TRAINS have a particular symbolism in Britain, which invented the railway and exported the technology to the rest of the world. So it is understandable, particularly at a time of sluggish economic growth (see article), that the threatened closure of the country's only remaining trainmaking factory has provoked an outcry. In June the coalition government named Siemens, a German engineering company, as the favoured bidder for the £1.4 billion ($2.3 billion) contract to make new trains for the cross-London Thameslink service; Canadian-owned Bombardier, which hoped to produce the 1,200 carriages at its operation in Derby, in the East Midlands, lost out. The firm is cutting 1,400 jobs; its factory is set to run out of work in 2014.

On July 23rd thousands of people marched behind brass brands through Derby's streets to protest against the fact that, as they see it, the government is letting the train industry die. The government says cheaper trains are in taxpayers' interests, and that it was bound by procurement rules set by its Labour predecessor. Critics accuse ministers of failing to back their own call for Britain to make things again, and not rely on frothy finance: though manufacturing constitutes 12% of the economy—a little more than finance—its share has fallen by half since 1990.

“Train building is in the DNA of Derby,” says Philip Hickson, Conservative leader of Derby council. The slate roofs of the Bombardier factory testify to its Victorian heritage: rolling stock has been manufactured at the site since the mid-19th century. But the role of trains in Britain's industrial rise does not make them essential to its future. As it happens, a few hundred yards away is a more promising outfit: Rolls-Royce, an engine manufacturer for the aerospace, marine and energy sectors (its chairman, Sir Simon Robertson, also sits on the board of The Economist). The contrast between the two suggests how British manufacturing can hope to prosper in the 21st century.

Superficially, the aerospace industry is similar to train manufacturing: both involve large but occasional deals to make bulky, pricey goods. In the past decade both have been pounded by recession, rising fuel prices and demand for greater energy efficiency. Yet the outcomes for the two operations in Derby are strikingly different: Rolls-Royce has become the world's second-largest maker of jet engines; Bombardier can't persuade the government to buy the trains it makes in Britain.

Bombardier blames its troubles in Britain on Whitehall bungling. Demand for new trains has always been prone to peaks and troughs, but that inconsistency has worsened. Several factories shut during a three-year ordering hiatus when the rail network was ineptly privatised in the 1990s; contracts have become ever scarcer as the government parcels up rolling-stock procurement into huge purchases. No new deal has been closed in Britain since 2009.

Still, all manufacturing firms depend on their order book. Aerospace companies have found an alternative source of profit: servicing the goods they make. Rolls-Royce already gleans 51% of its revenue from servicing its engine fleet: its Trent jet engines are continuously assessed from a slick operations room at Derby. That figure is set to increase, the company says. For Bombardier's global transport division, by contrast, the share of revenue from services went down between 2007 and 2010, from 21% to 14%.

Moreover, aerospace—including making the guts of aircraft engines, as Rolls-Royce does—is a global industry with standardised technologies. Only the paint job and interiors differ between planes made for different countries. Train production, by contrast, has until recently been largely national, which made it hard for manufacturers to achieve scale or make widely marketable goods. While Rolls-Royce hawks its wares around the world, Bombardier's facilities (across Europe and North America, as well as in Derby) have depended on single contracts to build local rolling stock. Each type of train Bombardier produces at its various sites is a different size and specification; fewer than 10% of trains made at Derby are exported.

That insular model has now begun to change—but not to Bombardier's advantage. Standardisation of technology is increasing and the industry is consolidating. Despite the popular stereotype that continental Europeans favour their own national suppliers, protectionism is loosening: in 2010, France's state-owned Eurostar agreed to buy German-built Siemens trains; Spain's Renfe also uses German express vehicles. That means the Bombardier factory in Derby can no longer rely on its status as Britain's sole trainmaker. (Already in 2005 Hitachi won a deal for the British railway but shipped the fully assembled trains from Japan; the company will soon open a new facility in Britain but the carriage casings will still be made in Japan.)

Meanwhile Rolls-Royce has sought to insulate itself from the quirks of procurement by applying its design to other industries: 80% of the gas-turbine technology used in its best-selling jet engines is the same for the energy and marine sectors. All of which leaves Rolls-Royce less reliant on the British market: over 85% of its revenues are from exports.

Rolls-Royce's resurgence would not have been predicted 40 years ago: in 1971 it ran out of cash and was nationalised by a Conservative government. Like Bombardier and other manufacturing firms it has shed staff in Britain—it has 20% fewer workers now than in 2001—but, unlike Bombardier, it still has a full order book.

In essence Rolls-Royce makes one piece of kit, with multiple applications, to a world-class standard. The reasons for its success—the quality and adaptability of its products, its expansion into services and global reach—could offer lessons for Britain's other industries, even if it is too late for its trainmakers to catch up.