Media centre

Friday 5 Mar 2004

WHITEMOOR DEPOT CONSTRUCTION MORE THAN HALF WAY THROUGH

Region & Route:

| Eastern: Anglia

| Eastern

| Southern

Work to reinstate the railway depot at Whitemoor is more than half way through construction.  Starting in November, the site has been transformed from derelict waste ground to a flat, organised construction site with a number of buildings, vehicles and thousands of tonnes of rail installed. Through the drenching December rain, January frosts and February snow, the construction team has made great progress in ensuring the site will be operational in April 2004. Peter Heubeck, Network Rail Project Director said:  “The transformation of the site is unbelievable and it is unrecognisable from just a few months ago.  The team has worked through extraordinary weather conditions to get track laid, foundations installed and buildings erected.  With only a few months to go until the site is operational, you can really see it starting to come together with long sidings dominating the layout and internal roads enabling ease of access.” Network Rail and its contractors, Birse have endeavoured to recycle as much on site as possible and where land has been levelled for the rails, the redundant earth has been used to build noise bunds near residential properties.  Likewise, new ponds have been dug and the surplus soil used to fill in old ponds. - more - Half way – 2 The statistics associated with the depot are huge:  24,100 recycled sleepers installed, 80,000 tonnes of track ballast, 32,000 metres of rail, 40,000 tonnes of aggregate laid, 211 lighting columns, 67 sets of points, 3,300 metres of perimeter fencing, 1,200 metres of site roadways, 16 kms of sidings.  However, we are not reinstating the yard at the expense of the environment as 50,000 tonnes of material have been used to build three noise bunds, 22,000 tonnes of grassland top soil have been relocated to a nature reserve and 219 Great Crested Newts have been carefully moved. Mr Heubeck continued:  “Network Rail is conscious that this site is radically different from just six months ago and we have been talking, listening and reacting swiftly to public concerns.  We are however, more than confident that this site is good news for March, bringing the railway and many jobs back to town.” Network Rail will be arranging an opening event for all of the community – read all about it in coming months.