The UK’s newest train factory is being officially opened today (3 October) in East Yorkshire.
The Secretary of State for Transport, Louise Haigh, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, are attending the opening of Siemens Mobility’s Goole Train Manufacturing Facility, which will assemble new trains for London Underground’s Piccadilly Line – the first deep level Tube trains to have air-conditioning.
Alongside the opening, Siemens Mobility announced an investment of up to £40 million in a new Bogie Assembly and Service Centre, to expand the company’s current capability of overhauling bogies from UK trains. It will also include new production lines for assembling bogies for new trains, a first for Siemens in the UK. 200 new jobs are expected to be created in the service centre.
Eventually, the overall Goole Rail Village, as Siemens is calling the 67-acre site, will employ up to 700 people. 80% of the new trains for the Piccadilly Line will be assembled at the site, and the first new trains are due to enter service in London in 2025.
Siemens confirmed to RAIL that it currently has no orders lined up for the Goole factory after the Piccadilly Line trains have been assembled and commissioned, but the Joint CEO, Sambit Banerjee, told RAIL that the company was working on a possible order for new Bakerloo Line trains, but that there was no commitment yet. Siemens is planning to build any new trains for the UK market in Goole, including new battery trains.
Sambit Banerjee said: "After more than a decade of tremendous dedication and hard work, we have officially opened our state-of-the-art Rail Village in Goole which is testament to our commitment to the North of England. None of this would have been possible without the brilliance, perseverance, and passion of our people and I’m incredibly proud of what we have achieved together.
"We’ll assemble 80% of London's new Piccadilly line trains and all future Siemens trains for the UK including our Verve battery train here in Goole and I’m pleased that we are supporting the local supply chain in the process."
The Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, said: "This impressive, world-class facility will be transformational to Goole and its people, providing a boost to the region’s economy and supporting hundreds of skilled jobs.
"I know how vital rail manufacturing is to our economy, which is why we will not sit on our hands when it comes to supporting it. For too long, the cycle of boom-and-bust has held back this sector.
"That’s why I am determined to put an end to the stop-start approach to investment and provide the industry with the certainty it needs to deliver a railway that is fit for the future."
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said that the new facility would "create up to 900 direct jobs and support another 1,700 in the supply chain, delivering great benefits to the wider UK economy, showing that where London succeeds, the whole country succeeds and vice versa."
The site is connected to a branch line off the main Hull to Doncaster railway, and completed Underground trains can be hauled from Yorkshire down to London for final testing before entering service. The first fully assembled Piccadilly Line train car was on display in time for the official opening.
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