WESTINGHOUSE Rail Systems, part of Invensys Rail Group, has won a contract that will kick start Network Rail’s ambitious £425 million plan to modernise and remodel the Reading station area.

The £20 million contract awarded to Westinghouse is for a 30 month programme of signalling enabling works, which will result in control of the Reading area being transferred in December 2010 from the 45-year-old Reading power signal box to the new state-of-the-art Thames Valley signal control centre, now under construction at Didcot.

The old Reading signal box can then be demolished — necessary to make way on the north side of the station for four of the five new platforms planned to be constructed between 2010 and 2015 to increase Reading station’s capacity by 5o per cent.

Westinghouse will transfer the existing Reading station and spur interlockings to three new Westlock units, re-control the remaining 18 relay interlockings and move signalling and telecommunications control to the new control centre at Didcot.

Westinghouse said Network Rail selected Westlock for the enabling works because the system allow future migration to the ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) high-capacity signalling system currently being installed for trial operation  on the Cambrian line in Wales.

Mark Wild, Westinghouse’s general manager, core markets, said: "Naturally we are delighted to have won this contract in the face of stiff competition. We have already successfully delivered a number of similar projects, including St Pancras and Edinburgh Waverley and we are in the latter stages of the Glasgow Central project. Our dedicated project team is now looking forward to working closely with Network Rail to deliver this critical programme."