Philip Haigh Comment
New train orders need action from the government
rail@bauermedia.co.uk @RAIL
THERE’S trouble in Derby.
Production lines in Alstom’s train building plant at Litchurch Lane lie idle. The company’s UK order book is empty.
Those lines can produce 700 vehicles a year - arguably far too much for the UK market, which Alstom shares with competitors such as Hitachi, CAF and Siemens, all of whom have some sort of production facility in Britain.
But Derby remains the last site where rolling stock can be designed, developed, built, tested and delivered. Losing it would be a major blow.
It’s ablow made even harder with the coming need to replace large fleets of second-generation diesel units that British Rail introduced in the mid- to late-1980s. Indeed, Alstom UK Managing Director Nick Crossfield told the Transport Select Committee last December that he expected Britain to become Europe’s second biggest market for new trains in around two years.
But without work to bridge that gap, the skills Derby needs will disappear and Litchurch Lane will be left with engineering design teams alone. Their isolation could then make them vulnerable to Alstom’s global policy which assigns a ‘centre of excellence’ to each of its products.
Of course, we’ve been here before. Back in 2011, Bombardier owned Litchurch Lane and it had just seen a major order for Thameslink stock go to rival Siemens. The loss came with a threat of redundancies in Derby and pressure on government ministers to ditch Siemens and go with Derby instead (RAIL 679).
Today there is pressure on Transport Secretary Mark Harper to bring forward orders that would allow Derby’s lines to restart. This might be another ten Class 345s for the Elizabeth line. Or perhaps follow-on options for more Arterio electric multiple units for South Western Railway.
Harper said in a letter to Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh on March 29: “Ministers don’t buy trains directly.”
He’s right, because (as he also said) it’s train operators that procure trains, which they lease from rolling stock companies (ROSCOs) that provide the capital funding. But train operators under Department for Transport contracts can’t enter lease deals without ministerial approval, and that hands responsibility for new train deals directly into Harper’s hands.
There are further complications with simply exercising a couple of contract options for more trains. Harper is at loggerheads with London Mayor Sadiq Khan about Transport for London’s costs, and adding ‘345s’ to the
Elizabeth line would increase costs (never mind that they might also allow more revenue from passengers).
Then there’s the admission that one of the reasons that TfL needs more ‘345s’ is because Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ditched government support for H
