Award win for Freyssinet at Rail Exec Gala

Freyssinet won the Most Interesting Major Infrastructure Project award at the Rail Exec Gala on 2 December 2016. The award recognises the year’s most interesting large scale railway infrastructure project in the UK.

The annual event, held at The Roundhouse in Derby, brought together over 600 rail professionals to celebrate the ‘Most Interesting’ projects of 2016.

Editors and journalists from Rail Engineer, RailStaff and Global Rail News collated a list of relevant projects before producing a shortlist of six nominations in 11 different categories. A panel of independent industry judges then made the final decision on the winning projects.

Rochester Station

Freyssinet Sales and Technical Director Kevin Bennett (third on right) joined the Rochester team to collect the award

Freyssinet received two nominations in the Most Interesting Major Infrastructure Project category, and was part of the team awarded first place for the Rochester Train Station project, alongside Spencer Group (principle contractor), Atkins and Balfour Beatty. Freyssinet’s Lamington Viaduct repair project was also shortlisted.

Rail Media said the following about Rochester station:

“In conjunction with the local council, Network Rail made a bold decision. Rather than enlarge the old station, and therefore disrupt travel while the changes were being made, it would build a completely new one. The new station would allow twelve-car trains to call at the town, in conjunction with improvements to the signalling and track in the area.”

Freyssinet was appointed as specialist sliding subcontractor on the £26 million Rochester Station project. Utilising its Autoripage® technique, the Freyssinet team slid a 800m reinforced concrete subway box 36 metres into position using 1000 tonne jacks.

Freyssinet was also highly commended in ‘ The Most Interesting Thing We Saw in 2016’ category for its current involvement in refurbishment works on Glasgow Subway for SPT, with Graham Construction, Sir Robert McAlpine, Clancy Docwra, Austin Smith Lord, AHR, Malcolm Hughes Land Surveyors and Stadler.