UK Can't Even Build Locomotives Now??

[TSR2]

Doom and gloom guys. Would you rather they were built in Japan and shipped over here?

And as for the car industry, where do you think JLR design their vehicles, India? I can guarantee they're designed right here in the UK. Etc. You have to scratch a bit below the surface to find out where things are really done.

[Garry Russell]

Not at all

I'd rather the Government did whatever it takes to ensure it gets done in Britain

Other countries protect their industries.

Not doom and gloom, but fact...how much industry has already gone putting millions out of work and reduced the ability of the country to stand up on it's own.

[Airspeed]

Hi Ben

No, I wouldn't want that, it's a matter of self-sufficiency and control.
We live in a changing world, but globalisation is a curse on all of us.
It always seems to be one way traffic. Try buying a slice of someone else's country and you'll finish up in prison, charged with corruption. Britain and Australia seem to welcome offshore owners with open arms.
Principles are at stake, as is the future.
Politicians only think as far ahead as the next election, or their retiring package, whichever comes soonest.
Like GR says, by the time the feathers hit the fan, they're long gone.
And like I said before our last election, whoever wins, they'll bleat about the problems they inherited from the last government. (btw, it has been nearly 2 years now, and they're STILL churning out the same twaddle)

That's my little rant for a while. No hard feelings, just frustraion and that twinge of despair.

[cstorey]

I am with TSR2 on this . The usual bleat has been " Britain is a great innovator, but it is always someone else who develops and builds the stuff " . This is in many ways the reverse, and as various economists in many nations have pointed out, if one has a high cost and high value economy ( and we still do despite the doom and gloom ) then it pays to do the high value work and leave lower tech stuff to the lower cost economies . It all reminds me of another curious aspect of modern life, where do-gooders here want to stop children of 9 ( or whatever ) in Bangladesh ( or wherever ) being paid 50p an hour ( or whatever ) to work, on the grounds that they are being exploited . The description of exploitation may be correct, but what is so often overlooked is that 50p an hour may be the difference between life and death for that child, and if you stop the exploitation, you induce starvation

[TobyV]

Another good example is ARM. A spin off of Acorn Computers (those like me who grew up in the 80s and early 90s will surely remember the BBC Micro or Acorn Archimedes in the corner of the classroom), they design CPUs and cores. They don't however manufacture them, they just licence their designs. The "brain work" is still done around Cambridge, where Hauser, Curry and Wilson originated (the University) and the processors are found in many mobile phones, tablets and other portable devices because their RISC architecture is a lower power consumer than the CISC (e.g. x86) family chips. (Yes I know, and you wonder why your iPhone still dies after a few hours )

The UK is actually now Europe's second or third (can't remember precisely which) manufacturer of cars, having overtaken Italy recently (Germany is obviously #1, can't remember where we are in relation to France). In aerospace terms, in addition to Airbus wing manufacture there's; Rolls-Royce, BAe Systems military aircraft, Westland Helicopter, QinetiQ, there's also GE Aviation (formerly Smiths Aerospace) in Gloucester, with related companies such as Messier (undercarriages), Dowty propellers, there's aerostructures work going on Hamble (former Folland factory), GKN, Meggit, Britten-Norman, Cobham, Martin-Baker, Bombardier (NI - formerly Shorts), MBDA missile systems, ITP, Marshalls, Astrium... I've probably missed a few. We're still the second or third largest aerospace industry in the world, behind the US.

What's missing is the whole aircraft design, assembly and flight testing capability that used to be so common and is highly "visible" to even "the average person on the street", but as has already been said, these activities are not necessarily the most lucrative ones and that we focus on the high value end is not so bad, so long as there are still sufficient jobs for less highly [academically] qualified people.

Returning to the subject of the thread, I do agree it's a shame more trains are not designed in Britain. I find it ironic for example, that the tilting train mechanism, developed for the APT, which didn't quite work, was sold to FIAT Ferroviaria, refined and then ended up being manufactured as the Pendolino after Alstom bought FIAT Ferroviaria in the former Metro-Cammell facility in Washwood Heath. Sadly that facility was closed around 2005. I think Bombardier, being the successor to BREL, has now the only rail transport design capability in the UK, but Hitachi plans to build a site in the North East.

[Airspeed]

I don't believe that a country can just pick doing high end and lucrative jobs.
Much of the population cannot be trained as CEOs, spaceship designers, or surgeons; they have an aptitude and ability to make stuff on machines that other people conceived.

Consider the situation where all of our manufacturing has been shipped off to third world locations in pursuit of profit. That is the sole reason for this strategy. Suddenly a need arises for parts/whatever; our labour intensive supplier is persuaded by various means, (including military control or financial incentive), not to supply us.
Oh dear, how long will it take to re-establish foundries for the basic castings, and engineering shops to do the details, to start making our own lathes, milling machines, etc. so that we can start to make the parts?
Oh dear again, who has the ability to do any of this stuff? All our expert factory workers have been working as coffee servers and tourist guides, and are no longer skilled. Catch 22.

People like to be useful. Somebody commented yesterday, or was it 5,000 years ago? about what idle hands get up to. I wonder if that has anything to do with racism, hooliganism, violent protests and general hogwash about government conspiracies?

The thrust of this thread is "think long term", IIRC.