DE1, DE21 to DE24 and DE73 · Derby
Data recovery for Derby. Ten trains, 47,700 screws in each; the traceability pack outlives the build.
Litchurch Lane has been putting trains together since 1876, and it is the only factory left in the country able to design, engineer, manufacture and test one from scratch. It is Alstom now rather than Bombardier, and it is building ten Class 345 Aventras for the Elizabeth line — the first of them, 345071, came off the line on 4 June 2026. Every nine-carriage set carries five miles of welding, fifty miles of cabling, more than 47,700 screws and 31,700 bolts, and behind each of those sits a weld log, a torque record or an inspection photograph that has to outlast thirty years of service. Feeding the works are almost forty supplier companies and more than a thousand people, most of those firms far too small to run an IT department. The pattern repeats either side of them: Rolls-Royce is three separate businesses in this city, one of them the submarine reactor work at Raynesway, which is growing by over 100,000 square metres and 1,170 skilled jobs; Toyota has built at Burnaston since 1992; and Marketing Derby counts 11,000 skilled rail employees in Derby itself. No counter here, and no collection service. Send the drive by tracked post — nobody is charged for the look, and the figure is settled in writing first.
Ask an engineer, and the first look is free
0115 8220606
The Derby postbag.
Not yours? Open the fault finder →| What is happening | What brings it in | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| An engineer's laptop that stops at the maker's logo | CAD assemblies and test-cell output, kept on the local disk | Take the drive out and post that by itself |
| A supplier's office server that stopped mid-week | Weld logs, torque records and inspection photography the prime will ask for | Power it off, label each disk with its bay, send the disks bare |
| Every screen in the office showing a ransom note | The backup was writing to a share on the same network | Photograph the ransom note, disconnect the network, and leave the power on |
| A production drive out of a 3,500-seat venue | Camera media and ticketing exports from a room that runs 200 events a year | Stop using it the moment it begins to click |
| A body-shop measuring PC that will not start | Press-tool data and production quality records, with no second copy | Send the disk; the rig stays exactly where it stands |
Packing it up in Derby.
Questions we get from Derby.
Is the whole of Derby covered, DE73 and Burnaston included?
It is: DE1, DE3, DE21 through DE24, DE73, and the Derbyshire villages beyond them. Since nothing is collected by road, your address changes neither the price nor your place in the queue. Media travels by tracked, insured post; whatever arrives is examined the same day at no charge; and we pay the carriage back to you.
A second disk has just dropped out of our RAID. What now?
Take the power off and leave it off. What must be prevented is a controller rebuild — writing onto an array that was already fading is how a copyable set becomes an impossible one. Number every carrier with its bay, keep the chassis where it is, and post the disks alone. Each gets imaged singly before any reassembly is attempted. Multi-disk work opens at £500 + VAT.
Our whole configuration pack sat on one office PC. Can it come back?
Usually. As-built records, gauging surveys, commissioning logs and the drawings behind them, on a machine nobody ever added to the backup, with a customer waiting on the pack — that is an ordinary week here. Undo the four screws, leave the tower where it is, and send only the disk. One drive is £300 + VAT, settled in writing before any chargeable work happens.
Will anybody come out to Derby to collect it?
No. Nobody is sent out, and nobody ever was, which is part of the reason the prices can be published at all. A tracked, insured parcel beats a driver to the bench, and hand-ins are taken at the lab on weekdays. If the shape is awkward, ring 0115 8220606 first and the packing gets settled with you on the call.
Start here if the same thing is happening to yours.
Next door to Derby, on the same terms
Post it from Derby and the bench starts the day it lands.
Take the power off it, and keep it off — each restart takes a little more away. What it was up to at the moment it stopped is the thing to tell us. The look itself costs nothing, one figure follows in writing, and you agree to it before any chargeable work begins.