Recently, we made a trip to Alstom’s Derby Litchurch Lane Works for the CrossCountry Voyager unveiling, and whilst there, they invited us to have a look around the production line for the additional new trains for the Elizabeth Line.

Construction on 10 new Class 345 Aventra trains began in October 2025, and they will all be built at the Derby factory.

The Elizabeth Line was opened in 2022 and currently is served by 70 Class 345 trains that were also built by Alstom at their Derby works.

Passenger demand has been so great though that the extra trains will mean the service can meet passenger demands well into the future.

First up in the video, we see the roofs being manufactured and welded together. It was great to see all of this going together with a lot of human input.

We then move to U Shop to see the roofs make their way through the production line to become a train shell that resembles a Class 345.

The production line in U Shop is like a car production line, where the roof moves through a the factory on a ‘rolling road’ that allows the train to progress through a roof and ends with a shell.

A big thank you to Alstom for showing us around the production line, it is great to see the hard work that goes into making a train carriage.