South Western Railway already benefiting from new depot at Feltham
South Western Railway (SWR) is already seeing the benefits of its new 10 car train depot at Feltham, which was constructed by VolkerFitzpatrick and VolkerRail, following 18 months of extensive development work.
The depot was built on the old Feltham marshalling yard in South West London, bringing a third of the vast site (11 acres) back into use, following its closure in the late-1960s.
Now operational, the new depot includes stabling facilities to accommodate up to ten trains, a carriage wash machine and a CETS, along with specialist servicing equipment and accommodation buildings. The new facilities are already providing benefits to SWR, who has seen a reduction in turn round time, leading to better reliability and punctuality for its customers.
As part of the project, VolkerRail, constructed 4km of bi-directional (arrival/departure) track and installed a new signalling system, and installed tested and commission a new Harlington Road RRI interlocking, 19 new location cases (fabricated in advance at Doncaster), 12 new signals for the track and signalling alteration, nine HW points ends and a signalling panel alteration; all completed and handed back into service by 1:30am on Monday 1 November 2020.
As part of the signalling scope of works, VolkerRail had already removed and relocated several location cases, in preparation for the new arrivals line being installed. This included cable diversions, which saw the testing team swap nearly 800 signalling circuits into the new cables and location case in May 2020. This also enabled the team to install the turnouts into the new arrivals in August 2020.
A third rail 750kV DC conductor rail system was also installed throughout the depot, and the specialist servicing equipment and accommodation buildings were constructed to incorporate sustainable technology, to achieve a BREEAM rating of Excellent.
Alex Foulds, major projects director at SWR, said: “It has been a pleasure to work alongside VolkerFitzpatrick in developing this new, state-of-the-art depot. The depot has not only transformed a part of South West London that was formally derelict, but it is also set to transform the services we offer our customers.
“Feltham will become the new home for our £1bn Arterio fleet, with these brand new trains set to deliver more modern, faster and reliable services on what is one of Europe’s busiest rail networks.”
Once brought into service, the new depot will house SWR’s new Arterio train fleet, which will help to transform travel on the Reading, Windsor and West London suburban routes.
