Vinci takes Paris rail project

French rail company SNCF Réseau has awarded Vinci Construction the contract to build the new La Défense station in Paris, plus the adjacent tunnels.

The contract has been awarded to its subsidiaries Vinci Construction France – the lead company – Vinci Construction Grands Projets, Dodin Campenon Bernard, Soletanche Bachy France and Botte Fondations, in a joint venture with Spie Batignolles TPCI and Spie Fondations.

The works, worth a total of €496 million, are part of the Eole extension of RER line E towards the west of Paris. The work will start in the summer of 2016 and is expected to continue for 61 months.

The operation covers building the new La Défense station under the CNIT (Centre des Nouvelles Industries & Technologies) dome. CNIT is convention centre with shops and offices. The project is described as a highly technical project that entails building an underground cathedral while supporting the existing structures, and ensuring that all the CNIT offices, shops and hotel continues to function normally throughout the works.

Apart from the underground structural work beneath the CNIT itself, the company will also be building 1km of tunnels, a 40m-deep and 15m-diameter shaft, and a large number of underground pedestrian corridors enabling connections between the RER E and A lines, the L and U lines of the Transilien and the T2 Tramway.

Vinci said that the major challenge of the worksite was that it had to be executed in the dense and complex urban environment of La Défense, with the works requiring the excavation of 350,000m³ of rubble.