The Government has approved a £4.5 billion contract to build almost 600 railway carriages at a new factory in the north east of England. In an announcement this morning, Transport Secretary Justine Greening said the project would create more than 900 jobs and secure thousands more. Agility Trains, a consortium made up of Hitachi and John Laing, has been awarded the contract to build and maintain the trains under the Intercity Express Programme (IEP) – the project to replace the Intercity 125 trains, which were first introduced to Britain’s rail network in the 1970s. Read More blog comments powered by Disqus