Piccadilly Line extension handed over

Balfour Beatty Rail Projects and Balfour Kilpatrick hand over Piccadilly Line extension to Heathrow T5.

Balfour Beatty Rail Projects and Balfour Kilpatrick, leading international rail, mechanical and electrical engineering design and construction businesses of Balfour Beatty plc, have successfully handed over, to London Underground, the Piccadilly Line Extension to Heathrow Airport's new Terminal 5.

The completion of the Piccadilly Line extension is a result of over six years of work by Balfour Beatty, which has seen it involved with the preliminary design of the railway and associated works for the extension, right through to the testing and commissioning of the completed line.

The Balfour Beatty team worked closely with the client BAA and other stakeholders, to ensure the handover of this complex project was completed as planned.

As well as the Piccadilly Line extension, the integrated team is also contracted by BAA to construct the Heathrow Express extension between T5 and the airport's existing rail network.

With the first Heathrow Express test train arriving into the new T5 station in May, handover of this project to the line's operator is expected to take place in September 2007 with trial operations commencing later in the year.

Keith Hampson, Interim Managing Director, Balfour Beatty Rail Projects, said: "The way in which this project has been delivered on time, to budget and with an excellent safety record is a credit to all involved and we can now look forward to handing over the Heathrow Express extension to complete our work on this prestigious project".

In readiness for the new terminal's opening in March 2008, London Underground will now begin trial operations, involving the running of trains and driver training on the line.

The GBP4.3 billion T5 project at Heathrow Airport is one of the largest construction projects in Europe and is set to open in March 2008.

When fully complete in 2010, following the completion of a second satellite building, the terminal is expected to handle around 30 million passengers a year.

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