Did you know that 33% of our members are involved in manufacturing here in the UK? This provides a wealth of products and processes that can be used to support the national rail network and presents strong export opportunities.
Our Manufacturing Workstream, launched in May 2024, seeks to support manufacturing and shine a spotlight on to this important local capability and this page gives you details of what that activity looks like as well as introducing our Manufacturing Partner for 2024-2025, and our Manufacturing Steering Group.
Keep checking back for new activities as the year progresses.
How to get involved
- Network Portal – Are you using your free Rail Forum access to highlight your capability and USPs on the Network Portal? If you do not have a log-in – please contact Elaine@railforum.uk
UK Rail Manufacturing Capability Brochure – 1st Edition
Rail Forum is pleased to launch a new brochure which provides industry colleagues with a versatile resource to help them easily identify UK rail manufacturing capability.
Featuring a fantastic 50 Rail Forum members, our new digital brochure contains case studies, a capability matrix, interactive mapping and directory elements that enable users to quickly find specialist UK manufacturing capability to support their rail activity.
We have been thrilled with the response to our recent campaign celebrating UK rail manufacturing. See some of the posts below.
About TDI
Transport Design International (TDI) are market leaders in the design and manufacture of lightweight, mass transit solutions for the transport industry. With 30 years’ experience in the rail industry, their Very Light Rail product platforms Revolution VLR, Lync VLR and Orbit run on lower-cost infrastructure and offer more affordable transport solutions. Their product portfolio offers platform and kerb height vehicle solutions and single or multi-car options for both urban and rural routes. All projects are aimed at achieving the company’s sustainable goals of zero-carbon functionality for a greener future.
https://transportdesigninternational.com/
Geoff Newman, Chief Operating Officer at TDI said: “Transport Design International are delighted to be supporting the Rail Forum as their Manufacturing Partner this year. With a UK contract in place and growing UK and international interest in our VLR technologies, TDI will be opening a new build facility in the Midlands, this will become the manufacturing and technical centre for the business. This is an exciting time to be working with Rail Forum and we are looking forward to flying the flag for UK Manufacturing and creating more opportunities across our local and national supply chain.”
A formal press release can be found here.
Lee Coleman, National Sales Manager Rail and Power, Cembre
Established in 1986 in Curdworth, Sutton Coldfield, CEMBRE Ltd manufacture over 6,000,000 connections and terminals a year. With a vast array of approvals for Network Rail, London Underground and Rollingstock Manufacturers CEMBRE seek to cooperate with the users of its products to search the best technical and economical solutions related to electrical connection applications.
Steve Barbour, Managing Director, Composite Braiding
Steve Barbour founded Composite Braiding Ltd focussing on higher-volume, lower-cost, more sustainable composite structures. He has turned around 4 other composite businesses and prior to that was a senior manager at Rolls-Royce.
David Taylor, Managing Director, Datum
After founding Datum in 1997, David has spent the last 25+ years growing and developing the business. Datum now employ around 70 people and is the UKs leading supplier of Composite Parts and Sub-assembly`s into the UK Rail market. From Litter Bins to Train Fronts, Table-Tops to Toilets, Datum Deliver.
Jenny Dempsey, Director, Diamond Rail Services
Having worked as Project Manager on a major fleet refurbishment for 4 years. Jenny joined the supply chain at Diamond in November 2020 as a business development professional. On their site in Sheffield, Diamond manufacture seating components for UK rail. Diamond have completed turnkey seat refurbishment for UK train providers since 2008 and work with many in the UK supply chain to deliver on projects.
Joanne Farms, Business Development Manager, Hydram
Hydram Engineering is a leading supplier of precision sheet metal components, assemblies and sheet metal fabrications and proud to be your UK manufacturing partner.
Neil Cross, National Sales Manager – Rail & Infrastructure, Ibstock
“As a leading manufacturer of precast concrete products for the UK rail sector, we are proud to be supporting Rail Forum as a Manufacturing Partner for this year. We are able to offer a complete and lower embodied carbon range to UK rail operators, empowering them to make greener choices when specifying infrastructure materials. “As one of the most advanced rail systems in the world, the British rail network is an exciting and dynamic space and, with more investment in the network pledged by the new government, it’s a fantastic time to be working within the sector.”
Nigel Hewson, Business Development Manager, Infotec
Infotec is a world class designer and manufacturer of LED & TFT passenger information displays. Its products are built to withstand the challenging environments of rail stations, bus and tram networks and on-vehicle applications. Featuring ruggedised designs, environmental management, proven reliability and the capacity to handle a wide range of industry standard protocols over RS485, Ethernet, WiFi and mobile networks, our displays are built to meet your needs.
Tom Roberts – Sales Director – Signal House Group Ltd.
Signal House Group – Founded in 1970, We specialise in designing and manufacturing fabricated steelwork for Rail, Nuclear, Construction and Telecoms industry partners. We deliver work up to a UKCA EXC 4 standard and are Constructionline Gold approved.
Nicola Islef, Head of Marketing at Transport Design International
TDI is a design and manufacturing company that specialises in Very Light Rail (VLR) technologies for mass transit solutions.
We are market leaders in lightweighting and have delivered more than 135 projects across the globe.
