All aboard the mind-blowing train bristling with science fiction-turned-fact technology, some of it made in York.

The amazing Siemens-Explorer, pictured above, cost nearly £4 million and is as long as 25 double-decker buses parked nose to tail.

It was hoisted off the Europort tracks at Wakefield so that all 14 carriages could be transported by road to Birmingham, on the next stage of its national tour.

There the carriages were unloaded and re-hitched for today's opening of a special NEC exhibition of everything assembled by Siemens Automation & Drives.

The organisation is a subsidiary of engineering giant Siemens UK, which has software development plants in Barnsley and in York, where 25 people are employed.

All of the carriages demonstrate how cutting-edge technology is being harnessed by the company. These include working demonstrations of products made at Siemens' Automation & Drive Software House, in Fulford Road, York, including Siematic IT Framework, the kind of software helping to bring greater efficiency to manufacturing processes, particularly in the food industry.

Already Tate & Lyle, in London, has invested nearly approaching £4 million in the York generated process. It is also used by Princes Foods, Bradford, and the York company has installed an IT server at Nestl, in Halifax.

Leigh Foster, general manager of A & D Software House, formerly Aurega Integrated Manufacturing, said: "People often talk about how the manufacturing sector is slow, but we've been very successful this year, as a result of investment made last year. The train demonstrated just how a fully-integrated suite of products is available within the Siemens portfolio."

Updated: 09:22 Tuesday, May 28, 2002