The Joint Venture companies PORR and Aggregate Industries have secured the major fabrication contract worth £260m from HS2.The JV signs a contract to design and manufacture the modular track system for phase one. Besides, PORR is known to be an Austrian construction group.
Slab Track Austria which is a modular construction system is used to develop the concrete slab track. This will happen after the slab tract is manufactured offsite at a new purpose-built factory near Shepton Mallet in Somerset. Later it will be transported to site.
The JV project signed up with HS2 will sustain 500 new jobs during the contract. Once installed, the rails will then be fitted onto the slab track. PORR as one of Austria’s leading engineering companies is also one of the first companies in the world to develop a slab track system.
The slab track system is laid alongside more than 780km of track worldwide. The first stretch operation is almost maintenance-free since being laid in Langenlebarn, Austria, in 1989. Besides, Somerset will witness the new factory being planned to be built at an existing Aggregate Industries site.
The overall responsibility will be taken over by a separate Track Systems contractor which is due to be appointed in 2022. The new contractor manages and coordinates while the design and installation of the complex rail systems in each section of the route come in place.
Separate specialist contractors will deliver switches and crossings, the rails, high voltage power supply, communications and mechanical and electrical systems. The installation of the slab track manufactured by the PORR consortium will also be included along with the interface with signaling and overhead power supply.
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