IF, like many people in Derby, you were concerned about the future of Bombardier's train-building works at Litchurch Lane, it looks as if you can breathe again – at least for now.

The company's announcement in the wake of its UK review that there is enough work in the short term to keep the works open until the end of 2014 is excellent news, of course, but at best that means Litchurch Lane has nearly three years to go. After that, we don't know what will happen.

Indeed, I suspect that even those three years were anything but a done deal six months ago, and it may well be that an order for 130 Electrostar carriages for Southern was the deciding factor.

Ironically, it is the delays to the completion of the £1.4billion contract for Thameslink rolling stock which have made this order necessary.

Had the new rolling stock arrived as planned, some trains now on Thameslink could have been transferred to Southern for its expanded December 2013 timetable instead.

However, because the Government has dithered over the Thameslink order, the choices were to take some trains from that project (not on the cards), ditch Southern's new timetable (not a welcome development) or buy extra carriages.

Happily, this last option was chosen, and Derby, even more happily, will build them.

But there, in a nutshell, you have one of the problems with train procurement in Britain.

Transfers of rolling stock are relatively commonplace, often in response to changing demand, and known in the trade as "cascading".

But before you can cascade trains from Operator A to Operator B, you must have some replacements for A – unless the trains involved are surplus, which is rare.

If the new trains for A are late, then B is left in the lurch, along with B's passengers, who may then be stuck with some old carriages overdue for retirement or, worse still, have shorter trains and fewer seats. So, timely orders of rolling stock really do help the wheels to go round, to coin a phrase.

Even more to the point, regular orders keep Bombardier – and its East Midlands suppliers – in business.

But until the 130 carriages were ordered for Southern on December 28, almost a thousand days had passed since the previous trains order.

Nearly three years without anything new is too long to keep suppliers afloat and confident.

Fortunately, Litchurch Lane was busy in most of that period thanks to existing contracts but as 2011 drew to a close the work was starting to run out.

So, where are we now? The Southern order – worth £188million – is undoubtedly a lifeline, but it must be completed by later next year.

As things stand, beyond that there is only the S-Stock order for London Underground, which will be completed in 2014.

There are some new jobs on the cards. One of these is eVoyager, which has been discussed for at least two years.

It involves lengthening some Cross Country diesel units with another carriage, which includes a pantograph on its roof to pick up electric current.

These trains already have electric motors which drive the wheels and the diesels under the floor are generators which provide the current for these motors.

Under the eVoyager proposal the power comes from the overhead wires and you can switch the diesels off. When you reach a section without wires, you lower the pantograph and switch the diesels on again.

At the moment, the proposal only covers 34 diesel Voyagers out of Cross Country's total of 57.

Logically, the whole fleet should be included, as should another 48 in service with Virgin and East Midlands Trains (EMT's units are "Meridians").

In all, there is a potential demand for 105 "pantograph cars" and the total conversion cost might be around £200million.

Even though the present proposal is only for 34, how much of this work might come to Derby?

There is some doubt about this, because Voyagers are steel-bodied, and Derby does not have a steel production line.

Bombardier sources say the capital cost to create one would not be justified by an order for just 34 vehicles, so they would probably be built in Belgium.

However, final assembly, as well as the technical preparation, could take place at Derby.

Can we hope for better? Yes, we can, because a new fleet for Crossrail, which will run east-west under central London, must be ordered by 2014 and delivered in 2017 and 2018.

There will be about 60 trains, each some 200 metres long. Bombardier is one of four short-listed companies and the tender documents are due to be issued soon.

The Government has vowed to review its procurement processes since the Thameslink controversy, so let us hope that the wider economic benefits of building these trains in Derby are taken into account this time.

Beyond Crossrail, there is High Speed 2. The first section is due to open in 2026, so any new train order for HS2 is perhaps a decade away.

Without anything else, it would come too late to save Derby.

There are other prospects. Electrification is growing fast and it may well be that more electric trains will be needed soon.

But it is a pity that Bombardier does not still build trams at Derby – after all, the successful Nottingham fleet was built there 10 years ago, among others. New trams are much in demand in Britain.

Manchester is the leader, buying 74 trams built by Bombardier – in Vienna. London is just taking delivery of six (built in Germany by a Swiss company), Nottingham needs another 22 (to be built by French-owned Alstom) and Midland Metro in Birmingham has announced that its preferred bidder for up to 25 new trams is Spanish CAF.

It is rather galling, too, to see that Midland Metro invited tenders world-wide but reminded us in its announcement that "there are no tram-builders in the UK".

There are opportunities ahead for Bombardier in Derby, nonetheless, and now three years during which they must be grasped. I'm still optimistic.