The Regional Rail Link Authority of Victoria announced on Thursday the award of $1.6-billion rail contracts to three bidders. The Leighton Group, Lend Lease and UGL won the bid to build a part of the $5.3-billion Regional Rail Link project.

Leighton and its joint venture partner, Baulderstone, which is a part of Lend Lease's infrastructure business in Australia, will build the part from West Werribee to Deer Park. Their contract, worth $835 million, aims to separate regional trains from metropolitan trains for the first time.

With this project, the Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat trains will have their own tracks.

Thiess, a subsidiary of Leighton, will work on the Footscray to Deer Section of the rail project. Thiess is a JV with Balfour Beatty, a global contractor, and design partners Parsons Bricnkerhoff,

"We have worked closely with our partners through the selection process to develop a programme of works that addresses engineering challenges and community expectations," Thiess General Manager Rod Heale was quoted by The Australian.

The $505-million section from Werribee to Deer Park, which will connect the latter to western suburbs in Melbourne and the Southern Cross station, will include the construction of new broad-gauge double railway tracks for trains with a speed of 160 kilometres per hour and new stations at Tarneit and Wyndham Vale.

Design work on the 25-kilometre section will start in January 2012 and is scheduled to be finished by 2014.

UGL won the $278-million contract to provide train control, signaling, telecommunications and passenger information systems.

Meanwhile, miner Rio Tinto entered into a 10-year contract with ports and rail operator Asciano to hail 8 million tonnes of coal yearly in central Queensland.

The contract, which begins on Nov 2013 and is in addition to current haulage deals between Asciano and Rio Tinto, would cover coal sourced from Rio's Hail Creek and Kestrel coal mines bound for the Dalrymple Bay coal terminal near Mackay.

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