Privatisation
In 1989 it was purchased by the Swiss-Swedish conglomerate ABB (ASEA-Brown Boveri) (40%), Trafalgar House (40%) and a MEBO (management-employee buy-out) (20%). It was latterly bought out by ABB to form the subsidiary ABB Transportation Ltd. It has since become part of Bombardier Transportation.
The privatisation of British Rail led to a hiatus in the ordering of new rolling stock, which predictably led to the almost complete collapse of the rolling stock manufacturing industry in the UK. When purchases of rolling stock resumed, with little remaining capacity in the UK, contracts were increasingly placed overseas. 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 Litchurch Lane Works in Derby remains as a 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.
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