Siemens welcomed the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and members of his Cabinet at the Goole Rail Village in the East Riding of Yorkshire earlier this week. Before chairing a Cabinet meeting in the companie’s Components Facility, the Prime Minister met Siemens Mobility’s UK & Ireland Joint CEO Sambit Banerjee and spoke to a group of apprentice engineers and technicians about how they will build the next generation of trains for the UK at the facility. Siemens is in the final stages of fitting out the Train Manufacturing Facility, which is set to open in the spring.
Mr Banerjee said: “It was a great honour to welcome the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to our Goole Rail Village and for him to talk to our talented train engineers of the future. We are proud that we will be assembling the next generation of Britain’s trains right here in Yorkshire, as part of how we transform rail travel in the UK. Our investment in Goole is levelling-up in action, and the lasting legacy of skills we are creating at this centre of excellence will help transform rail for the North.”
The Components Facility, where the Government held the Cabinet meeting, is a part of the wider Goole Rail Village which made up from the Train Manufacturing Facility, Logistics Centre and the Rail Accelerator and Innovation Solutions hub for Enterprise (RaisE), establishing Goole as a centre of excellence for rail technology in the UK.
The Components Facility, which is open already, overhauls and repairs capabilities on gearboxes, traction motors, fan systems and HVAC units for Siemens’ train and tram fleets across the UK, which make up almost 25% of passenger trains.
All of Siemens’ future UK train orders will be built at Goole, starting with the Piccadilly-line trains for Transport for London. The Train Manufacturing Facility will also be capable of serving global markets by 2030.