Crossrail Limited has confirmed the shortlist of bidders for two principal tunnelling contracts - Package C300 for Western Running Tunnels and Package C305 for Eastern Running Tunnels.

The shortlist is:

• a joint venture comprising Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Limited, Morgan Est plc, Vinci Construction Grand Projets and Beton-und Monierbau Gesellschaft
• a joint venture comprising BAM Nuttall Limited, Ferrovial Agroman (UK) Limited and Kier Construction Limited
• a joint venture comprising Costain Limited, Skanska Construction UK Limited and Bilfinger Berger Civil (Ingeneirbau GmbH)
• a joint venture comprising Dragados, S.A. and John Sisk & Son (Holdings) Limited;
• a joint venture comprising Laing O'Rourke Construction and Bouygues Travaux Publics SA.

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A total of 21km of twin-bore tunnel are required to be constructed for Crossrail. The shortlisted bidders will be tendering for a total of 18km of twin-bore tunnel.

Andy Mitchell, Programme Director, Crossrail said: "Crossrail has now started the formal tendering process for the new rail tunnels that will run underneath central London linking the Great Eastern and Great Western National Rail lines and will form the centrepiece of the Crossrail project. This is yet another significant milestone for Crossrail following the start of construction at Canary Wharf earlier this year.

"In just under two years from now the first of the tunnel boring machines will start out on its journey from Royal Oak towards Farringdon. This will be followed shortly by the launch of a further tunnel boring machine in Docklands that will head towards Farringdon under central London. Teams of dedicated construction workers will be working 24 hours a day to complete the tunnels for Europe's largest civil engineering project with thousands of others employed to upgrade the existing rail network and build major new stations along the central section of the route. Such is the scale of this undertaking that Crossrail will next year open a dedicated Tunnelling Academy which will provide Londoners with the necessary skills to work in a variety of tunnelling roles and is expected to train up to 3,000 people by 2015.

"Once complete in 2017, new 10-carriage trains carrying up to 1,800 passengers will travel through the 21km long tunnels significantly reducing journey times between Heathrow, the West End, the City and Canary Wharf and providing new journey opportunities and much needed additional transport capacity."

(CD/BMcC)