Driving up the Ebbw valley in South Wales, it's hard not to notice the
disparity in wealth. The prosperous new housing estates being built
towards the southern end contrast sharply with boarded up and burnt-out
buildings at the top of the valley, graphically illustrating the social
problems of the area.

The opening of a new rail link may go some way to tackling them.
Passenger rail services are being restored through the Ebbw valley to
improve access to Newport and Cardiff, and in the opposite direction,
to put a new public transport link up to Ebbw Vale.

Amey is main contractor for the scheme, which will be the first new
railway to open in Wales since the Beeching cuts of the 1960s.

Regeneration has been the prime driver for the rail link. According to
Richard Crook, project director for the client, unitary authority
Blaneau Gwent, the scheme has been in development for a decade, but
shot to the top of the funding pile because of two recent events.
Economic growth

"One was the economic growth of Cardiff," he says. "The area's
topography works against road building and feasibility studies showed a
passenger rail link to be more favourable in economic terms.

"And then in 2001, it was announced that the Corus steelworks was to
close and that the Newport steel plant was also to reduce production by
50%. At that point, the Welsh Assembly pulled teams together with local
authorities for various regeneration projects, including a contribution
for reopening the Ebbw Vale line."

A funding commitment for the overall £30m projected cost came from the
Welsh Assembly in January 2002 with £7m secured from Europe and a
further £7m from a Corus Steelworks Regeneration fund. Further funding
from the Strategic Railway Authority subsequently fell through, but
this shortfall is being picked up by the Welsh Assembly.
Passenger service

When completed, Ebbw Vale will be reconnected by a passenger service to
the main line at Newport, although trains will stop short of the town
centre and the old steelworks terminus, ending at a new Ebbw Vale
Parkway station. But according to Crook, who is also in support of the
steelworks redevelopment, the intention is to eventually extend the
service into the 80ha redevelopment site.

One step at a time though. The rail link project predates the
steelworks site regeneration and has been procured separately by
Blaneau Gwent in partnership with Caerphilly County Borough Council,
the Welsh Assembly and Newport City Council. Amey started work on
restoring the line in July this year.

Unusually, Amey's rail team is working for the Welsh government
consortium led by Blaneau Gwent, and not Network Rail, although the
latter will take ownership of the new infrastructure when it's
completed in mid-2007. Amey is also managing all of the work rather
than just one or two of the normal rail engineering disciplines and it
is doing so through two NEC Option C target cost contracts. The first,
tendered at around £9m, covers installation of 18 miles of single
track with a three-mile central passing loop, plus signalling, telecoms
and power.

The second £5m contract has been subcontracted to Costain for
construction of six stations and car parks at Ebbw Vale, Llanhilleth,
Newbridge, Crosskeys, Risca & Pontymister and Rogerstone. These will be
fairly basic unmanned 'halts' with CCTV coverage for security and
shelters, RTI (Real Time Information) displays and cycle lockers.
Ticket purchase will be purely 'on-train' and at the mainline stations
at Newport and Cardiff.
Split contract

"The project was initially procured as a single contract, but the
client opted to split it into two and although the value is not great
enough for a formal joint venture, we are emphasising that Costain is
being treated as our partner," says Amey's contracts manager Bruno
Taylor.

"It is unusual for a rail scheme to be procured as a turnkey project
with two contracts interrelated. Essentially, the main project breaks
down into 60% track renewal, 30% signalling and 10% telecoms and
power."

The track renewal involves 2x20km of new rail being laid, and is
delivered on a special train in 216m lengths, then welded together for
continuous track.

"The track-work is relatively simple," says Taylor, "although we are
introducing a new type of ballast-cleaner through our Amey SECO rail
renewals business."

Amey's preparatory works in July this year got off to a gentle start
with a relatively small gang of direct and subcontract labour moving
sleepers into place on the route. There was no great sense of urgency
at the time as for once, Amey is not working around restrictions of
track possessions and the Ebbw Vale teams have the rare treat of
daytime working hours without any trains getting in the way of
progress.

At peak, early next year, there will be 40 to 50 men on site working on
the permanent way, signalling and power connections. Telecoms work will
be subcontracted, as will most of the labour, which will be supervised
by Amey team leaders, says Taylor. "Network Rail usually manages such
multi-disciplinary projects and the challenge for us is to get the team
working together."

Probably the most unusual feature of the scheme is that the client is a
local authority (admittedly working in partnership with Caerphilly,
Newport, the Assembly and Network Rail). Blaneau Gwent has had to
develop extensive knowledge of the rail industry. The council has just
the one man constantly involved in the scheme, but others have had to
become familiar with it - such as when the council had to purchase all
of the new lengths of rail for the project before the contract was
awarded and to a system of 'buy now, deliver later'. Not the usual way
of doing things in local government.

"We have been bound by the usual rules of local authority procurement,
but the buying and financial teams have adopted a positive attitude
towards doing things differently," Crook says.
Design development

Blaneau Gwent has received considerable help from its project manager
Capita Symonds. Most of the modelling, forecasting and feasibility
studies were carried out by Capita and, according to project manager
David McCallum, it also did "chunks" of the design development, with
Mott MacDonald responsible for stations and permanent way up to outline
design stage. Amey has done its own detailed design with the exception
of the permanent way, which Arup is doing. "There is not a lot of room
to manoeuvre on value engineering of the design because the project is
dictated by quite strict standards of the railway inspectorate, local
authorities and the Disability Discrimination Act," says McCallum.

"But in some cases, the nature of this scheme, with the line closed and
no restriction from track possessions, has allowed the cheapest methods
of construction. The station platforms, for example, will be simple
concrete block wall construction with a compacted granular infill and
an asphalt top."

The line is scheduled to open next summer. Amey's contracts manager
Taylor says he is "very confident" of it all going to schedule. "There
is a sense of ownership of this job within the company because we have
a lot of local involvement and management staff that originate from
South Wales and have a lot of history of working on railways in the
area.