VolkerRail, Laing O’Rourke, AtkinsRéalis and Siemens Mobility will take forward the major railway improvement plan, which will overhaul rail links through Birmingham and the wider Midlands.

The winners saw off heavyweight competition, with Balfour Beatty joining forces with Skanska in one joint venture bid, and Bam partnering Amey in another.

The alliance will be tasked with delivering over £1bn of non-signalling works and around £350m of signalling upgrades.

Its scope includes two new Bordesley chords near Birmingham city centre, linking the Chiltern main line at Moor Street with the Camp Hill lines to the South West and East Midlands.

The ambitious project aims to improve connections between Birmingham’s three main stations – New Street, Moor Street and Snow Hill – allowing more trains, faster journeys and new direct services across the region.

To accelerate benefits, early works will see platform 4 at Snow Hill brought back into use for extra Chiltern Railways services to London Marylebone. Redevelopment of Kings Norton station and tracks will also enable additional Cross City line trains and support new Midlands Rail Hub-enabled services.

The government has already released £123m to fund design and development, with the first passenger benefits promised by the early 2030s.

John O’Connor, Laing O’Rourke’s group commercial director and Europe Hub clients & markets director, said: “This is a partnership that works. We’ve worked collaboratively alongside preferred alliance partners VolkerRail, AtkinsRéalis and Network Rail for a decade, most recently in the successful delivery of East West Rail Phase 2.

“We look forward to bringing our extensive rail experience to the project, and to working closely with SiemensMobility  – designing and developing plans that will progress the Midlands Rail Hub.”

West Midlands Rail Executive and Midlands Connect hailed the scheme as central to boosting housing, new station delivery and economic investment across more than 50 locations.