DERBY’s RTC Business Park – formerly British Rail’s research centre and home to some of the most significant late-20th Century world-leading railway technical innovations – has been put up for sale for £16 million by the government.
The news comes just ahead of Derby and Derbyshire Rail Forum’s conference on 4 November, which aims to highlight the city’s role as a world centre of railway excellence.
Now the Forum has said it is concerned that the sale of the RTC Business Park “contains no protection for the rail-connected facilities at this important site.”
The site, which until privatisation was home to BR’s Railway Technical Centre, opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1966, is situated between the A6 London Road and the Derby-Long Eaton rail route.
In its statement Derby Rail Forum, which is headed by Colin Walton, the UK Chairman of Bombardier Transportation, says: “Were these facilities to be lost it would have an enormous impact on the skills base offered by the world’s leading rail cluster, particularly in the field of specialist rolling stock engineering.
“With Derby hoping to host the recently-announced National Skills Academy for Railway Engineering, this would clearly be a retrograde step.”
The sale of the site, extending over 11 hectares, is being handled by the British Railways Board (Residuary) Ltd, which is owned by the Department for Transport. Derby Rail Forum says it hopes BRBR Ltd “will take on board local concerns and safeguard the RTC’s rail facilities for current and future users of this important site”.
Rail industry companies currently based on the RTC Business Park include Network Rail, RVEL, Serco Assurance, Rampart Carriage & Wagon, DEU, Garrandale Engineering and Huber & Suhner.
As British Rail’s research centre, the RTC was the home of many important developments — including the Advanced Passenger Train, whose technology is now incorporated in Virgin’s Pendolino trains; computerised signalling and train control, Solid State Interlocking (SSI), which has just celebrated its world-leading 25th anniversary; and the B5000 lightweight track-friendly bogie, which is now supplied with many new passenger vehicles built by Bombardier at its nearby Litchurch Lane factory.