On shed
AFTER many years of decline, the number of modern traction depots is actually on the rise again to cope with the many new trains currently, or soon to be, entering service.
Recent openings have included the new depot at Reading and Hitachi’s depots at Stoke Gifford (Bristol) and Swansea, while the former Eurostar depot at North Pole in London has also been reopened by Hitachi for its Class 800 IETs.
New EMU depots have also opened in the last few years at New Cross Gate (London Overground) and Three Bridges (Thameslink), while Greater Anglia is planning to build a major depot to maintain new-build EMUs. Manningtree was the site chosen by Abellio Greater Anglia, but problems over land ownership, plus rail and road access, seem likely to scupper that plan and anew site may have to be found.
EMU depots predominate on the former British Rail Southern Region, where long-distance electrification dates from the 1930s, whereas electrification is new to the former Western Region routes out of Paddington. Depots where you might find a significant number of locomotives are now few and far between in the areas covered in this article and, with the exception of the soon to be replaced Class 91s, only a handful of locomotives are now allocated to any London depot.
Purpose-built diesel depots that have passed into history include Finsbury Park in London and Margam in South Wales, while the list of closed diesel depots adapted from steam age sites includes Stratford in London, Bath Road in Bristol and Ebbw Junction in Newport.
This article includes purpose-built depots or conversions still operational in the southern and eastern parts of England and Wales, whereas steam age depots still used by modern traction were covered in Parts One (September 2017 issue) and Two (December 2017 issue).
LONDON AREA
The depot opened in 1976 before deployment of HSTs on the East Coast route out of King’s Cross, eventually leading to the closure of nearby Finsbury Park with its fleets of ‘Deltics’, ‘47s’ and ‘31s’. HSTs are still in evidence 40 years after they led to a major decrease in journey times on the route, but not for much longer as they will be displaced by IETs from the end of 2018. The depot was electrified in 1987 and the Class 91 electric
