First Balfour, Leighton Asia start crucial part of Philippine’s largest railway project

MANILA, Philippines — Hong Kong construction giant Leighton Asia and the Lopez Group’s engineering arm First Balfour have started erecting the diaphragm-wall for the underground train station of the North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR) project, the Philippines’ largest railway venture.

The reinforced concrete diaphragm-wall will play a crucial role in providing support and foundational stability for the Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) train station underneath Bicutan in Taguig.

Constructing the FTI station is part of the multi-billion-peso NSCR project segment, labelled NSCR 03-B by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) in 2023, which covers civil engineering, tunnel construction and building works for a 6.1-kilometer railway segment that consists of 4.7 km of twin tube tunnels with cross passages, 1.4 km of cut and cover and ground-level structures.

The FTI underground station will serve as an intermodal transfer hub connecting the ground-level and elevated sections of NSCR with the underground Metro Manila Subway Project, an ongoing 33-km railway construction project designed to ease commuting between Valenzuela in Metro Manila’s northern end and Bicutan to the south.

NSCR project is a 147-km urban rail system that will span from Clark, Pampanga to Calamba, Laguna, designed to cut travel time and carry up to 800,000 daily commuters at speeds of up to 130 km per hour for faster commuting.

First Balfour, a subsidiary of the Lopez-led First Philippine Holdings Corp., has participated in constructing some of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects, including the Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway, the North Luzon Expressway and the Light Rail Transit Line 1 Cavite Extension.

Meanwhile, Leighton Asia is a leading international construction company with a wide range of infrastructure projects which also operates in other Asian countries.