The first 480m stretch of the Colne Valley Viaduct has been built over the last seven months using an enormous 700 tonne ‘bridge-building machine’. The viaduct will eventually stretch for more than two miles (3.4km) across a series of lakes and waterways outside Hillingdon. Known as a ‘launching girder’, the Read more…
We spoke to Lewis Harrison, Electrical Technician with AECOM Can you describe your role in a few words? I am a member of the Rail Electrification and Power Engineering team, and my role involves creating designs for the railways for Network Rail. What were you doing prior to your Apprenticeship? Read more…
We spoke to David Lowe, Apprentice Rolling Stock Technician with Hitachi Rail Can you describe your role in a few words? To carry out maintenance work on the Hitachi AT300 fleet of vehicles including preventative maintenance and rectifying defects that may have occurred in service. What were you doing prior Read more…
HS2 Ltd and its contractors have donated 300 native tree saplings and sustainable tree guards to Corley Academy, a secondary school near Coventry for students with complex social and communication difficulties. The project contributes to the Queen’s Green Canopy, the tree planting initiative created to mark the late Queen’s Platinum Read more…
We spoke to Heather Fisher, a Digital Apprentice with SYSTRA Ltd Can you describe your role in a few words? My role sits within the rivers and environmental team as a digital apprentice, working on design and BIM content. BIM, or Building Information Modelling, is a process for creating and Read more…
The HS2 project has celebrated the start of the next phase of tunnelling, launching the first of six tunnel boring machines (TBMs) that will dig over 26 miles of tunnels under the capital. HS2 Ltd’s CEO, Mark Thurston was joined by local teacher, Sushila Hirani, after whom one of the Read more…
HS2 is celebrating the very first tunnelling breakthrough on its one-mile dig under Long Itchington Wood in Warwickshire. The 2,000-tonne 125m long Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) named ‘Dorothy’ – after Dorothy Hodgkin, who in 1964 became the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, started its journey at the tunnel’s North Portal in December 2021, broke through the wall of the reception box at the South Portal site on Friday 22 July 2022. Nearly 400 people working for HS2’s main works civils contractor Balfour Beatty VINCI (BBV JV) have delivered this important milestone on the HS2 project.
The first design images have been revealed of Washwood Heath Depot, HS2’s maintenance facility and main control centre for the whole HS2 network, which will create over 550 jobs in the local area. The site, north east of Birmingham city centre, is where HS2 trains will be maintained, serviced and Read more…
Our Annual Conference at Birmingham’s Think Tank Science Museum focused on the theme of ‘Delivering Europe’s biggest infrastructure project’. The day highlighted the importance of HS2 as a transformative project at both national and regional levels, one that is essential to achieving the Government’s goals of levelling up and achieving Read more…
HS2’s designers have reduced the length of wall structures for the railway at Streethay from 1.6 kilometres to 420 metres, meaning 80% less concrete will be needed, supporting HS2’s ambition to cut carbon on the project. The railway will pass through Streethay in a cutting, and the shortening of the Read more…