[originally posted to uk.railway]
[x-posted to uk.transport.london]

On 22 Feb, 20:54, " wrote:
The main contract for London's £16bn Crossrail project is set to be
awarded to a US engineering firm, according to an industry expert.

Alex Hawkes from Construction News told BBC 5 Live that Bechtel will
work on the tunnel connecting east London to Heathrow airport.

More at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7904355.stm

Not really a surprise. I remember hearing Ken Livingstone on the radio
when he was Mayor talking about the Crossrail project - he spoke about
how he had a particular company in mind to build it, one with a proven
competence. Obviously the choice of contractor for this major project
was a somewhat more complicated process than the Mayor just picking
one after looking at their brochures, but Crossrail is now a wholly
TfL managed project, and Ken was - and Boris is - also Chair of TfL,
so the Mayor does have an important role to play.

Anyway, the but about proven competence (or some such similar words)
immediately led me to think of those behind building the CTRL (aka
HS1) - despite all the other issues surround this controversial link
it was nonetheless delivered both on time and on budget (both sections
1 and 2). It was built by the Rail Link Engineering (RLE) consortium,
which was 52% owned by Bechtel, other owners being Arup, Halcrow and
Systra.

Bechtel were also brought in to 'save' the over-running Jubilee Line
Extension project and ensure it all opened in time for the Millennium
(i.e. year 2000), which they did.