Balfour Beatty Rail has opened a new base in Shettleston, Glasgow and celebrated with an Open Day showcasing new plant and equipment.
Determined to build close links with the community in Shettleston Balfour Beatty Rail is making a donation to the Shettleston Community Group Project.
The resident-led initiative has seen the transformation of a derelict site into a garden for residents and schoolchildren. 30 local families will be able to grow food on individual plots.
As well as local people politicians and rail chiefs attended the event and were able to see top class equipment brought in specially for the day.
One of the new B41UE Matisa Tampers – part of Balfour Beatty Rail’s £20m investment in new plant – was transported from Cambridgeshire.
The recently approved Air Insulated Switchgear, which will be trialled on the Paisley Corridor Improvements project, was brought over from Balfour Beatty Rail’s base in Offenbach, Germany.
There were a number of other items of plant on display as well. A Front Shovel Excavator, Base Ballast Bopper, Top Ballast Topper, Unimog, Doosan and an Ultrasonic Flaw Detection RRV all attracted interest.
Says Peter Anderson, Managing Director of Balfour Beatty Rail UK, ‘The open day was about celebrating the opening of our permanent office in Shettleston, Glasgow, once again showing how committed we are to supporting Network Rail and Transport Scotland achieve their objectives in the Scottish rail market.’
Also launched at the open day was an overhead line training initiative for Scotland.
Balfour Beatty Rail believes that as electrification work increases, there will inevitably be a severe shortage of overhead line staff within Scotland.
The company already has an OLE training school at its Kirkby Depot in Liverpool.
Good practice and knowledge from there will be shared with Shettleston. A recruitment plan has already been devised to target local schools and colleges.
Balfour Beatty is currently working on a number of key rail projects in Scotland including the Forth Bridge refurbishment, Waverley Station renewal, Paisley Corridor improvements and Gourock Station renewals.
