Engineering company Balfour Beatty, fined #10 million for safety breaches over the Hatfield rail crash, has won a #110 million contract from Network Rail for electrification work on the West Coast Main Line.
The contract was actually awarded in June but was not posted on the Balfour Beatty website until yesterday.
With construction company Caril-lion, Balfour Beatty will modernise the overhead line equipment as part of the work the two companies have already been doing on the West Coast line which stretches from London to Scotland through the West Midlands.
A Network Rail spokesman said: ?Balfour Beatty no longer does maintenance work for us as we have taken all maintenance back in-house.
?This contract was an alteration to a contract awarded to Balfour Beatty in 2004 and was awarded many months ago.?
John Pickering, a partner in the law firm Irwin Mitchell, which represented the families of the four people who died in the Hatfield crash, said: ?It seems ironic that on the day that Balfour Beatty are fined #10 million as a result of their criminal culpability for the Hatfield train crash they are also awarded a #110 million contract by Network Rail for West Coast Main Line electrification upgrade.
?Clearly the public would wish to be satisfied that lessons have been learned.?
Commenting on the West Coast contract, Balfour Beatty chief executive Ian Tyler said: ?This new award, which will substantially complete the overhead electrification component of the West Coast Main Line modernisation programme, further underpins Balfour Beatty?s position as the UK?s pre-eminent fixed rail infrastructure contractor.?
Balfour Beatty Rail, in conjunction with other Balfour Beatty operating companies, is working on the rail links for the new Heathrow Terminal 5, in contracts valued at more than #170 million.
It is also involved in #500 million worth of work on track renewals on the London Underground.
