New trains prone to peaks and troughs worsened

Trains have a particular symbolism in Britain, which invented the railway and exported the technology to the rest of the world. So it is understandable, particularly at a time of sluggish economic growth, that the threatened closure of the country’s only remaining trainmaking factory has provoked an outcry. In June the coalition government named Siemens, a German engineering company, as the favoured bidder for the ￡1.4 billion ($2.3 billion) contract to make new trains for the cross-London Thameslink service; Canadian-owned Bombardier, which hoped to produce the 1,200 carriages at its operation in Derby, in the East Midlands, lost out. The firm is cutting 1,400 jobs; its factory is set to run out of work in 2014.
On July 23rd thousands of people marched behind brass brands through Derby’s streets to protest against the fact that, as they see it, the government is letting the train industry die. The government says cheaper trains are in taxpayers’ interests, and that it was bound by procurement rules set by its Labour predecessor. Critics accuse ministers of failing to back their own call for Britain to make things again, and not rely on frothy finance: though manufacturing constitutes 12% of the economy—a little more than finance—its share has fallen by half since 1990.
 “Train building is in the DNA of Derby,” says Philip Hickson, Conservative leader of Derby council. The slate roofs of the Bombardier factory testify to its Victorian heritage: rolling stock has been manufactured at the site since the mid-19th century. But the role of trains in Britain’s industrial rise does not make them essential to its future. As it happens, a few hundred yards away is a more promising outfit: Rolls-Royce, an engine manufacturer for the aerospace, marine and energy sectors (its chairman, Sir Simon Robertson, also sits on the board of The Economist). The contrast between the two suggests how British manufacturing can hope to prosper in the 21st century.
Superficially, the aerospace industry is similar to train manufacturing: both involve large but occasional deals to make bulky, pricey goods. In the past decade both have been pounded by recession, rising fuel prices and demand for greater energy efficiency. Yet the outcomes for the two operations in Derby are strikingly different: Rolls-Royce has become the world’s second-largest maker of jet engines; Bombardier can’t persuade the government to buy the trains it makes in Britain.
Bombardier blames its troubles in Britain on Whitehall bungling. Demand for new trains has always been prone to peaks and troughs, but that inconsistency has worsened.