ConDems award £1.6bn Thameslink contract to German firm, Seimens

[BoroB]

Just ignore Wednesday1 and it will go away.

 

It will never let facts get in the way of a good tory bashing thread.

 

Firstly this is old news we all knew this was going to Seimens months ago. Its business. Government is going to invest a lot of our money into this project and Seimens had a better product offering and in the governments own words offered "better value for money"

 

Secondly, Bombardier is still foreign owned just like Seimens so it makes no difference for our Country who the contract was awarded to. As others have said, show me a world leading rolling stock company that is UK owned and the government may have had some "moral" obligation. There isn't so they didn't.

 

Thirdly, whilst I am sure it is disappointing news for Bombardier and Derby its good news for those Seimens employees and the people of South Tyneside. The result alleged job losses/loss of supply chain will all balance out with the increase in job opportunities and supply chain for Seimens.

 

Stinks to me of Bombardier sour grapes and a little bit of crying to the media with an agenda. Maybe Bombardier has a few red rose supporters as union leaders.

 

Its business. They didn't deliver and lost the contract. Boo Hoo.

 

It must be disappointing that what was hoped to be a condem bashing thread has turned into a discussion about Labours ineptitude once the full facts are considered.

[Annie Bynnol]

Often when these big companies make these claims about job creation, they never happen, they just say it to get the business in the first place.

Meanwhile a plant such as Derby which has evolved over many decades and one which the town has been built around, is left to wither and eventually die. I wonder how long the Hebburn place will be open, will it still be here when the carriages have been built or will Seimens be building another factory in another country where they have one another big government contract?

 

The same goes for Bombardier Inc (Canada) the company had 34,900 employees, 25,400 of them in Europe, and 59 manufacturing locations around the world (January 2011).

Do they really worry about the history of Litchurch Lane?

They closed their Horbury works in 2005 established in 1856.

The UK lost its ability to build, maintain and run modern railways decades ago. It has had to learn from foreign companies the methods, skills and equipment ever since the Selby bypass began in 1980 showed there was no longer a UK capacity.

The current UK rail industry is booming with loads of opportunities for skilled technicians and engineers. Our governments should place the contracts for new railways and equipment with companies who accept that part of the production should be in the UK and it really does not matter if that company is Canadian ( Bombardier), German (Siemens) or Japanese (Hitachi)

[ormester101]

It' s three years since the ConDems took office, If they'd had the will they could have restructured the PFI contract so that the poorer credit-rated Bombardier stood a fighting chance of winning the contract.

Such a move may have given some creedence to their claims to want to rebalance the economy away from financial services and property speculation.

 

labour started this mess believe it or not

[Clown Shoes]

We're building our 2 new £1 billion air craft carriers in Scotland.

 

Credit where credits due.

[wednesday1]

The same goes for Bombardier Inc (Canada) the company had 34,900 employees, 25,400 of them in Europe, and 59 manufacturing locations around the world (January 2011).

Do they really worry about the history of Litchurch Lane?

They closed their Horbury works in 2005 established in 1856.

The UK lost its ability to build, maintain and run modern railways decades ago. It has had to learn from foreign companies the methods, skills and equipment ever since the Selby bypass began in 1980 showed there was no longer a UK capacity.

The current UK rail industry is booming with loads of opportunities for skilled technicians and engineers. Our governments should place the contracts for new railways and equipment with companies who accept that part of the production should be in the UK and it really does not matter if that company is Canadian ( Bombardier), German (Siemens) or Japanese (Hitachi)

 

The UK lost it's capacity to build locomotives, carriages and other rolling stock in the '80's when the former British Rail Engineering Ltd (BREL) was sold off by the Cons to pave the way for the wholesale privatisation of the railways under John Major. This recent shennigans is a result of the damage that was done back then. We are left at the mercy of overseas based companies who could pack up and move to a country with a lower cost base at anytime of their chosing.

[dosxuk]

We are left at the mercy of overseas based companies who could pack up and move to a country with a lower cost base at anytime of their chosing.

 

Siemens sell rolling stock across the entire planet. Significant amounts of work done on all those trains is done in the UK. Not the actual bolting together of lumps of metal admittedly, but almost all the software which actually drives the trains, as well as the traction packages which make them run are designed and built in the UK.

 

Unfortunately, because of the Victorians, no major rolling stock manufacturer is going to set up a plant to build trains for Europe / the world in the UK. The size of train you can fit on our tracks is smaller than is used by everyone else, so while they can build in Germany and drive a train to the UK for sale, they can't do the opposite without compromising the size of the vehicles.

 

Siemens especially is a global business. Just because the final bolting together doesn't happen in this country does not mean nothing from this country is part of the product. It's kind of like saying Airbus is a French company because that's where the planes are finished, ignoring the fact that the wings, engines and landing gear are all made in the UK and bring in significant amounts of money.

[wednesday1]

Siemens sell rolling stock across the entire planet. Significant amounts of work done on all those trains is done in the UK. Not the actual bolting together of lumps of metal admittedly, but almost all the software which actually drives the trains, as well as the traction packages which make them run are designed and built in the UK.

 

Unfortunately, because of the Victorians, no major rolling stock manufacturer is going to set up a plant to build trains for Europe / the world in the UK. The size of train you can fit on our tracks is smaller than is used by everyone else, so while they can build in Germany and drive a train to the UK for sale, they can't do the opposite without compromising the size of the vehicles.

 

Siemens especially is a global business. Just because the final bolting together doesn't happen in this country does not mean nothing from this country is part of the product. It's kind of like saying Airbus is a French company because that's where the planes are finished, ignoring the fact that the wings, engines and landing gear are all made in the UK and bring in significant amounts of money.

 

Britain was famed for its railway engineering experience once upon a time, with the big works at Derby, Doncaster, Bristol, York and Swindon much earlier we had built railways across the former Empire, now we are reliant on foreign owned firms who we have no control over. Great, another success of neo-liberal capaitalism.

You can come up with specific example of how the UK is involved in this, that or the other, but over the last 30 years the net contribution to global manufacturing has fallen dramatically.

[SevenRivers]

The long awaited decision to buy the 1140 carriages needed for the UK taxpayer funded Thameslink project is about to be awarded NOT to Derby's Bombardier plant, but to Seimens of Germany, despite months of pressure to reverse it's original decision in favour of Seimens.

Bombardier announced 1400 job losses at the Derby plant when the original announcement was made two years ago.

The announcement triggered an angry response from Frances O’Grady, the TUC General Secretary.

 

"This will be a death blow to Derby’s economy,” she said. “The Bombardier workforce is loyal committed and highly productive. It is the exact opposite of the modern industrial policy that this country needs.”

 

What happened to the ConDems pledge to rebalance the UK economy, away from financial services and property speculation in favour of manufacturing that they pledged when they took power?

 

 

 

 

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2013/06/14-siemens-confirmed-as-thameslink-winner.html#.Ubwg3ybkhK4.email

 

This is old news, this decision was first announced in 2011.

 

Since then they have won a contract for TfL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-22439772

[dosxuk]

This is old news, this decision was first announced in 2011.

 

Siemens have only just sorted out the finance to allow the contract to actually go ahead though. There was the small problem of a banking crisis meaning nobody was willing to pay for the trains.

 

The next big rolling stock contract (for Crossrail) is being publicly financed by the Government to avoid another two year delay.