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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Railway engineering |
| Founded | 1863; 162 years ago (1863) |
| Defunct | 1989; 36 years ago (1989) |
| Fate | Acquired byAlstom |
| Successor | Alstom |
| Headquarters | Birmingham,England,UK |
| Products | Railway carriages,locomotives,diesel multiple units andelectric multiple units |
| Parent | Independent (1863–1989) Alstom (1989–2005) |
Metro-Cammell, formally theMetropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company (MCCW), was an English manufacturer ofrailway carriages,locomotives andrailway wagons, based inSaltley, and subsequentlyWashwood Heath, inBirmingham. The company was purchased byGEC Alsthom in May 1989; the Washwood Heath factory closed in 2005 and was demolished in early 2019.
The company designed and built rolling stock for the railways in the United Kingdom and overseas, including theMass Transit Railway of Hong Kong,Kowloon–Canton Railway (nowEast Rail line), theChannel Tunnel, and theTyne and Wear Metro, and locomotives for Malaysia'sKeretapi Tanah Melayu. Diesel and electric locomotives were manufactured forSouth African Railways,Nyasaland Railways, Malawi, Nigeria,Trans-Zambezi Railway and Pakistan.DMUs were supplied toJamaica Railway Corporation and theNational Railways of Mexico. The vast majority ofLondon Underground rolling stock manufactured in the mid-20th century was produced by the company, which also designed and built theBlue Pullman forBritish Railways.
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The company was formed in 1863 as theMetropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Company, successors to Messrs. Joseph Wright and Sons. Joseph Wright built coaches for theLondon and Southampton Railway in 1837 and theLondon and Birmingham Railway in 1838. In 1845, he moved the carriage works from London to Birmingham, where he purchased 6 acres (2.4 ha) of meadowland in Saltley, adjacent to theBirmingham and Derby Junction Railway line. In 1854, the company built the first 12 carriages for theSydney to Parramatta line, New South Wales, the first public railway in Australia, which opened in 1855. Several of those are now in thePowerhouse Museum in Sydney.
In 1902, it merged with four other carriage and wagon builders:Ashbury Railway Carriage and Iron Company Ltd.,Brown, Marshalls and Company Ltd., Lancaster Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd., and Oldbury Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd., and became theMetropolitan Amalgamated Railway Carriage and Wagon Company.
Metropolitan was contracted as a builder of the new tanks for the British Army during the First World War. It built all 400 of theMark V tank and 700 improved Mark V* tanks. These were the most developed heavy tank designs to see service in the war.
In 1917, Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Company andVickers Limited took joint control ofBritish Westinghouse. In 1919, Vickers bought out the Metropolitan shares and renamed the companyMetropolitan-Vickers. By 1926, the company had changed its name again toMetropolitan Carriage, Wagon and Finance Company. In 1929, the railway rolling stock business ofCammell Laird and Company was merged asMetropolitan-Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company, the resulting company being part owned by Vickers and the Cammell Laird group.
MCCW also built bus bodies. In 1932,Metro Cammell Weymann was formed by the MCCW's bus bodybuilding business andWeymann Motor Bodies. In theSecond World War, Metro again built tanks, including theValentine tank andLight Tank Mk VIII. The Saltley works was closed in 1962 and group administration concentrated at Washwood Heath in 1967.
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In May 1989, the railway business was sold toGEC Alsthom (nowAlstom). The last trains to be built at theWashwood Heath plant before its closure in 2005 were theClass 390Pendolinotilting trains for theWest Coast Main Line modernisation.
