1735 Hrs GMT
London
Thursday
04 March 2010
Editor © Muhammad Haque
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000105 EndHTML:0000003121 StartFragment:0000001917 EndFragment:0000003085 Khoodeelaar! Told you so for years! It is again telling so today in view of the evidence that keeps appearing on top of evidence that existed before. Already exists. That Crossrail is crass. It is costly. Crassly costly. So crassly costly that even the 'building trade’ ‘press' is now carrying anxious comments that Crossrail needs to drive costs down! In doing so, the ‘trade’ ‘press’ is also exposing its own ignorance and failure to conduct its ‘journalism’ responsibly. Why is it that the ‘construction’ and ‘building’ trade titles & outlets have suddenly woken up to how costly and in effect what a brazenly ill conceived luxury Crossrail is? We have been saying this for SIX years non-stop. Why should we give any credence to this blatantly belated realisation? We do so for the record. To show that we have again been vindicated. And there is only one course of action that this vindication warrants: SCRAP CrossRail.
[To be continued]
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4 March, 2010
Bidders for tunneling jobs encouraged to vie for bundled station deals to drive down costs
Crossrail will encourage bidders for the main tunnelling works to include two stations in their bids, in order to drive down costs.According to documents posted on the Official Journal, the rail operator has bundled the Liverpool Street and Whitechapel station jobs, as well as Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road, and wants shortlisted teams for the running tunnels on the two contracts to include the stations when tenders are returned in the summer.
A source close to the project said: “No company can win both running tunnel jobs. But they can include either the western or eastern stations in their bids to make them more competitive. The savings will be taken into account when evaluating bids.”
Works on the station tunnels, scheduled to take 47 months, will include the construction of platform, concourse, cross passages and escalator tunnels, as well as the provision of temporary invert fill to the platform tunnels to enable the running tunnel boring machines to be pulled through.
Bidders for the tunnelling works included a joint venture comprising Balfour Beatty, Morgan Est, and Vinci; a joint venture comprising Bam Nuttall, Ferrovial Agroman and Kier, a joint venture comprising Costain, Skanska Bilfinger Berger Civil; a joint venture comprising Dragados and John Sisk & Son (Holdings); and a joint venture comprising Laing O'Rourke and Bouygues.
The western tunnel will be bored from Royal Oak Portal through to the new Farringdon station. The eastern starts from a launch chamber at Stepney Green, through to the Pudding Mill Lane Portal, and a portal at Limmo Peninsula through to Victoria Dock Portal to the east.
Work on the remainder of the stations under Crossrail's remit comprises:
- Work is underway to redevelop ticket halls and entrances at Tottenham Court Road station by a Bam Nuttall/Taylor Woodrow joint venture. And three teams - Balfour Beatty, Laing O’Rourke/Bachy Soletanche/Costain and a joint venture between Taylor Woodrow and Bam Nuttall – are bidding for similar work at Bond Street.
- A planning application for further development at Paddington station, through the Paddington Integrated Project, was submitted this week. Early works construction is underway by Carillion.
- Costain is on site at Farringdon undertaking works for Network Rail’s £5.5bn Thameslink programme, with a contract for Crossrail works here still pending.
- Woolwich Station is being privately funded by Berkeley Homes, while Laing O’Rourke is on site at the new station for Canary Wharf.
Read more: http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=284&storycode=3159280&c=0#ixzz0hEDaEl1U
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