RE: Agility Train wins $7.5 billion contract LONDON (Dow Jones)--The U.K. government sparked a trade unionbacklash Thursday after awarding a GBP7.5-billion train contract to aJapanese-led consortium and saying that some of the 12,500 jobs createdand safeguarded by the deal will be based outside the U.K., U.K. dailythe Guardian reports.
Agility Trains - led by Japanese trainmaker Hitachi Ltd. (6501.TO), services group John Laing PLC andinvestment bank Barclays PLC (BARC.LN) - will build and maintain afleet of new "super express" trains that will start running betweenLondon and Edinburgh in 2013 before being rolled out across the U.K.
The RMT union criticized ministers for choosing Agility over ExpressRail Alliance, a group led by Bombardier Inc (BBD.B.T), the Canadianengineering group that already has a significant train manufacturingbase in Derby, central England. "We have been campaigning long and hardto protect what is left of Britain's train-making capacity and skillsbase, and if the basic manufacture of these sets is to be undertakenelsewhere today's announcement will have been a triumph of spin oversubstance. We need to know why the order was not placed withBombardier, which has established train-building capacity and a skilledworkforce in Derby," said Bob Crow, RMT general secretary.
Full story: https://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/12/super-express-train-jobs-row