The Litchurch Lane factory of Bombardier Transportation, the world’s biggest trainmaker, in Derby, in the English midlands, is a hive of activity – in parts. The plant has work building new trains for South Africa, new carriages for London Underground, some London surface rail lines and several refurbishment projects.
However, Mark Williamson, the head of Bombardier’s mainline and metros business unit in the UK, makes it clear that, while he is happy to have secured orders for the various projects under way, the factory has too many quiet corners. The sprawling network of brick buildings, where trainmaking started in 1873, needs 1m man-hours a year of manual labour to be viable. But, for 2010, on current projections, it has only 680,000, Mr Williamson says.
