and integrate HS2 into the landscape. The project will help people and communities along the railway to connect with the natural world.
The Washwood Heath Railhead site in Birmingham will see up to 15,000 freight trains haul 10 million tonnes of aggregate to HS2 construction sites over the course of the project. It is estimated that each freight train will replace approximately 70 lorries, helping to substantially reduce carbon emissions. As part of the main works civils contract at Washwood Heath, Balfour Beatty VINCI will construct a large piling platform for the Bromford tunnel approaches, railway embankments, as well as haul roads around the site, which helps to limit the amount of vehicles on the public highway.
Client:
High Speed 2 ltd
Execution dates:
from April 2020 to June 2026
90 km of works carried out
200 engineering structures
7,000 skilled jobs
