CRRC, which has its headquarters in Beijing and is the world’s largest supplier of rail transit equipment, has received a second order from Sydney for double-decker trains.

The order covers 17 trains and post-delivery maintenance in Sydney; its value has not yet been disclosed.

CRRC (www.crrcgc.cc/en) will design and manufacture the trains, and its Australian partner — Downer — will provide maintenance support.

The partnership between CRRC and Downer was established via the Waratah Train Project, after the NSW Government ordered a total of 626 carriages in December 2006 (at the time, the largest single rolling-stock order in Australia); CRRC worked as a sub-contractor, marking the first time the Chinese company was involved in Australia’s rolling-stock industry.

Seeing the benefits of closer co-operation, CRRC and Downer started a strategic partnership in Australia and New Zealand in 2015 based on “long-term mutual understanding and trust”; at the end of 2016, they started on the Sydney Growth Train project and the High Capacity Metro Train project.

Another CRRC project is taking place at a ‘state of the art’ laboratory in Lincolnshire, where a group of Chinese and British engineers are working on the development of next-generation insulated-gate bipolar transistors, which help to run — among other things — high-speed trains.

The laboratory is owned by Dynex, a 63-year-old company that was Britain’s biggest maker of high-voltage semiconductors before going into decline amid the global financial crisis in 2008. Dynex was rescued after being acquired by CRRC (through its subsidiary CRRC Times Electric).

This has resulted in a decade of investment to improve its expertise in manufacturing, as well as research and development.

CRRC and Dynex have since invested some $10-12 million annually in the R&D centre in Lincolnshire, with the latest components being used in CRRC trains.

CRRC and Dynex are also jointly investing in a new innovation centre in Birmingham this year to develop chips for use in the electric-car market in China and internationally.

The centre aims to take on 100 engineers this year, with the number rising to 200 or 300 in the next few years.