Train builder Alstom is looking forward to another 100 years after celebrating their centenary with a reunion of former and current workers.
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Disappointment at being overlooked last year for the big-money High Capacity Metro Trains project was forgotten as the company gathered to celebrate its past, present and future.
“Celebrations were all about the site and the people who have made the site,” said company spokesman Sheldon Young.
“Alstom is very committed to the site. Unfortunately we didn’t win the HCMT project last year but we haven’t sat still, we’ve been working with the Victorian government on a number of proposals that will hopefully see the pipeline beyond.
”We’ve got 14 X-Trapolis trains to build at the moment. That work will go to almost the end of next year and we are working toward at least another 100 years.”
Alstom’s oldest former employee Richard Davies, 95, returned to the factory where he worked from 1939 to 1982. He was excited to see the changes that have occurred over the past 35 years with the rolling stock, technology, materials and processes all vastly different from his days at the factory.
There are about 70 people now employed at the factory, far lower than the company’s heyday when it employed 600 to 700 people, but Mr Young said scores more were employed indirectly through suppliers.
French train builder Alstom bought the Ballarat factory in 1999 to set up a manufacturing base in Victoria, which required a minimum 30 per cent local content for trains.
“These celebrations today were really about the role of the site in Victorian railways over the past 100 years,” Mr Young said.
“If you think about the number of apprentices, engineering graduates and trades who have passed through here over the years it’s had a pretty significant impact in industry and training in the state over the past 100 years,” he said.
About 250 former and current employees, some of whom worked at the Creswick Rd site for more than 50 years, pored over memorabilia and old photos and enjoyed lunch to to celebrate the centenary.