Metro Cammell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Metro-Cammell logo

The Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon (MCCW) was a Birmingham, England based manufacturer of railway carriages and wagons, based in Saltley and subsequently Washwood Heath.

The company was formed in 1863 as the Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd (Successors to Messrs. Joseph Wright and Sons) of London. Joseph Wright built coaches for the London and Southampton Railway in 1837 and the London and Birmingham Railway in 1838. Wright moved the carriage works from London to Birmingham in 1845 where he purchased six acres of meadowland in Saltley, adjacent to the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway line.

It has made trains for railways in the UK and overseas, including the Mass Transit Railway of Hong Kong, Kowloon-Canton Railway (now East Rail Line), the Channel Tunnel and locomotives for Malaysia's Keretapi Tanah Melayu. Diesel and electric locomotives were manufactured for South African Railways, Nyasaland Railways, Malawi, Nigeria, Trans-Zambezi Railway and Pakistan; DMUs for Jamaica Railway Corporation; and EMUs for Mexican National Railways. The vast majority of the current and past London Underground rolling stock in mid 20th century was made by the company. The company designed and built the renowned Blue Pullman for British Railways.

MCCW also built bus bodies. In 1932, Metro Cammell Weymann was formed by the MCCW's bus bodybuilding business and Weymann Motor Bodies.

Saltley works was closed in 1962 and group administration concentrated at Washwood Heath in 1967.

In May 1989, the railway business was sold to GEC Alsthom (now Alstom) Group. The last trains to be built at the Washwood Heath plant prior to its closure in 2005 were the Class 390 "Pendolino" tilting trains for the West Coast Main Line modernisation.