BREL
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British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL), was the railway systems engineering division of British Rail, until the design and building of trains in the UK was privatised in 1993.[1] On 31 October 1969, the company was incorporated as British Rail Engineering Limited.
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[edit] Main products
The vast majority of BREL's output was for British Rail. These included the British Rail Mark 2 and British Rail Mark 3 carriages, the latter being built either for locomotive haulage or part of Inter City 125 diesel High Speed Trains. BREL also built the NIR 80 Class diesel-electric multiple units for Northern Ireland Railways. Other Mark 3 derived vehicles included the British Rail Class 150 diesel multiple units built in the 1980s, plus numerous electric multiple units (such as Class 313 and Class 317).
BREL had limited success in the export market, notably with Mark 2 and Mark 3 carriages for Irish Rail plus some carriages for Taiwan.
[edit] Other products
As well as the Mark 2 and Mark 3 carriages, BREL built various prototype trains like the British Rail Class 210 DEMU and the experimental high speed Advanced Passenger Train (APT) tilting during the 1970s and early 1980s.[2] The class 210 were externally very similar to the first batch of Class 317 EMUs, but half of the forward carriage was taken up by the engine room. Power was provided by an above-floor diesel engine driving a generator to power traction motors on the axles. A single engine was fitted at one end of the train, and the trains operated in a push-pull configuration.
[edit] Locations
BREL operated train building factories at several sites, with the major production centres being at Crewe, Derby, Doncaster and York. The historic site at Wolverton in Milton Keynes was progressively run down until the 1980s before finally being relegated to maintenance duties only.
However, not all British Rail rolling stock was built in-house; Metro Cammell, Brush Traction and Metropolitan-Vickers amongst others manufactured rolling stock, although in general it was built to BREL specifications.
[edit] Privatisation
In 1989 it was purchased by the Swiss-Swedish conglomerate ABB (ASEA-Brown Boveri) 40% and Trafalgar House 40% and a MEBO (Management-Employee Buy-Out) of 20% forming BREL Ltd. It was latterly bought out by ABB to form the subsidiary ABB Transportation Ltd.
The privatisation of British Rail led to a hiatus in the ordering of new rolling stock, which ultimately led to the almost complete collapse of rolling stock manufacturers in the UK; when purchases of rolling stock resumed, other suppliers, including those overseas, won more contracts. Following the demise of the York works and the closure of the Metro-Cammell (now Alstom) plant in Birmingham in 2005, only the former BREL facility in Derby remains as a major manufacturer of rolling stock in the United Kingdom.
Like Metro Cammell, BREL has also helped in the planning, design and on occasion, the manufacturing of various London Underground stock over the years.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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