British Steel has secured a five-year contract worth £500m to supply train tracks for Network Rail, in a move which could help safeguard the short-term future of the Scunthorpe steelworks.
The company will forge more than 337,000 tonnes of track, securing thousands of jobs, two months after the government used emergency powers to prevent the blast furnaces from immediate closure.
Ministers stepped in after accusing the Chinese firm Jingye, which bought British Steel in 2020, of planning to shut down the plant's blast furnaces.
British Steel said the new contract represented a "huge vote of confidence in UK workers and British industry".
While British Steel has long supplied the track used for Britain's railways with Scunthorpe producing rail since 1865, the latest deal provides guaranteed work for the plant for at least the next five years.
