Voith Industrial Services wins biggest-ever contract in UK

Voith Industrial Services, a leading service provider to the UK transport industry, has broken into the rail sector with its biggest-ever contract in the UK.

The £40 million contract, spread over five years, is for cleaning Alstom-maintained trains on the West Coast mainline operated by Virgin Trains and incorporating First ScotRail, Northern Rail and BTMS.

The work, carried out by nearly 500 staff, involves both on-board cleaning while the trains are running; turnaround cleaning between train journeys; and cleaning at 16 locations between London and Glasgow. In total 90 complete train sets, consisting of between four and 11 carriages, are cleaned every day.

Voith Industrial Services, well-known for providing technical expertise at major automotive car plants in the UK, broke into the bus sector two years ago and now provides overnight preparation services with its Make Ready Services package for more than 1,000 buses.

Following its success in the bus sector the company developed a new Make Ready Services package specifically tailored to the rail and light rail sectors. Discussions have been taking place with several rail companies over the past 12 months.

Voith Industrial Services won the Alstom contract against fierce competition from established providers.

Phil Spencer, Voith Industrial Services’ sales and business development director, said: “We are delighted to have won this major contract. We believe that our technical approach to cleaning operations sets us apart from the competition in this sector.

“Our detailed processes of measurement, self-audit, continuous improvement, evaluation and feedback have been refined from our well-known automotive sector experience.”

Voith Industrial Services is well established in the automotive industry carrying out technical cleaning services in paint shops for Jaguar Land Rover and General Motors.

The on-board cleaning for Alstom includes the clearing of waste, cleaning and sanitising the toilets, and attending to spillages. The turnaround tasks involve interior cleaning including saloons, vestibules and toilets as well as removing all waste before passengers get on the train.

At depots – Wembley, Glasgow (Polmadie), Wolverhampton (Oxley), Manchester and Liverpool Train Care Centre – staff carry out lists of tasks on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. At Polmadie and Wembley they prepare First ScotRail sleepers for return journeys between Euston and Glasgow.