CAF selects Newport for UK rolling stock factory

[Bungle965]

It would seem that CAF have chosen where their factory will be for all UK based products.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...cts-newport-for-uk-rolling-stock-factory.html

Spanish rolling stock manufacturer CAF has selected the Celtic Business Park at the Llanwern steelworks site near Newport in South Wales as the location of its future UK factory.

The 46 000 m2 plant would be designed to accommodate the production of a range of different vehicle types, including diesel and electric multiple-units, trams and high speed trainsets. ‘The factory will have the flexibility to allow us to respond to the exacting demands of both existing and new customers by providing the most complete offering of any rolling stock provider operating in the UK’, said CAF’s UK Director Richard Garner.

The company looked at more than 100 locations before selecting St Modwen’s Celtic Business Park industrial and warehousing development for its road, rail and port access, as well as the availability of local people with engineering skills.

CAF expects the plant to employ 200 staff when it opens in autumn 2018, rising to 300 by 2019. Recruitment is to start next spring, with opportunities for skilled technicians, engineers, management and support staff. Training and apprenticeship schemes would be offered from autumn 2018.

The factory is also expected to provide a boost to the wider UK supply chain through the development of a cluster of local and national companies to supply components.

CAF is to invest £30m in the plant, and has also received ‘significant’ grant support from the Welsh Government’s Inward Investment Programme. ‘This £30m investment is a major economic boost that we hope will kick-start the growth of our rail sector and create hundreds of highly skilled, very well paid jobs’, said First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones.

The new factory forms an integral part of CAF’s strategy to win more UK contracts. Its Spanish plants have previously supplied trams to Edinburgh and Midland Metro and DMUs to Northern Ireland Railways, as well as assembling EMUs for Heathrow Express and services in West Yorkshire. The company currently has contracts to build 31 three-car and 12 four-car Class 331 EMUs and 25 two-car and 30 three-car Class 195 DMUs for the Northern franchise, 12 five-car EMUs and 66 loco-hauled coaches for TransPennine Express and 75 coaches for Caledonian Sleeper.

CAF is now targeting London Underground and the Docklands Light Railway, as well as High Speed 2 and the future Wales & Borders, West Midlands and South Eastern franchises.

‘CAF is an established supplier to the UK market, and we now have a solid economic basis for further increasing our footprint in the UK’, said Garner. ‘The establishment of this facility will serve CAF’s long-term aspirations to be a major player in the UK market for many years to come. CAF is responding to demands made by its customers who are asking for British trains, manufactured by British workers using British-based suppliers.’

This stood out for me.

CAF is responding to demands made by its customers who are asking for British trains, manufactured by British workers using British-based suppliers.’

Hopefully people will start to lose the impression that the only trains that are made in Britain are the ones from Bombardier in Derby with an influx of manufacturers now opening assembly plants in the UK and using a large amount of British made products.
Sam

 

[superalbs]

That should hopefully mean they nab a few more orders in the UK.

Their CAF Oaris design for high-speed looks interesting, I wouldn't mind seeing that.

 

[RichmondCommu]

And if the orders dry up the factory will close. I would be more excited if I thought there was a chance of the factory producing trains for export.

 

[Tom Quinne]

New trains from.....CAF then in the new Wales and Borders contract then.

 

[CosherB]

And if the orders dry up the factory will close. I would be more excited if I thought there was a chance of the factory producing trains for export.

Don't you think that CAF would have thought of that?! :roll:

 

[Moonshot]

And if the orders dry up the factory will close. I would be more excited if I thought there was a chance of the factory producing trains for export.

I rather think that the Brexit vote would scupper that, but hey ho it has to be good news in terms of creating UK jobs. Of course the profits end up in Spain which is somewhat ironic when you consider the Rail Unions stance on profits from franchises.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Don't you think that CAF would have thought of that?! :roll:

Yes I dare say they have. You can close a factory very quickly.

 

[Kite159]

And no doubt that money from the Welsh Government helped make up their mind where to build a new factory

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I caught the tail-end of the interview with Ken Skates, the WG minister for business and transport.
When he said "new trains built in Wales" I thought he was announcing something about the Wales & Borders franchise, but no.

It certainly demonstrates intent by CAF, and any manufacturing jobs are welcome.
But this looks to me like a finishing plant, something like Newton Aycliffe is for Hitachi.
I suspect all the body shells and major components will come from Spain or elsewhere in the EU.
The initial vehicles for Caledonian and Northern are in production in Spain, and by 2018/19 they will be arriving in the UK in numbers.
They have orders for 416 vehicles altogether.
It's unclear to me what proportion of that workload will be done at Newport.

This is the breakdown of the major components for the CAF Civity trains (class 195/331), also reported by Railway Gazette:
www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-...iple-units-under-construction.html?sword_list[]=caf&no_cache=1

Running gear and bogies CAF
Doors IFE
Seats Fainsa
Couplers Dellner
Powerpack Rolls-Royce MTU
Transmission and final drive ZF
EMU transformer ABB
EMU traction motors Traktionssysteme Austria

Not much scope there for a "UK supply chain".
The Rolls Royce DMU engines come from Germany (MTU).

Somebody mentioned competition for Derby.
That's certainly true, but we also have Newton Aycliffe and the new Alstom facility at Widnes which is capable of assembly.
But the main point is that TOCs can now buy trains from 4 manufacturers and claim they are buying British.
But it's clear significant new orders will be needed to keep this new factory open long term.

 

[hwl]

46,000 m^2 (assuming this is all building) is similar to Hitachi's Building at Newton Aycliffe at 44,000 m^2 so this is going to be final assembly only rather than complete factory where the norm is 10-20 times bigger across Europe for the big Alstom, Bombardier or Siemens plants.

£30m + the WG grant isn't going to buy much building and equipment given that floor area hence it again just looks like final assembly from this point of view.

Completely gaming the UK jobs + apprenticeships concept.

 

[Moonshot]

And no doubt that money from the Welsh Government helped make up their mind where to build a new factory

Which of course is actually a tax payer investment in the local economy.

 

[CosherB]

Honestly, you'd have thought that everyone would have welcomed a £30m investment in south Wales. :roll:

 

[CardiffKid]

It'll be bloody embarrassing for CAF and the Welsh Government if another company ends up winning the contract for new Welsh rolling stock in a few years

 

[hwl]

CAF might want to look at the New Tube for London assessesment of UK content /value /jobs where no one can beat the Bombardier / Hitachi JV unless they go for massive UK content i.e. not importing bodyshells etc.

 

[Gareth Marston]

It'll be bloody embarrassing for CAF and the Welsh Government if another company ends up winning the contract for new Welsh rolling stock in a few years

Don't worry there will be a Civil Servant in Cardiff working very hard to ensure that "procurement rules" are followed and blow a huge blocking rasberry at any bid involving CAF stock for the Wales and Border franchise.

 

[northwichcat]

So where train manufacturers build facilities seems to be down to where public funded grants are available - first Hitachi and now CAF.

 

[CardiffKid]

Don't worry there will be a Civil Servant in Cardiff working very hard to ensure that "procurement rules" are followed and blow a huge blocking rasberry at any bid involving CAF stock for the Wales and Border franchise.

 

[northwichcat]

CAF is now targeting London Underground and the Docklands Light Railway, as well as High Speed 2 and the future Wales & Borders, West Midlands and South Eastern franchises

Do they mean East Midlands as West Midlands bids have already been submitted? Although, I'm sure they will have offered all their available products to West Midlands bidders.

 

[Moonshot]

So where train manufacturers build facilities seems to be down to where public funded grants are available - first Hitachi and now CAF.

Incentivising manufacturers is nothing new - it makes sense in unemployment blackspots. An alternative version of that would be to set up areas where corporation tax wasnt payable.

 

[ac6000cw]

Incentivising manufacturers is nothing new - it makes sense in unemployment blackspots. An alternative version of that would be to set up areas where corporation tax wasnt payable.

Agreed - in the 1960s there was flurry of 'incentivised' car assembly plants built on Merseyside and in the Glasgow area as a way of providing employment as dock work and shipbuilding declined. And there have been all sorts of incentives handed out in Northern Ireland over the years in support of some fairly hare-brained schemes - anyone remember DeLorean cars (yes, the 'Back To the Future' car was built in NI)?

 

[Mikey C]

Surprised that they went ahead with this, after winning so many orders without a UK plant.

They do seem to be a good position for any future DMU order, having the only current product out there. I imagine the DLR contract will be one they'll be heavily targeting too, and probably more realistic than the NTfL one.

 

[WatcherZero]

CAF also announced its bought the Nottingham based BWB engineering consultancy, they employ 300 across 7 offices in the UK. The Welsh grant was apparently £3m.

 

[coppercapped]

And if the orders dry up the factory will close.

This is a truism - it is valid for any factory.

I would be more excited if I thought there was a chance of the factory producing trains for export.

With the exchange rate for the pound sterling being as low as it is against a basket of other currencies this may well be entirely possible.

 

[sjoh]

Don't worry there will be a Civil Servant in Cardiff working very hard to ensure that "procurement rules" are followed and blow a huge blocking rasberry at any bid involving CAF stock for the Wales and Border franchise.

I really do resent this disdain for civil servants people seem to have going. I don't work for DfT, but I do work in a different department. None of us go out of our way to wreck things. We are following rules and regulations ultimately agreed by ministers. Many of us also agree that the ways in which we're forced to do things aren't necessarily the most efficient or well thought out. I'm absolutely sure this is the same in the operational railway sector too - but you don't see many people on here having a go at those people for simply doing their jobs.

 

[YorkshireBear]

I am unsure if this is good news. All it means is there are more factories to shut in the next slowdown of orders.

 

[thenorthern]

The Welsh Government is encouraging companies to build factories in Wales I know TVR which is traditionally associated with Blackpool is building its new factory in Ebbw Vale and Aston Martin is building its new factory in St Athan.

 

[superkev]

Another assembly plant of mainly foreign components.
No longer can we call on skilled people for the likes of English electric motors and engines, brush, metrovic and more motors. Mirlees, Paxman, AEC, Leyland, Dorman, Gardner and more for motors. Many more too. Sad really.
Kev

 

[ainsworth74]

I am unsure if this is good news. All it means is there are more factories to shut in the next slowdown of orders.

Which is a sad thing of course but surely the years (however many it ends up being) of high quality and well paid jobs it provides are, on the whole, a net positive to both the local area and the UK as a whole?

I have grave doubts about the long term viability of the Hitachi plant in my neck of the woods but even if it only lasts ten years that's ten years of quality jobs for an area that's sorely lacking in them.

I just don't get the attitude of 'oh well it'll close in a couple of years anyway so why bother?'...

 

[Moonshot]

I really do resent this disdain for civil servants people seem to have going. I don't work for DfT, but I do work in a different department. None of us go out of our way to wreck things. We are following rules and regulations ultimately agreed by ministers. Many of us also agree that the ways in which we're forced to do things aren't necessarily the most efficient or well thought out. I'm absolutely sure this is the same in the operational railway sector too - but you don't see many people on here having a go at those people for simply doing their jobs.

Indeed.....though having said that, the inquiry into the West Coast franchise bid a while ago didnt help the cause. I will agree with you that the operational railway ( I m frontline staff ) has some way to go in the efficiency regime

 

[Moonshot]

Which is a sad thing of course but surely the years (however many it ends up being) of high quality and well paid jobs it provides are, on the whole, a net positive to both the local area and the UK as a whole?

I have grave doubts about the long term viability of the Hitachi plant in my neck of the woods but even if it only lasts ten years that's ten years of quality jobs for an area that's sorely lacking in them.

I just don't get the attitude of 'oh well it'll close in a couple of years anyway so why bother?'...

Neither do I.....and in fact if a member of this forum was to announce that he/she was setting up their own business in the rail environment, I m sure we would wish them the best of luck and applaud them for taking a business risk.