After 180 years, UK makes last train

[scooterscot]

Toot toot.

The UK’s last train works, Litchurch Lane in Derby, will issue redundancy notices to 90 of its staff, signalling the end of an era in engineering

Britain, the country that invented the steam locomotive almost 200 years ago, is set to lose its last train works.

Derby has been the site of train manufacture since 1840, 15 years after George Stephenson unveiled the first railway line.

The locomotives on that route, which started work during the reign of George IV, could pull six loaded coal wagons and 21 coaches with 450 passengers more than nine miles in an hour.

Today the trains at Derby’s Litchurch Lane works, built in 1873, may be faster, sleeker and more environmentally-friendly, but Britain’s ranking as an engineering powerhouse could not be more different.

Bombardier, the owner of the site, will signal that the end is nigh this week when it issues 90-day redundancy notices to hundreds of workers. It marks a wind-down in production after the Canadian-owned firm was beaten to a £3.4bn deal to build and maintain trains for Thameslink.

The Department for Transport has named the German company Siemens as the preferred bidder in the order for 1,200 new carriages. They will be built mainly in Germany.

British jobs for British people

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/...icle657100.ece

[TimberWolf]

Germany still has plenty of coal. We burnt all ours industrialising the world.

[eek]

So they ignore the new hitachi train plant in Newton aycliffe. Granted it's not British but nor is bombardier. The problem seems to be the more typical British question of why didn't our (not as good) solution lose... But ours was British!

As for coal I think Ours is now impossible to economically mine. That doesn't mean we cannot use it tho as

Plans unveiled for a new 'green' industrial era - Today's News - News - JournalLive shows.

[centurian]

I think this will be more of an asssembly plant where the trains are fitted out. The will largely be manufactured in Japan.

And the only reason they are doing this is to sweeten the deal. They may be "investing £600m", but they're doing that with the £7bn we are giving them.

[Freamon]

As for coal I think Ours is now impossible to economically mine.

Not sure about that, we're still opening new coal mines after all: BBC NEWS | Wales | South East Wales | Go-ahead for huge opencast mine

[TimberWolf]

Not sure about that, we're still opening new coal mines after all: BBC NEWS | Wales | South East Wales | Go-ahead for huge opencast mine

Residents had campaigned against the scheme, which will lead to the extraction of 10m tonnes of coal over 15 years.

So a whopping 1/6 of a tonne each. About a week's worth of energy? Every little helps.