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Friday 10 Jul 2009

NEW DEPOT FOR LONGER TRAINS OPENS FOR BUSINESS

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A new £15m maintenance building in Liverpool has been completed by Network Rail and handed over to depot managers Alstom to fit out in readiness to be used to extend Virgin’s Pendolino fleet from nine to 11 carriages. The additional vehicles will be shipped over from Italy, offloaded at Liverpool docks onto road vehicles for the short journey to Edge Hill.

The first of the new trains will arrive by end of 2010 with the initial batch of 44 vehicles built up into four completely new 11-carriage Pendolinos. The remaining 62 new vehicles will be integrated into 31 existing sets and in service by the end of 2012.

In the meantime, the new facility, which is approximately 280 metres long and 18 metres wide, will be used to maintain the existing Pendolino trains and to carry out heavy cleaning of the entire fleet.

Initial work started last October and involved removing the rails, sleepers and buffer stops from 11 sidings, and disconnecting and removing the overhead line equipment over two of them. All services such as power and water were disconnected, and concrete hard-standings were removed, crushed and recycled.

The approach roads to the new building are electrified, as are the two roads inside, and can be isolated independently if necessary. Inside, there are raised rails and a ‘swimming pool’ pit for Level 4 maintenance; wheelset drop facilities; overhead cranes; a reinforced lifting road; platform and roof access for staff.

A new access road has been constructed from Picton Road to the depot, with facilities for unloading railway vehicles from low-loader road transport, which in turn are connected by new tracks to the maintenance building. There is also new office accommodation.

The new facility means Alstom can service seven Pendolinos each night compared with four previously.