Cutting-edge heritage

Visiting Bombardier’s Derby factory is a little bit like watching Doctor Who. Part of the genius of the venerable science-fiction programme is the recognition of the shock value of seeing something very familiar in an unfamiliar setting (it’s why the Tardis looks like a police box). Rounding a corner among Victorian brick factory sheds and suddenly seeing a brand-spanking-new London Underground train, above ground and a two-hour train journey away from its usual surroundings, has much the same effect.

Bombardier’s factory on Litchurch Lane, the last train manufacturing plant in the UK, is a mixture of heritage and cutting edge (again, a bit like Doctor Who). Soon to celebrate its 175th anniversary, the site was an important part of the Industrial Revolution and still plays a vital role in the life of Derby as one of Britain’s major engineering towns, with Rolls-Royce, Toyota and JCB among the major employers in and around the city. And although a worker from the old Midland Railway Carriage and Wagon Works would certainly recognise the site from the outside, those weathered brick exteriors hold the state-of-the-art equipment you’d expect from a modern facility currently hard at work on its new-generation train to take it well ahead into the 21st century.