A significant moment for the European rail industry will come in a few years time when Grand Central, a small British train operator, starts operating the three trains it plans to order for its services between London and north-east England. The trains will be the first Chinese-built rolling stock supplied to Europe for half a century. The only previous Chinese trains to run in Europe were supplied to Albania in the 1950s in a piece of Communist co-operation.

In other industries, such small beginnings have quickly led to the migration of thousands of jobs to lower-cost China. The trainmakers – CSR Ziyang and CSR Puzhen – want to use the experience of the Grand Central order to win the contract to supply between 500 and 2,000 high-speed trains to replace Britain’s 30-year-old fleet of InterCity 125 trains.