Bosses at Birmingham's crisis-hit Alstom plant have recruited extra workers - to help speed the site's demise as a train making facility, it emerged today.
About 20 temporary staff were believed to have been taken on at the former Metro-Cammell yards at Washwood Heath to aid completion of the £600 million Pendolino tilting train contract for Sir Richard Branson.
But the 1,400 employees there have been told that the rail contract will be their last and a 150-year history of rolling stock manufacture will cease from August.
However, any delays in building the remaining carriages for the 53-strong fleet of Virgin trains would incur massive penalties for Alstom.
The new temps have been put into the section of the factory completing power looms for the trains' electrical circuits.
Unions at Washwood Heath have been mounting a concerted campaign to save jobs by getting fresh work into the complex which has enjoyed about £36 million investment over the last decade.
This week about 150 employees led a march by thousands of manufacturing workers on the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth.
They have also taken their campaign to the Trades Union Congress in Brighton, French-owned Alstom's headquarters in Paris and handed in a petition of 10,000 names jointly with the Evening Mail at 10 Downing Street.
Bob Charles, Amicus union plant convenor, said today: "Officially we have not been given notice of redundancies but we know we will.
"But the company is still trying to finish the Pendolino line and see the need to fill the line with temps because we don't have the manpower to do all the work."
