For anyone looking to defend British manufacturing against the ill-informed belief that “We don’t make anything anymore”, I would point you towards the UK rail industry, as whilst the automotive renaissance has rightly stolen many of the headlines in recent years, with new vehicle production in 2016 hitting the highest output for 17 years, rail has an equally impressive story to tell, with recent major investments in new train assembly plants and maintenance facilities. By my calculations (which you can see in full below) there are a massive 3,421 cars, carriages, or vehicles (depending on what you prefer to call them) currently on order with Bombardier Transportation and Hitachi Rail Europe, both of whom have substantial UK manufacturing facilities, of which 3,370 will be fully assembled in the UK and will eventually roll out of their respective Derby and Newton Aycliffe plants as 521 complete trains.

Neither does it stop there – last week the Spanish train builder, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) confirmed that they will invest £30m to build a new 46,000 square metre plant in Newport, South Wales, which will open in 2019 and be used to manufacture trams, suburban and metro trains and high speed trains. Similarly, Alstom have made no secret of the fact that their new 13,000 square metre technology centre and training academy in Widnes, which opened last month could be readily expanded to allow for manufacturing should they win contracts, notably London Underground’s Deep Tube Programme for 250 trains. In the meantime, the sites 80 employees will be kept busy repainting Virgin Trains’ fleet of 56 Class 390 Pendolino trains as part of a EUR 28 million contract.

The current industry strength is a far cry from the dark days of 2011, when Hitachi’s plant didn’t even exist and Bombardier’s was threatened with the very real prospect of closure after Theresa Villiers and the Department for Transport (DfT) decided to award the £1.6bn Thameslink contract for 1,140 new carriages to Siemens, with the trains all being controversially built in Krefeld, Germany. Less than three weeks after the DfT’s initial announcement, Bombardier confirmed more than 1,400 job losses at the historic Litchurch Lane site, which remains the only UK site that has the capabilities to design, develop, manufacture and service trains. My plan is for this to be the first of several blog posts, exploring in detail the manufacturing success stories of Bombardier and Hitachi, starting with the former.

Who’s Building What, Where?…

Bombardier, Derby

• Crossrail: 630 AVENTRA (Class 345 trains) vehicles (70 x nine-car EMU trains) The original contract (585 cars) included an option for up to 162 additional vehicles (18 x nine-car trains)
• Greater Anglia: 665 AVENTRA vehicles (89 x five-car EMU trains and 22 x 10-car EMU trains)
• London Overground: 180 AVENTRA (Class 710 trains) vehicles (45 x four-car EMU trains) The contract also includes an option for up to 96 additional vehicles (24 x four-car trains)
• South Western franchise: 750 AVENTRA vehicles (30x five-car EMU trains and 60 x 10-car EMU trains)

Total: 2,225 vehicles

Hitachi, Newton Aycliffe

• GWR: 369 AT300 (Class 800/801) vehicles (21 x nine-car EMU trains and 36 x five-car bi-mode trains) – 20 vehicles will be built in Kasado, Japan
• Hull Trains: 25 AT300 vehicles (5 x five-car bi-mode trains)
• ScotRail: 210 AT200 (Class 385 trains) vehicles (46 x three-car EMU trains and 24 x four-car EMU trains) – 22 vehicles will be built in Kasado, Japan
• TransPennine Express: 95 AT300 vehicles (19 x five-car bi-mode trains)
• Virgin Trains East Coast: 497 AT300 (Class 800/801) vehicles (13 x nine-car bi-mode trains, 10 x five-car bi-mode trains, 12 x five-car EMU trains and 30 x nine-car EMU trains) – 9 vehicles will be built in Kasado, Japan

Total: 1,196 vehicles

UK Total: 3,421 vehicles