Rail keeps Balfour Beatty on track

The engineering group Balfour Beatty has reported an 11% increase in pre-tax profit to £40m ($62m) for the first half of the year.

The rise in profits was driven mainly by higher income from the company's rail division.

Balfour is one of the main contractors hired by Railtrack to maintain Britain's railways, and the firm said this part of the business had seen a return to "modest profitability".

Profits at the rail division were also helped by overseas expansion into US and Europe.

The good performance by its rail business helped to offset a slight fall in profits at its building division.

"We are confident in delivering further progress and retaining our forward momentum thereafter," said chief executive Mike Welton.

The company is part of the Metronet consortium involved in the Public-Private Partnership scheme to refurbish the London Underground network.

Balfour said negotiations to complete the contracts for the work were continuing.