LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) - Transport for London (TfL) saidon Friday it had awarded a 1.4 billion pound ($2.4 billion)contract to run Britain's Crossrail rail service to MTRCorporation, the Hong Kong Metro operator.
The 15 billion pound project, due to open in 2018, willconnect Heathrow airport west of London to the county of Essexin the east through 42 km of new tunnels in a bid to speed upconnections and relieve pressure on London's crowdedunderground.
MTR, which together with Arriva already runsLondon's Overground metro service, has signed a contract foreight years with an option to extend to 10 years and is expectedto employ around 1,100 staff with up to 850 new posts.
Train operators Arriva, National Express and a jointventure between Keolis and Go Ahead were the othershortlisted bidders, with the latter expressing itsdisappointment at the decision in a statement on Friday.
MTR will start running the first services from May 2015between London's Liverpool Street railway station and Shenfield,Essex, with the central route under the capital opening in late2018 and the full service in operation from December 2019.
($1 = 0.5848 British Pounds) (Reporting by Neil Maidment, Editing by Paul Sandle)
