There’s a key question looming for Britain over its rolling stock industry: does Britain want to produce its own trains?
That means designing as well as building them, with building more than simply assembling major components brought in from abroad.
Nick Crossfield runs Alstom in the UK, including its factory at Derby. He told the Transport Select Committee last December: “I could convert Derby from a site that employs 3,000 people, supports about 15,000 people outside, and spends £1.4 billion (as a rough order of magnitude) in the local supply chain to a facility employing 300 people, importing major sub-systems and structures from abroad. We would final-assemble them in Derby, test them, and supply them to the market.
