Hitachi to move rail business to UK

[pre65]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26657455

[Tony]

Will this be a "bolt together" factory with the majority of the parts manufactured in Japan? Is this a ploy to enable Hitachi to claim to be a British company in the future ? It will allow them to bypass a load of EU regulation.

[D.O.G.F.A.N.]

Initially 750 off the dole is not a bad ploy.
Estimates of 4000 new jobs eventually!
Stuart

[bramleyman]

Makes a change from going abroad.

[Beeyar Wunby]

Originally Posted by Tony

Will this be a "bolt together" factory with the majority of the parts manufactured in Japan? Is this a ploy to enable Hitachi to claim to be a British company in the future ? It will allow them to bypass a load of EU regulation.

Well Tony I share your cynicism, but it does make sense in a way. Hitachi don't just make complete trains, they also make components to keep our existing ones going - for example their retrofit traction package for the 465 Networkers has got those ailing units back into running order.

So if they're able to provide support and servicing using UK based resources it's alot closer than having kit shipped over from Japan - unless of course it is as you suggest that it's just to get a 'Made in Europe' badge and they're doing all the engineering back home.

Also as pointed out elsewhere, the next best thing to Britain making its own trains is having someone else doing it here with us.

[wyvern]

This is not our experience with Toyota though the market numbers for cars are clearly much higher than for train sets.