A NORTH-EAST engineering firm, which has helped to keep trains running safely since Victorian times, has won three new railways orders worth a combined £1m.

Darlington-based Henry Williams secured the high profile contracts to bring parts of the rail network, including one of Europe's busiest stretches of track, up to 21st Century standards.

The firm was founded 127 years ago and moved from Glasgow to Darlington in 1911. It has been based on the same site in the town ever since, and employs about 100 workers.

While traditionally its reliance has been on railway work, it has diversified into other areas of specialist engineering including a lamppost which absorbs the impact of a vehicle collision, reducing injury, which it recently launched.

The latest contracts build on its heritage as one of the cornerstones of the rail supply chain.

Invensys Rail have agreed a deal that will see the Darlington company build power supply equipment as part of plans to double capacity on busy Thameslink commuter lines, improve Blackfriars, Farringdon and London Bridge stations. That contract follows the completion of a similar work by Henry Williams as part of the £40m refurbishment of the London Overground, a key rail route for the 2012 Olympics.

The other two deals are to provide new signalling equipment for Chiltern Railways upgrade of the Birmingham to London Marylebone line, and for Network Rail and First Great Westerns project to restore 20 miles of track between Worcester and Oxford, which was lost during Dr Beechings' infamous cuts programme of the 1960s.

Alan Puddick, Henry Williams electrical projects director and deputy managing director, said: "These are three high-profile projects, each important in the development of Britains railway infrastructure, and their differing nature is a superb demonstration of the versatility of Henry Williams as a railway engineering company.

"An effective signalling system is the lifeline of safe railway operation. Henry Williams has been supplying signalling panels for more than five decades. We still help to maintain panels we installed in the 1970s, including Clapham Junction, one of the biggest ever built in Europe, and this new contract demonstrates that as well as a long tradition, we also remain an industry leader in this particular area of expertise."