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Wednesday 18 Jan 2006

NEW ROOF FOR TRAIN MAINTENANCE DEPOT

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The job of looking after trains that serve a large number of north west stations has been made that bit more comfortable now the stores, admin block and the ‘parlour’ shed all have new roofs at Newton Heath train maintenance depot in Manchester. The £682,000 project started last summer and is on target to be completed later this month. Scaffolding was erected around the outside of the buildings and a special ‘crash deck’ was put in place underneath the roof in the stores and ‘parlour’ train shed so that maintenance staff could continue to work below in complete safety. The scaffolding inside the buildings had to be put up in such a way that it did not restrict the movement of fork lift trucks and interfere with the maintenance work This allowed the roof cladding to be stripped off, which revealed that a number of ‘purlins’ had to be replaced. These are long timbers that run the length of the roof, and installing new timbers removed the undulations in the roof. Once the new purlins were in place, the roofs were finished of with new cladding, glazing bars and roofing sheets.