Ten years on – can Hitachi ride the storm?
Ten years ago this July, I attended the unveiling of the Hitachi AT100 Metrotrain and AT200 commuter train train mock ups in London – an event also attended by senior officials from train operators and rolling stock leasing companies. Speaking with Hitachi officials at the event, they said that the company was exploring a number of opportunities for its trains – including potential orders for c2c, London Overground, TransPennine Express and ScotRail. Speaking with Andy Barr, chief operating officer at Hitachi Rail Europe, he told me that Hitachi also had its eyes on the Midland Main Line electric fleet as a potential opportunity. Pictures of the Unveiling: https://tinyurl.com/27w4drmm
At the time, the Newton Aycliffe factory was under construction, Hitachi viewing having a UK base as being essential if it was to win more orders following its successful tender for the HS1 Javelin class 395 fleet – the first of which arrived from Japan in 2007.
The path to this initial success can, so Alistair Dormer,Chief Executive for Rail, said be traced back to the humble class 310. In 2002, with the tantalising possibility of huge train orders, Hitachi investigated the possibility of supplying the UK with trains. It also recognised that acquiring a safety case could be a long and laborious process. With this in mind Hitachi decided that it would be worthwhile to invest in a test train that could demonstrate its traction package to Network Rail. In 2003 a converted class 310, owned by HSBC and named the Verification Train, comprising of 977977/977978/977979/977980 (unit 960201) left Derby by road and went to Bombardier's Ilford depot. Hitachi also made use of class 423 motor coach 977981, which was switched for the 310 motor coach when undergoing DC testing on the Southern Region. Once testing was completed in 2005, the class 310 and 423 were scrapped.
Following two years at Alstom, Alistair joined Hitachi in 2003. Prior to becoming involved in rail, he had been in the Royal Navy, serving as an engineering apprentice – including being aboard HMS Sheffield when it suffered a direct hit from an Exocet missile fired from an Argentine fighter on 4 May 1982 during the Falklands war. The attack took the lives of twenty of his shipmates – the Royal Navy destroyer sinking on 10 May.
Speaking with Alistair at the 2014 launch, it was abundantly clear that he was a 'can do' guy – the kind of person who's extremely proactive. While he admitted that a few years previously it was a significant challenge to enter the UK commuter train market, due to the strong positioning of the Bombardier built Electrostar and Siemens built Desiro trains. This spurned Hitachi on to design the AT100 and AT200 – something that it had started over a year before the 2014 unveiling – rather than just hang around waiting for a possible order to arrive.
Just as the class 310 test train gamble paid off with the placing of an order for class 395s, so did the 2014 unveiling – an order for 234 AT200 class 385s, for use with ScotRail, being awarded to Hitachi the following March. Fortune really does favour the brave!
A decade on and both the Alstom (formerly Bombardier) factory in Derby and the Hitachi factory at Newton Aycliffe are staring job losses and possible closure in the face. Had there been a coherent transport policy by the Government , both these possibilities could have been avoided. One has to remember, that even if a new train order was placed today, it wold be three years before it rolled off the production line. What does one do with a skilled workforce in the meantime? Once they've gone, it's an uphill struggle recruiting more when the new orders arrive. In the mid 2000s The Derby factory turned to refurbishment work, but is there even enough of that to keep two factories occupied for three years?
In December 2016, I was at Newton Aycliffe to witness the first UK built IEP roll off the production line. During my visit, I interviewed the then Hitachi MD Karen Boswell – asking her about the impact that she thought Brexit would have on the company. Ms Boswell was extremely positive and upbeat about the future, saying “Train building is a medium and long-term business. Newton Ayciffe has been built with lots of flexibility regarding the types of trains it can build in the future. It's always been my ambition to build quality trains for the European market. So it would, for example, be fantastic to build trains in the UK for the German market.”
As the UK prepares to celebrate the bicentenary of the railways next year – the birth place being very near the Hitachi factory – will there be tears of joy or tears of sorrow in 2025? Closure or significant job losses would obviously be a political disaster plus, more importantly, a personal disaster for the staff and their families, but with an anti rail government in its 'dying star' phase and unlikely to win the next general election, one cannot help but fear that it really doesn't care about what much of the population is experiencing and hopes to offload its financial disaster onto the next government. It's all just a game to politicians – trying to get one over on their opponents.
Hitachi and Bombardier train builders feature in this staff oriented book. Final few copies left: https://www.chimewhistle.co.uk/shop/p/jspjjid4pvbjvfg7zoh0vm2vctyii1