Hitachi wins contract for British trains

Japan’s Hitachi will supply nearly 600 train carriages for Britain’s inter-city high-speed rail project in a deal worth £4.5 billion, the company and the British government said yesterday.

The facility is expected to create 730 skilled jobs...

The giant conglomerate won the project along with British partner John Laing in 2009 but negotiations had been delayed after a change of government in Britain.

The firms will supply 92 complete trains, comprised of 596 carriages, to replace the aging fleet on Britain’s inter-city rail networks, with Hitachi holding a 70 per cent stake in the consortium while John Laing has 30 per cent.

“I am extremely pleased that after a long period of negotiations, we have been able to complete the formal contract for this project,” Hitachi president Hiroaki Nakanishi said in a statement.

The firm said it would construct a new factory and several maintenance depots in Britain to service the fleet, which can reach speeds of 200 kilometres per hour and alternate between electric and diesel power.

“With a considerable reduction in weight per seat when compared to the trains currently running on the line, the fleet of trains will use less energy to deliver improved journey times,” it said.

Hitachi, whose products range from microchips to railways, has been shifting its business focus from consumer electronics to more stable, large-scale infrastructure projects abroad.

Hitachi said it would build the new factory in Newton Aycliffe in northern England to assemble the train cars, and aimed for the plant to be fully operational by 2015.

The facility is expected to create 730 skilled jobs in addition to 200 jobs during construction of the plant, according to a statement from Britain’s department for transport.

The project will replace Britain’s current fleet of InterCity 125 High Speed Trains originally rolled out by British Rail in the 1970s and 1980s, the department said.