Britain’s last independent freight rolling stock manufacturer is gearing up for a significant workforce increase. They plan to add 20 new roles, representing a 25 per cent increase. The news comes on the back of a previously announced order from Ireland. The expansion has the backing of UK Government sources.
WH Davis is based in Shirebrook, near Mansfield in Derbyshire. In May, the business announced that it had won an order will supply 150 freight wagons to Irish Railways (Iarnród Éireann) backed by a deal brokered by the UK Export Finance arm of the government in London. The business is creating twenty new engineering jobs at its East Midlands base.
Funding framework
As reported back in May, WH Davis is exporting railway wagons for the first time in twenty years, with plans to grow into more international markets. Now the company and the UK Government say that the order for 150 new wagons for Ireland, with options to take that figure up to 400, will support twenty new jobs. It’s the first significant export order for the company in last two decades.
WH Davis is the UK’s sole remaining independent railway wagon manufacturer. The news comes just over a year after WH Davis became part of the Buckland Rail group. The €44 million export deal has been enabled with support from the export credit agency UK Export Finance (UKEF) through its Bond Support Scheme. An 80% guarantee provided by UKEF for the required contract bond means WH Davis’s bank, Barclays, was able to issue capital that would help to fund the production and delivery of the wagons.
Boost for Shirebrook
The contract represents for WH Davis the first order under a 10-year framework agreement that could see the number of wagons supplied rise to 400. The wagons will support Ireland’s rail freight expansion strategy and are expected to start delivering in summer 2026, with all wagons delivered and in service by the end of 2027.
The new jobs and all the work will be located at WH Davis’s manufacturing site in Shirebrook – an ex-mining village in the East Midlands. The Irish national carrier is engaged in a programme of rail expansion, including reinstating some freight routes – notably the 42 kilometres (26 miles) Limerick to Foynes Railway, a mothballed line in the midwest of Ireland.