China trainmaker CSR sets sights on London's £50b high-speed rail project

China's top trainmaker plans to go head-to-head with European rivals such as Alstom in bidding for a range of contracts including rolling stock for Britain's £50 billion (HK$580 billion) High Speed 2 rail line.

CSR Corp would seek to make and maintain the 360 km/h trains at the heart of one of the world's biggest infrastructure projects, said Li Donglin, the chief executive of rail technology arm Zhuzhou CSR Times Electric. It could also build the track and manage the network.

Construction of the first phase of HS2 linking London and Birmingham is due to begin in 2017, with trains running from 2026, followed by an extension to Manchester and Leeds opening by 2033.

While competing to provide trains could mean taking on TGV-maker Alstom, Siemens of Germany and Japan's Hitachi, CSR could bid for a wide variety of work, Li said.

"Not only trains, but also services, including the track, and maintenance and upkeep to make sure everything is safe," he said. "Our cost of construction is cheaper than the other suppliers and we have been operating for so many years."

China, which has developed the world's largest high-speed train network as part of its economic transformation, is targeting contracts in developed and emerging markets to turn its expertise into export revenue.

CSR is itself poised to merge with China CNR Corp to form a national champion as the government seeks to secure more overseas deals.

The rolling stock element of HS2 will have a value of £7.5 billion, making it an enticing target for Chinese companies seeking a European foothold.

"They would like to get their trains running in Europe and they see Britain as one of the easiest countries to get into," said John Disney, a transport consultant and researcher at Nottingham Business School.

Siemens, Europe's No1 engineering group, said last year it was interested in bidding for contracts to build rolling stock for HS2, as well as in supplying electrification, security, signalling and energy distribution services.

Alstom has said it backs the HS2 project as the best option for freeing up capacity on the West Coast line, where it supplied the tilting Pendolino model to Richard Branson's Virgin Trains. The French company's AGV, an upgrade of the TGV, is being used as the reference stock for calculating journey times on the new route, according to its website.

Britain has signed accords with China aimed at fostering collaboration on rail projects in recent years. Premier Li Keqiang last year offered to invest in an HS2 interchange in Birmingham, while infrastructure firm China Railway Group has said it would be interested in building connections from the station to nearby towns worth about £280 million.