Newton Aycliffe could be at the centre of another multi-million pound contract bid by Hitachi – on top of the Intercity Express Programme.
Hitachi has been named as one of four shortlisted bidders to supply 60 trains for the £14.8bn Crossrail project, a 73-mile route to link west and east London and Europe’s largest building project.
The company says they’re likely to build the £200m trains – with capacity for 1,500 passengers – at its factory scheduled for Newton Aycliffe.
That factory was given the go-ahead a year ago, when the Hitachi-led Agility consortium won the £4.5bn Intercity Express Programme (IEP) to deliver 100 trains.
IEP alone will secure at least 500 high-quality jobs, plus many thousands more in manufacturing and service supply chains.
But Hitachi always made clear the project was just the start of its ambitions for Aycliffe, which it views as a manufacturing base to serve all Europe – or a “new Nissan”, as it has been dubbed.
Now the company will go into battle with Bombardier, Siemens and Spanish company CAF for the Crossrail tender, which was launched by the Department for Transport this week.
A Hitachi spokeswoman said the only alternative to building the 60 trains in County Durham would be to construct them in Japan.
But she made clear that Newton Aycliffe was the favoured option, saying: “It would clearly make more sense to manufacture trains for the UK in the UK.
“That would get rid of the logistical headache of transporting completed trains from one continent to another and also avoid problems with the exchange rate.
“We believe we have additional capacity at Newton Aycliffe for the Crossrail trains, so there would be no problem manufacturing them both at the same factory, even with some overlap.”
She said it was too early to suggest how many extra jobs would be created, which would depend on the “detailed specifications” for Crossrail, but she added: “This is a sizeable contract, so it is a very interesting opportunity for us.”
That message was echoed by Phil Wilson, the Sedgefield MP, who led the campaign to bring Hitachi to his constituency.
The Labour MP said: “It is great news that Hitachi has been shortlisted.
“Crossrail is clearly a major contract that would have major implications for investment and jobs in this area, and it shows that Hitachi has confidence in the North-East.”
The Crossrail battle has been billed as a contest between a German factory owned by Siemens and Derby-based Bombardier.
The contract will be awarded in spring 2014, delivering the trains – which will be more than 600 yards long, air conditioned and have connecting carriages – for Crossrail’s opening in 2018.
The first “bi-mode” – diesel and electric – IEP trains will be delivered in 2016, following the factory’s opening next year, with all 100 in use by 2018.