One of the UK’s most valuable train orders is likely to go to a Japanese manufacturer after the Department for Transport on Thursday named a consortium headed by Hitachi as its preferred bidder to build and maintain new long-distance express trains.

The victory of Hitachi’s consortium, known as Agility Trains, will come as a bitter disappointment to Bombardier Transportation, which runs the UK’s only existing train manufacturing plant, at Litchurch Lane in Derby.