Joint venture win on East Coast and Great Western lines will be worth about £50m per annum until 2009.

Babcock International Group has won two rail contracts with Network Rail worth £50 per annum until 2009.

Through its First Engineering Rail business Babcock was awarded the 'System 3' high output track renewals contract and a three-year extension for the 'System 2' contract.

The contracts were secured through First Engineering's joint venture First Swietelsky. It will operate on the East Coast main line and the Great Western Region.

First Engineering has also secured about £10 million of contracts for signalling upgrade and replacement in Network Rail's North Western and Scottish regions.

Babcock Africa has also been awarded a contract for the first stages of a new £17m co-generation plant for Mondi, a subsidiary of Anglo American.

Babcock chief executive Peter Rogers said: “These contract wins demonstrate the high level of expertise within our businesses. In particular the rail contract wins demonstrate our ability to partner with our customers and to succeed in supporting the most complex of operations”.