14.11.07
Eurostar maintenance depot opens in east London
Eurostar’s new UK depot, Eurostar Engineering Centre Temple Mills has been opened by Tom Harris MP, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport.
Situated in Leyton in east London, the Temple Mills depot is directly connected to the new dedicated 186mph line, High Speed 1, which will slash journey times between London and Paris/Brussels by at least 20 minutes.
The depot replaces Eurostar’s current UK depot North Pole International near White City in west London. Whilst North Pole has been an outstanding facility where the Eurostar fleet has been maintained for the last 13 years, it is inaccessible to High Speed 1.
Temple Mills is the main facility where all servicing, heavy maintenance and repair work of Eurostar trains will be undertaken in the UK from 13 November and has been designed to meet the specific requirements of high-speed trains. With eight 400-metre tracks inside the depot shed, Eurostar trains will no longer have to be split in half for maintenance or continually shunted around the depot – saving at least two hours per train visit.
The depot is located 10 minutes Eurostar running time from St Pancras International and can house eight full trains, each 400m in length. The overall dimensions of the eight road shed are approximately 435m long by 54m wide, with a floor to ceiling height of approximately 12m. Adjoining the main shed are a number of workshops, offices and the main administration building, along with a huge stores and materials shed. The depot is a 24 hour, 365 day operation and is staffed accordingly.
A first-of-its-kind, fail-safe protection system will also keep Eurostar staff safe while they work on the trains. Staff will switch from the effective but time inefficient padlock system to use swipe cards with PINs, so their personal safety and location can be assured at all times.
Key features of the depot include:
- Inter-road spacing (6.5m v 5.8m) providing good working room for staff undertaking servicing/maintenance activities.
- Fully fitted with an automated overhead electrification system.
- Bogie drop design allows two trains to be worked on simultaneously.
- Toilet discharge equipment allows two trains to be cleaned simultaneously.
- Carriage wash is bi-directional – trains can be washed when moving in either direction.
- Fully automated wheel condition monitoring equipment.
- Nine overhead cranes – six in the servicing/ maintenance building and three in the Bogie drop building. - 16 km (approx 10 miles) of track.
- Twice as much stores space as Eurostar’s previous depot in west London due to extensive 10m vertical racking.
Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown said: “Temple Mills will further improve the efficiency of maintaining our fleet. A feat of civil and railway engineering, Temple Mills is a truly world class depot, which has been finished on time and on budget. It is a remarkable achievement and a symbol of the sheer hard work and determination of all involved.”
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