Newspaper and website join fight to keep train manufacturing in city

Journalists at a regional news title have called on the Government to do everything in its power to save their city’s train-building industry — and the 1,300 jobs which rely on it.

Website DerbyshireLive and its print sibling the Derby Telegraph say an order of just five trains would save the Alstom train factory.

Talks to save the site have been going on for more than a year but ended last month. Redundancy notices have been issued to 1,300 manufacturing staff and many of the short-term contract employees have already been let go. A further 500 design engineers are also based in Derby.

In an editorial which also ran on the front page of the Derby Telegraph, agenda editor Zena Hawley wrote: “Today DerbyshireLive is saying enough is enough and for the sake of the workers and their families someone needs to come clean on what is happening and what is being done to stop the UK from becoming the only G7 country not to have a viable design, build and test rolling stock manufacturing capability.

“It is impossible to imagine Derby without its rail industry — the two have gone hand in hand for almost 200 years — which is why action must be taken now.”

The last trains built at the factory were for the Elizabeth Line, the CrossRail 2 project in London. The final train rolled off the production line in March, with nothing to replace them until manufacturing for High Speed 2, linking London to Birmingham, begins in 2026.

However, the Government has yet to confirm exact timings for manufacturing, after it pulled the plug on building the line beyond Birmingham.

As a result, Alstom has gone from producing 650 carriages a year to possible none.

The Government has already offered five trains for the Elizabeth Line to Alstom but Alstom says it needs ten in total, which would mean building 100 carriages, to be viable for the factory and also the supply chain, but it would be enough to keep production going for the next 18 months. Currently, there is some maintenance work taking place on existing fleets.

If the factory were to be mothballed, employees would be forced to find work elsewhere, making it unlikely that there would be a workforce available were future contracts to be made available.

It isn’t the first time the Derby Telegraph has stepped forward to fight for rail workers.

Zena added: “One of the worst things about the situation is that it is all so terribly familiar for those working at what was then Bombardier, before it was bought out by Alstom.

“Because it has all happened before, in slightly different circumstances, in 2011 when the company lost out on the £1.4 billion Thameslink rail contract to German rival Siemens. Shortly after Bombardier heard it had not won the deal, it announced a review of its UK operations and that it was shedding 1,400 jobs.

“Eventually, the situation was saved when the company secured a £188 million deal to provide 130 carriages to Southern Railway but not before there were petitions, protests and marches to support the workers and appeal for Government intervention, supported by many including then Derby Telegraph editor Steve Hall. It also secured the Crossrail contract in 2014 — the last of the trains have just been made in Derby.”