GEC Traction
 |
|
| Plc / subsidiary | |
| Industry | Mechanical and electrical engineering |
| Fate | Subsumed within Alstom |
| Predecessor | English Electric-AEI Traction Limited |
| Successor | GEC Alsthom Traction Ltd., later Alstom Traction Ltd., later Alstom Transport |
| Founded | 1972 |
| Defunct | 1989 |
| Headquarters | Trafford Park, Manchester, England |
|
Key people
|
John Legg, Keith Appelbee (Managing Directors) |
| Products | Railway traction equipment |
GEC Traction Limited was a British industrial company formed in 1972 which designed and manufactured electric traction equipment for railway rolling stock. The company had manufacturing sites at Manchester, Preston and Sheffield and was a wholly owned subsidiary of 's General Electric Company plc.
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 in the list of predecessor companies are the following,
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 Co (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 together the traction divisions of both 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, this being the Robert Stephenson & Co 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 wide markets around the world, particularly in South Africa, Australasia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. Employment across the three sites totalled 3,500 people. In 1984, largely as a result of a cut back 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 Award for Technological Achievement in the field of electronic railway propulsion equipment. Only a few weeks after having gained this honour, 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.
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Wikipedia