Tuesday 13 Oct 2009
BIRKENHEAD RAIL DEPOT STAFF SEE THE LIGHT
- Region & Route:
Thanks to Network Rail, train maintenance staff at Merseyrail’s Birkenhead depot are working in much brighter conditions now they have a new £2.5m roof over their heads. The work was completed with no disruption to passenger services.
| | The nine-month long project started in January and one of the first jobs was to build an intricate scaffolding system inside the depot to support a crash deck under the roof that would not interfere with the maintenance of the trains below |
Network Rail route director Jo Kaye explained: “When we are working on a roof we have to build a safety deck to protect anyone working on the ground below. The priority for Network Rail in carrying out this work was doing it in a way that didn’t stop trains, because that could have had an impact on Merseyrail’s excellent performance record.
“In total we used 14 miles of scaffolding tube on this project. Laid end to end, that’s enough to stretch from Birkenhead to Chester, but it meant we got the job completed on time without disrupting the work of the depot.”
Kevin Thomas, Merseyrail's engineering director, said: "Merseyrail trains are getting more reliable all the time and having this new roof will help to further improve our performance. A brighter, and above all dry, working environment will help get the best out of people working to maintain our trains. After all, you can't maintain an electric train in a damp depot"
Notes to editors
The old depot roof was constructed in four stepped tiers with corrugated plastic panel cladding and traditional skylights. The cladding was life-expired and much of it was corroded, the skylights had cracked glazing and the flashing sealing the roof to the brickwork was missing or decayed. Consequently a lot of work was needed in recent years simply to reduce the amount of rainwater coming into the depot.
The new roof is built on one continuous level, with alternating solid and translucent plastic panels. The underside is painted off-white and the roof steelwork is light grey, all of which go to make the depot much lighter inside.
Other work included new guttering and a new roof access system to make future maintenance inspections much easier than before.
The main contractor was J. Murphy & Sons (Golborne office) and the scaffolding was supplied by SGB (Manchester office).
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