Siemens bags London Rail link order

A consortium led by Siemens AG has been awarded a $2.5 billion contract for the construction of a London Thameslink rail line. The consortium called The Cross London Trains Siemens consortium consists of infrastructure investment groups Innisfree Ltd, 3i Infrastructure Plc and Siemens Project Ventures GmbH, a unit of Siemens Financial Services. The consortium was chosen after the Siemens?s financing unit helped structure the payment of the deal, whereby the UK does not have to pay anything upfront for the project. The project is part of a 6 billion-pound upgrade of the Thameslink network that operates trains in central London.