PART of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link contract has picked up top prize at the Tunnelling Industry Awards 2003.

The award is for work carried out on the 2.5km long twin bored tunnels under the Thames which form the central part of a £130 million contract by Hochtief/J Murphy & Sons JV, for section two of the CTRL.

The contract, which also comprises two big “cut and cover” tunnels at the tunnel portals, won the major project category at the prestigious awards.

The two Thames tunnels are being bored by an 85-metre long, 1,100 tonne machine operating at up to 40 metre below the surface of the river.

The first tunnel bore was recently completed ahead of schedule in just seven months.

The tunnels will carry Britain's first high-speed line, connecting Thurrock, in Essex, and Swanscombe, in Kent.

Construction is now 70% complete and on schedule for completion in November 2003.

Paul Watson, contract manager for Rail Link Engineering, the consortium responsible for the CTRL project and its design, said: "This award from the British Tunnelling Society is recognition of an outstanding achievement by the Contract 320 project team.

"It recognises the innovation and technical challenges that have been overcome to successfully complete, ahead of schedule, the first of CTRL's bored tunnels through difficult ground conditions beneath the bed of the River Thames."

The major project category was open to tunnelling projects in the UK or overseas with significant underground works demonstrating outstanding features or innovation.

The major civil engineering for CTRL Section 2, the 24 miles between Southfleet in north Kent and St Pancras in central London, began in July 2001 and is now nearly 44 per cent complete.

When complete in 2007, the £5.2 billion CTRL will halve journey times from central London to the Channel Tunnel.

The CTRL will also provide new high-speed domestic services between London and Kent and create three new international stations at St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Stratford, in addition to connecting with the existing Ashford International.