Watershed moment for train building in the North East as Hitachi Rail starts welding new passenger trains at its factory in the Sedgefield constituency.
Total of £110million invested in state-of-the-art train building factory, following an extra £8.5million spent creating bespoke welding and painting facilities on site.
40 new roles and extensive upskilling of staff is further evidence of Hitachi Railâs long-term commitment to the UK.
The expansion of manufacturing capabilities makes the factory globally competitive, with the capacity to export a wide range of products from metros, commuter and high-speed trains.
Hitachi Railâs investment at its County Durham factory â which now totals £110million â sees new facilities completed, allowing welding and painting to start on brand new UK passenger trains.
Apprentice welder Callum Crowe working on a train shell at the Weld Workshop, Hitachi Rail, Newton Aycliffe A TRAIN builder s investment at its County Durham factory – which now totals £110million – sees new facilities completed, allowing welding and painting to start on brand new UK passenger trains. New welding and painting facilities will be used to build the next generation of intercity trains for East Midlands Railway and Avanti West Coast at Hitachi, in Newton Aycliffe. Around 40 staff and newly graduated welders and painters will be completing the high-tech aluminium carriage shells, which are a signature of Hitachi’s intercity fleets.
New generation of high speed trains proposed by Hitachi TEN years ago, this week, it was confirmed that trainbuilding and thousands of desperately needed manufacturing jobs would be brought back to the region where the train was born. After months of frustration and uncertainty, Hitachi’s plans to build a factory and a manufacturing base to serve all of Europe at Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, was given the go-ahead, to universal delight. The £4.5bn Intercity Express Programme (IEP) deal secured at least 500 high-quality jobs in England’s poorest region, plus many thousands more in manufacturing and service supply chains. The Hitachi-led Agility consortium would build at least 530 rail carriages, bringing faster, more reliable journeys -and 11,000 extra seats -on key inter-city routes.
Ruth Hannant
Biography
Ruth Hannant and Polly Payne became Directors General for Rail Strategy and Services Group at the Department for Transport (
DfT) as a job-share in December 2017.
Prior to
Directors of Higher Education Reform at the Department for Education (
DfE)
BIS)
BIS from
Before job-sharing with Polly, Ruth was a Deputy Director in the Shareholder Executive (now
UK Government Investments) where she led work on Post Office reform, Royal Mail and Postal Policy, the government’s shareholdings in
NATS and
CDC and the restructuring of British Energy. Ruth started her career in Department of Trade and Industry (
DTI) working on exports, employment relations and energy. She also spent 9 months on secondment at
Polly Payne
Biography
Polly Payne and Ruth Hannant became Directors General for Rail Strategy and Services Group at the Department for Transport (
DfT) as a job-share in December 2017.
Prior to
Directors of Higher Education Reform at the Department for Education (
DfE)
BIS)
BIS from
Before job-sharing with Ruth, Polly worked in
HM Treasury for over a decade in a variety of economic and policy roles. Polly previously worked at the University of Sussex, in Mongolia for the Asian Development Bank, and in Zanzibar as part of the Overseas Development Institute fellowship programme.
Previous roles in government 2017 to 2021