A Huntingdon-based British maker of lightweight composite and honeycomb-panel components, such as train doors, floors and partitions, now owned by India's Kineco Group.
TRB Lightweight Structures designs and makes lightweight parts from composite materials and aluminium honeycomb panels. Composites are strong, light materials made by combining fibres and resin. The company's products include rail interior parts such as passenger and emergency doors, driver cab end walls, flooring, partitions, toilet modules and storage cabinets. It has also served aerospace, with seats, galley and lavatory inserts, and has developed electric vehicle battery enclosures. A 2015 trade report said it holds AS9100 aerospace accreditation, and it has added an autoclave (a pressure oven for curing composite parts) and a clean room.
The company says it has more than seven decades of experience, and a rolling stock news report gives 1954 as its founding year. A 2019 trade profile says it began as a maker of honeycomb flat panels and sold its sister business, Amber Composites, in 2013 to concentrate on TRB. The same profile says it was ranked in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 in 2018, with turnover growing 68% in 2017. Its president Andrew Dugmore described "huge growth" at that time. In September 2025 Kineco Group, an Indian engineering group, bought TRB, and it continues under its own name.
TRB's UK base is Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, where it designs and builds its products. Its customers include Hitachi Rail, for partition walls on the UK Intercity Express trains, and Siemens, for the Inspiro metro trains for London, and it also supplies train builders in Europe and Asia. Paul Colquitt is named as managing director in the 2025 acquisition report. Kineco is merging its rail businesses under Kineco Global Rail, alongside Semvac in Denmark. The 2025 report does not give a headcount.
On culture, the 2019 profile describes lean manufacturing, meaning the constant removal of waste, with regular improvement events across the business. Then managing director Richard Holland came from a lean consultancy, and the company invested in testing facilities and a product development team. Mr Colquitt said the deal would let TRB "channel its energy into the rail sector" and build on its reputation for innovation. Those are the company's own statements, from different years, and we did not find a values page or staff stories.
People at a composites manufacturer include design and stress engineers, process and manufacturing engineers, laminators and technicians who build parts by hand and in machines, quality inspectors, project managers, buyers, and finance and sales staff. Engineering, materials science, product design and technician-level manufacturing paths all lead here. Rail is a growing area of UK engineering, so a business like this links classroom physics and maths directly to trains people travel on every day.
Website: trbls.com
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