UK: Siemens Mobility has revised its plans for the production of trainsets for London Underground’s Piccadilly Line so that up to 80% of the fleet will now be assembled in the UK, an increase from the 50% initially planned.
This has no impact on the overall project scheduling, which is based around London Underground being able to launch a new Piccadilly Line timetable offering more capacity in 2027.
The initial trainsets are being produced in at Wien in Austria pending completion of the Goole factory. The first of these is now on test in Germany and expected to arrive in London this spring, with entry into service planned for 2025.
The transfer of more of the work to the UK has been enabled by progress with fitting out the Goole factory, and will free up capacity in Wien to handle the company’s global order book.
The Goole factory will form part of a ‘rail village’, including assembly and commissioning halls, a component servicing facility, a materials and logistics warehouse and the Rail Accelerator & Innovation Solutions Hub for Enterprise research and development centre. It is envisaged that up to 700 jobs will be created along with up to 1 700 opportunities in the supply chain.
‘For the first time Siemens Mobility will assemble trains here in Britain’, said Sambit Banerjee, Joint CEO of Siemens Mobility UK, on February 12. ‘This is a truly exciting milestone not just for us but the industry and local economies as a whole.’
TfL’s Chief Capital Officer Stuart Harvey said ’producing more Piccadilly Line trains in Goole will support local supply chains, clearly demonstrating how investment in transport in London benefits the whole of the UK’.
Siemens Mobility intends to assemble all future UK rolling stock orders in Goole. This would include the replacement trains for the Bakerloo Line which TfL hopes to order as a follow-on from the Piccadilly Line fleet, subject to government funding; Harvey said the 1972 Stock on the Bakerloo Line is ‘the oldest train in passenger service in the UK’. The manufacturer is also interested in main line train procurements underway at operators including TransPennine Express and Northern.
