train using GEC Traction equipment, introduced on
Seoul Subway Line 4 in 1985, transferred to
Seoul Subway Line 3 from 1989–93. Some units rebuilt in the early-2010s, all units retired in 2022. The company's pedigree is traced back to a long list of British companies involved in railway traction almost to the start of the railway age in the first half of the 19th century. Included among the predecessor companies are the following: •
Robert Stephenson & Company,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1823) •
Dick, Kerr & Co,
Kilmarnock and
Preston (1883) •
Siemens Brothers,
London (1858) •
Vulcan Foundry Newton-le-Willows (1847) •
British Westinghouse,
Manchester (1899) •
English Electric,
London,
Stafford and Preston (1917) •
British Thomson-Houston,
Rugby (1896) •
Metropolitan Vickers, Manchester (1919) •
Associated Electrical Industries, Manchester and London (1925) •
Beyer, Peacock & Company,
Stockton-on-Tees (1949) The immediate history stemmed from the 1968 acquisition of
Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) by GEC. In the following year GEC merged with (took over) the
English Electric (EE), thus bringing together the two previously rival companies, AEI and EE, under single ownership. From this, in 1969, a new subsidiary company was born,
English Electric-AEI Traction Ltd. This new organisation slowly integrated the traction divisions of AEI and EE, culminating in 1972 when the company was renamed
GEC Traction Ltd. Also added to the company was the Industrial Locomotive Division of the former English Electric which was based at Vulcan Works,
Newton-le-Willows (this later became a separate company, GEC Industrial Locomotives Ltd). The company that became GEC Traction Ltd. was originally incorporated on 6 May 1927. In June 1973, the Company celebrated "150 years in Motive Power" dating from the establishment of the first company in the world specifically created for the design and manufacture of railway locomotives,
Robert Stephenson & Company in Newcastle. For the greater part of the 18 years in which the Company existed under the name GEC Traction, it was the leading supplier of traction equipment in the UK and also had sales around the world, particularly in South Africa, Australasia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. Employment across the three sites totalled 3,500. In 1984, largely as a result of a cutback in orders by
South African Railways, the Attercliffe Common works at Sheffield was closed, with the rotating machines business being absorbed at Preston and gear manufacture at GEC Machines, Rugby. In April 1989, the company was conferred with the
Queen's Awards for Enterprise in the field of electronic railway propulsion equipment. A few weeks thereafter, a merger was agreed between the power and transport businesses of GEC and those of
Alsthom of France, part of
Compagnie Générale d'Electricité (CGE). As a result, GEC Traction became a subsidiary of this newly formed Anglo-French group, GEC Alsthom, and was consequently renamed
GEC Alsthom Traction Ltd on 1 July 1989. As part of a rationalisation of the business the Company was further contracted from 1991 to 1998, with the eventual closing of all activities at Trafford Park in 1998, and the remaining business being concentrated at Preston or transferred to sites in France. In December 1997, GEC and
Alcatel Alsthom of France announced a flotation of their joint venture on the Paris stock exchange, to comprise 52% of the share capital, with each of the partners reducing to 24% of the shares each. The company was successfully floated in June 1998 and changed to the simpler name,
Alstom. GEC and Alcatel subsequently sold their remaining stakes. All references to the 'GEC' name and branding were removed from the ex-GEC businesses which remained in Alstom. GEC Alsthom Traction Ltd became Alstom Traction Ltd on 22 June 1998 and the company name survived to 19 August 2008, although increasingly integrated within the Transport division of Alstom. The Alstom Transport factory at
Preston was the last site of the former GEC Traction to remain open, albeit on a much reduced scale to that in the 1970s and 1980s. Having suffered around 500 job losses in August 2003, the Preston site was reported to be employing "around 240 people" in October 2010, and 180 people in October 2017. In June 2017, Alstom announced that the Preston Strand Road site would close and be vacated by June 2018, and operations would be transferred to Alstom's new facility at
Widnes (traction equipment engineering and production, and AC motors), terminated (DC motor repair and overhaul) or outsourced (logistics). Alstom activities on the Preston site finished on 31 July 2018;
BAE Systems continue to have offices on the site and
St Modwen, the site owner, is attempting to find a tenant for the vacated area. == Factories and products ==