New trains for intercity routes
BRITAIN’S rail network is to get more than 90 new trains over the next six years, the department for transport confirmed yesterday, after years of delays on the £4.5bn deal.
Hitachi and John Laing have been signed up to provide the intercity trains, with around 900 jobs created at a new factory in County Durham, which will be fully operational by 2015. The firms, whose joint venture Agility Trains was made preferred bidder for the contract in 2009, said the first carriages will join the Great Western line in 2017 and the East Coast line by 2018.