Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Well its been another week in the office and things are looking good. After my initial medical, drugs and alcohol test BAMNuttal are getting their pound of flesh.

I started off being told I would be working at Farringdon station, then it was Bond St and now it is Holborn station. The good news is my commute has now increased to just over an hour, however it does allow me to get any extra work completed before getting home to a crying baby.

To my surprise the project site isn’t that different to being on tour.

• Crossrail have commandeered an old pub/flats that we are in the process of converting into usable office space. Much like taking over a FOB on tour.              

 I’ve already managed to acquire the old optics from the bar ready to install at home.

• Like on tour a number of the Engineers seem to have misplaced their razor blades and have been unable to get themselves to a barbers.
• There is just as much un-necessary paperwork here as there was on tour.
• The structure of the organisation is far more complex than initially realised.

The first thing I have been getting to grasps with is where I sit in the Project and the Company, no easy task.

Project

Crossrail are in the process of investing billions of pounds, approx. 18 billion, into the rail network system, in order to connect West and East rail services. As part of this investment, London is benefiting from a huge uplift in its rail network. The upgrades are broken down into 4 main sections, the Western tunnels, Eastern tunnels, Thames tunnels and the Connaught tunnels. Each section comprises of a number of smaller projects. For example the Western tunnel section consist of tunnelling between Old Oak Common and Farringdon. This one tunnel drive takes in Old Oak Common, Westbourne Park, Paddington, Bond St, Tottenham Court, Fisher St and Farringdon.

 At each one of these sites a number of Works are required ie Enabling/Demolition Works, Piling/Diaghram Wall works, Tunnelling Works and Final fitout works.

BFK has won the contracts for the Tunnelling works on the Western Tunnel Section. These Works are incorporated into the C300 and C410 contracts.

As such, my role is as an Engineer for the Tunnelling Works at Fisher Street, one of 7 sites on the Western Tunnelling Section. Hence the Enabling/demolition works and the Piling works have already taken place, by different contractors, and BFK are due to start tunnelling works in 3 weeks time. In due coarse BFK will hand the site over to a new contractor in order for them to start the Final Fitout Works.

Company

Although BFK’s part in the entire project may appear small, only the Western tunnel section and only the actual Tunnelling Works, it is still such a large contract that one company alone was unable to cope with.

As such a number of construction companies have come together in a joint venture, in order to take on the task. BAMNuttall, Ferrovial and Kier have joined forces to win the Crossrail contract and are known as BFK joint venture.

I have been seconded to BAMNuttall , one of the companies within BFK, as one of 2 Engineers on the Fisher St site. However BAMNuttall is not a company in its own right and is part of the Royal BAM Group. The Royal BAM Group consists of a number of major operations:

• BAM Woningbouw – Residential construction
• BAM Civiel – Civil engineering
• BAM Infratechniek – Utilities
• BAM Wegen – Environmental engineering
• BAM Construct UK – Building in the UK
• BAM Nuttall – Civil engineering in the UK
• BAM Contractors – Building, Civil Engineering, Facilities Management, PPP, Property and Rail in Ireland
• BAM Utiliteitsbouw – Non-residential construction