45076
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RR are also restructuring and jobs are at risk there also
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Potential up to 2,000 job losses at Alstom Derby
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Invincible
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The demand is there To quote Richi, (but no definite commitments, tenders or orders to help the UK factories until to late).
HSTEd
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There is some demand, but not enough to justify four manufacturing complexes.
Being optimistic the requirement probably averages to about 400-500 vehicles per year.
Trainman40083
Member
Well, one might add Rolls Royce are expanding, both aero and nuclear. Maybe the existing manufacturers absorb more of the Alstom workforce.
Wasn’t Litchurch lane producing more than that at peak of Crossrail contract? Six production lines at Derby was never going to be sustainable in 21st century when less work is done at final manufacturing location.
Newport, Goole and Newton Aycliffe are all in areas in much greater need of government support than Derby. The alternative locations for Alstom production in UK (Widnes and Crewe) are also in worse economic shape. Litchurch Lane closure would not be like a coal mine closing in the 80s.
Your point about the Aventra hits the nail on the head. There are some scraps that can be thrown to Alstom because there are some ToCs who need more Aventras for compatibility reasons but no one is going to buy them as a new fleet. There isn't 2+ years of work going for Alstom for Derby, they need to find some export work in addition Crossrail add ons etc. CAF and Goole have work for quite a while. Hitachi have started making noises about lack of work but they have a solid product that the government can sensible buy sufficient numbers of (for the right price).
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
GA have 20 spare Aventras currently although whether its wise to shift them if commuting is picking up again although I suspect DafT will just lets the trains run PIXC these days and the generous timetable that GA have can accommodate extended dwell times without much if any performance impact.
birchesgreen
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Trainman40083
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Well the Raynesway plant is reportedly wanting to build a new multi storey car park on Pride Park, because they want to build facilities on the current Raynesway car park. As for Sinfin, I thought something was going on Infinity Park.Well you can't both be right.
There are hundreds, probably thousands of vehicles in the GB rail fleet that should be being replaced right now (15x, 16x, 465). That we have somehow managed not to have ordered their replacements while our factories are running out of orders is ridiculous.
Edit: 150x -> 15x
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HSTEd
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The longer we continue with a ludicrous production surplus the worse the eventual drought will be.
The entire UK National Rail passenger rail vehicle fleet is only around 15,520 vehicles (as of March 2023). Even allowing for optimistic growth you are looking at at most 400-500 new vehicles per year.
If you try to keep all four production plants open you would have to replace so many that you will be looking at an eventual drought that lasts decades
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LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
There is no money to pay for them (the railway is broke).
Rolling stock is also a privatised European industry and it's not simply a question of subsidising our local manufacturing.
Replace those in a hurry, then you get a gap.
PG
Established Member
Blame successive Transport Secretaries since Chris Grayling for stifling electrification of the network while leading manufacturers to believe the UK wouldn't be ordering any more diesel trains. Bombardier thus led Derby down the route of purely making EMUs which allowed CAF to jump in and set up a factory to fulfil what limited orders there have been for DMUs.
modernrail
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The element of this that I find seriously annoying is the total illiteracy of the Tories on industrial policy. Somebody has been told by somebody to stick in the tenders a weighting that means a UK production facility of some sort should be established.
Anybody looking at the numbers would see that was only ever going to be a temporary fillip.
So now we have a load of facilities that can’t be sustained.
What is the net result? Potentially all facilities closing? Was it more economical to build them anyway and have jobs for a bit of time? Has it been good for the employees at those facilities to up-skill and are those skills transferable into other jobs?
If so - maybe I am wrong and you can think of it as pump priming a skills agenda. Otherwise it just feels wasteful and unhelpfully distressing for those that end up losing their jobs.
Anybody looking at the numbers would see that was only ever going to be a temporary fillip.
So now we have a load of facilities that can’t be sustained.
What is the net result? Potentially all facilities closing? Was it more economical to build them anyway and have jobs for a bit of time? Has it been good for the employees at those facilities to up-skill and are those skills transferable into other jobs?
If so - maybe I am wrong and you can think of it as pump priming a skills agenda. Otherwise it just feels wasteful and unhelpfully distressing for those that end up losing their jobs.
Invincible
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In the UK the cost of new rolling stock is paid for by leasing from ROSCO financial companies who are willing to pay for new trains. But ordering and tendering for the UK train operating companies is currently controlled by the Government's DfT (untill GBR gets set up).
It could also be the DfT is waiting for interest rates to fall before issuing new tenders, so the train operating companies costs are kept to a minimum?.
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LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
I think you can see a slight relaxation of the rolling stock situation with the recent LNER (CAF) and XC (Voyager) approvals by DfT.
But there are/will be surplus EMU and diesel fleets (175s and 68/Mk5) so you'd expect those to be deployed before new stock is acquired.
The way ahead is the Northern requirement for a convertible regional bi-mode/EMU fleet, but the specification and supplier responses will be a complex affair.
There is no ready-made solution except maybe the Stadler offerings, and they will be expensive (and without a UK production site).
In the meantime the industry continues to make a dog's breakfast of getting new trains into service instead of standing in sidings long after manufacture.
But there are/will be surplus EMU and diesel fleets (175s and 68/Mk5) so you'd expect those to be deployed before new stock is acquired.
The way ahead is the Northern requirement for a convertible regional bi-mode/EMU fleet, but the specification and supplier responses will be a complex affair.
There is no ready-made solution except maybe the Stadler offerings, and they will be expensive (and without a UK production site).
In the meantime the industry continues to make a dog's breakfast of getting new trains into service instead of standing in sidings long after manufacture.
Yes, 15,000 divided by a 35 year lifespan is 430 new vehicles a year. How many factories that can support is by the by. The point is that they haven't been ordered, when they could and should have.
Who mentioned anything about doing it "in a hurry"?
Edit: Litchurch Lane built Aventras at a rate of about 360 vehicles a year over seven years.
Separately, there are some 1,300 Sprinter and Networker vehicles due for replacement – say 3-4 years' work for someone if they were all replaced by one manufacturer. They need replacing by something with electric transmission and rafted generator units to facilitate conversion to battery electric operation charging from catenary islands in future years.
After that we're on to replacing (Derby-built!) Turbostars and Electrostars, and the whole cycle repeats.
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It brought jobs to deprived areas whilst renewing lots of trains. If the factories close there is a site and workers that should attract new industry.
Seems the best of a poor set of options to me. If you bent procurement to keep just one plant going you dont get the regeneration effect elsewhere.......and just imagine if all fleet replacements were waiting on Derby to make something that works!
HSTEd
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If we order them now we won't be ordering them later. The longer we attempt to keep vastly excessive capacity operating the longer the drought after we finally give up would be.
If we continue buying so many trains as we have been we could end up not ordering any at all for a decade or more.
So you would expect Litchuch Lane to have something like ~70% of all future rolling stock manufacturing?
Well that will functionally kill the other three manufacturing plants, and their operators would scream about unfair practices in the interim.
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DanNCL
Established Member
Not really. Replacement of the many 15x and 16x vehicles and anything else ex-BR that’s left could easily be spread over 6-7 years which would take us to the early 2030s. By that point the early Turbostar and Electrostar builds will be due replacement, replace them over a 6-7 year period and that’d leave you at the point where the Desiros and later Turbostar and Electrostar builds are due replacement, replace those over a 6-7 year period and that takes you through to the 2040s before a gap.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
But you do not own the procurement process for those vehicles, even if they were required.
Specifications would be needed for a new design of train, and put out to open tender.
There's no guarantee that Derby (or any other specific plant) would get those contracts.
In fact Derby has been heading in the wrong direction with Aventra if the need now is for bi-mode/battery/hydrogen trains rather than straight EMUs.
And going back a bit, nobody stopped Alstom closing Washwood Heath when they ran out of orders, so why is Derby different?
Trainbike46
Established Member
Don't forget the HS2 build, which will keep the places ivolved busy for a while (if they make it until then)
I'm sure people were complaining about Washwood heath closing at the time as well
In what sane world are the early electrostars not deemed good enough to go through to the early 2040s?
HSTEd
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Spreading that many vehicles over 6-7 years is still going to lead to major plant closures.
The Class 150 and 156 fleets are less than 600 vehicles.
Class 158 and 159 are about 300 vehicles.
The Class 165 and 166 are only 240 vehicles.
So that is a total of about 1140 vehicles, trying to spread that over 7 years wouldn't be enough to keep Derby sensibly employed, let alone anyone else.
And that would be assuming Derby had a diesel or electrodiesel product (or even a high capacity battery solution), which they don't.
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Trainman40083
Member
Apologies if I missed it. But there was mention of "options" for additional Aventras. Clearly 5 for CrossRail, but what would the ones for South West Trains be for? They can't even get the current ones into service. Maybe Alstom don't want them,, and want to walk away from the Aventra. Now what could delay any option might be what Alstom wants to sell them for versus what the Government want to pay for them.
DanNCL
Established Member
Please do highlight where I said that it was a reason to keep Derby open. All I was doing was responding to a claim that there’d be another gap in orders straight after 15x replacement.
Yes very true.
The early Electrostars, specifically the 357s and first batch of 375s, were built in the late 1990s. Typical design life of an EMU is 35 years. That gives a replacement time of the early 2030s.
No question that Derby is oversized for the demand.
Goole and Newport are very well located for export orders. Even Newton Aycliffe isn’t in a terrible location for export orders. But Derby is, which means it’s effectively limited to the UK market.
I would question the number of vehicles required though. The 15x units are too small for a lot of the work they do, replacements will need to be longer which means more vehicles.
There’s also 318s, 320s, TFW’s Mark 4s and ScotRail’s HSTs to see off in the same timescale too.
HSTEd
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So does this mean that Goole, Newport and Newton Aycliffe would be allowed to fail when significant export orders fail to materialise?
I very much doubt such orders will appear, especially for the latter which will be competing with Hitachi's far larger Japanese works [let alone the plant in Italy]
The problem is Derby might be oversized for the demand, but as these facilities get smaller they get way less economic.
There are enormous economies of scale in train manufacturing, as in most complex manufacturing processes.
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Subject to corrosion issues etc. I believe that l read on here that the 357s were not in the best shape for example.
Trainbike46
Established Member
The way I see it, the government will have to choose what way to go forward. But in any case, moving towards a smoother way of ordering new trains (so 400-500 carriages per year based on your calculations) would be good.
As I understand it, Newport was intended for export orders, so if those fail to materialise that is unfortunate but not really our problem?
Goole is going to be busy for a while with tube orders, especially if sense prevails and new bakerloo line trains get ordered (plus maybe options for extra trains if the bakerloo line extension ever goes ahead), so any discussion now is kind of irrelevant, it should be about the direction of travel in general, not about this factory in particular. For the time being it's going nowhere, and after that circumstances may have changed significantly
Newton Aycliffe; there were two, admittedly small, things that should have been a shoe-in for them that they didn't get (new LNER trains and Grand Union), and there are stories of a big price increase, so I wonder what is going on there - wouldn't it be busy until HS2 with cracking repairs, and then have the HS2 order?
Derby really should have gotten the delivered quality under control sooner; the aventra chaos has really hurt the factory in that it has cast some doubt on the quality being produced there
RealTrains07
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Its all well and good saying that however..
Its only when you look at it from an things such age perspective that you see what actually needs replacing and what can wait. 150s are the fleet closest to end of life so if any new trains are needed right now its Northerns.
Whereas 16x and 465/466s could easily keep until 2030s when they will actually be end of life and require replacing.
Orders need spreading out otherwise the factories will keep having the same issues as they are facing now and even when Northerns fleet is replaced, that is not going to stop some factories from going under.