A night with the night shift crew
PAUL STEPHEN meets the team at Arriva TrainCare’s maintenance facility in Crewe
Depots come in various different guises, shapes and sizes, but seldom seem to provide much ease of access to non-rail traffic. Arriva TrainCare’s (ATC’s) maintenance facility in Crewe is certainly no different in this respect, given its ‘landlocked’ location to the south of Crewe station.
Situated on the opposite side of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) to Basford Hall Yard, ATC occupies the site of what was formerly Crewe Carriage Sidings.
Sandwiched within the apex of the junction between the WCML and the North Staffordshire Line (NSL), the depot is surrounded by track.
Visitors therefore usually have two options to get there: either a long and meandering trackside walk via a gate on Crewe station’s Platform 12 (once proper authorisation and supervision is given), or via the bumpy unpaved road and manned crossing gate on the NSL that provides the depot’s sole vehicular access point.
And for the latter, local knowledge often proves essential. The crossing can be closed for as long as 30 minutes at a time, in order to accommodate a steady stream of freight and passenger traffic between Crewe and Stoke-on-Trent.
Luckily for RAIL, there was no such delay during our visit on November 23, with ATC host Simon Roberts timing our arrival to perfection ahead of the night shift clocking on.
“Don’t worry, we have plans to put a new road in there soon,” he says cheerily, giving the crossing operator a familiar wave as the latter emerges from his Portakabin to close the gate behind us.
Roberts is ATC’s Head of Engineering Delivery. He is also well known to RAIL, having previously given a behind-the-scenes tour of Eastcroft depot in Nottingham ( RAIL 801), which he managed for East Midlands Trains until switching to ATC in July 2016.
Like many of his colleagues on the company’s executive team, Roberts joined ATC less than two years ago to help preside over a period of record growth in its order book for maintenance and servicing of rolling stock and locomotives. And that growth shows little sign of slowing down.
ATC’s story began almost a decade ago, when its parent company Arriva UK Trains bought the LNWR rail vehicle maintenance business from Pete Waterman in November 2008.
Headquartered in Crewe, LNWR’s trading name was changed to ATC in 2014, three years after four additional maintenance depots were also acquired by the company at Bristol, Cambridge, Eastleigh and Newcastle.
Although a Deutsche Bahn-owned company, ATC operates as an autonomous subsidiary of Arriva UK Trains. This enables it to provide services both to an internal market of Arriva train operating companies (TOCs), but also a lengthy list of external clients.
These include operators from other TOCowning groups, rolling stock companies (ROSCOs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), all seeking to make use of ATC’s engineering expertise and the strategic location of its depots.
This diverse client base is apparent at Crewe, where contracts include overnight servicing (fuelling, washing, cleaning and control emission tank emptying) for Bombardier Class 220/221 Voyagers operated by Virgin West Coast, as well as for Siemens
Class 350 Desiros (operated by London Midland until the franchise changed to West Midlands Trains on December 10).
Tonight, it will also welcome members of Arriva Trains Wales’ 15x fleet and two East Midlands Trains (EMT) 15x diesel multiple units. It will also provide stabling space for two newly built Class 345 Aventras (345002/014) that are undergoing commissioning and pantograph testing before their final delivery to Crossrail/TfL Rail’s depots at Ilford and Old Oak Common.
In the meantime, RAIL is shown the heavy and light maintenance activity which takes place during the day. This is the side of the business that is registering the most significant growth, according to ATC’s Head of Commercial and Bid Russell Fletcher.
He says this is being driven by clients racing to ensure older diesel multiple units (DMUs) comply with the PRM - TSI (Persons with Reduced Mobility - Technical Specification for Interoperability) deadline in 2020, and to deliver increasingly ambitious franchise commitments to refurbish ageing fleets.
He explains: “For us, being part of the Arriva Group is a massive advantage. Obviously, we have a close relationship with the Arriva TOCs and help support their
There are lots of TOCs in the middle of getting new fleets and stock cascades, and they’re looking for someone to take that problem of refurbishment or overhaul away. Russell Fletcher, Head of Commercial and Bid, Arriva TrainCare
franchise bidding, but the strength of the brand and all that shared Arriva knowledge we can call on has also attracted others from externally, despite ATC sounding like a competitor to them.
“There are lots of TOCs in the middle of getting new fleets and stock cascades, and they’re looking for someone to take that problem of refurbishment or overhaul away.
“Heavy maintenance has grown from almost nothing [in 2008] to quite a lot now, with a 1,100% increase in just the last four years. To cater for this, we’ve been expanding services at all of our depots, including building new paint booths at both Bristol and Eastleigh.”
Heavy maintenance is concentrated at Crewe, within a modern four-road shed built in 1999 that also houses ATC’s procurement, training and commercial staff and site welfare facilities. It is also home to a large store room, although that is being relocated to a new purpose-built store on another part of the site, to enable the vacated space to be converted to a third paint booth (which is due to open by late February).
The heavy maintenance shed also used to house ATC’s finance, HR and ledger functions, but these have now been moved off-site to make room for a growing order book and to fit more vehicles.
“Converting the stores will serve multiple purposes,” adds Fletcher. “We’ll get bigger stores to relieve some of the growing pains we’re feeling at the moment, and another paint booth without taking away capacity elsewhere.”
The need for this is obvious. ATC has a large contract with Arriva Rail North to repaint approximately 200 vehicles within the next two years, as part of the operator’s fleet transformation programme.
Inside the shed, Northern 156483 has already received a new lick of paint and is approaching completion of its ten-day internal and external refresh, including a full deep clean of its seat covers and carpets. Meanwhile, on an adjacent road, Northern 150222 has been sandblasted and awaits its turn in the paint booth. It will be joined by 13 Class 150s recently cascaded from Great Western Railway to Northern that will operate alongside the other refurbished stock and 98 new trains that are on order and due to enter traffic from December 2018.
Among the other vehicles receiving attention from ATC’s 40 maintenance staff is Arriva Trains Wales (ATW) 158822, which is undergoing a C6 exam, and two ATW
We have found two people on trains in the last few months who were fast asleep. Nick Jones, Area Delivery Manager South, Arriva TrainCare
‘150s’ that have been stripped down to varying degrees for inspection before being overhauled.
Also in the shed, the presence of 170202 is a reminder that ATC is refurbishing 12 Class 170s (36 vehicles) for Greater Anglia and Porterbrook. Each will take approximately 25 days to complete, and include the installation of new plug sockets, cushions, seat backs and covers, carpets, wall panels and toilet flooring. ATC is also repainting grab rails and vestibules and refurbishing heating and air-conditioning units, in addition to providing them with new liveries.
170202 was the seventh ‘170’ to undergo refurbishment, with two three-car (170205/207) and three two-car (170271-273) units left to go before the project is due to finish.
Meanwhile, to the south of the maintenance shed, is ATC’s wheel lathe. Here, Direct Rail Services 68033 is being worked on for wheel flats having made the short trip from Gresty Bridge depot.
Built in 2004, the wheel lathe can turn two axles at any one time at a rate of four axles every six hours. With the height of the leaf fall season having only just passed, it is turning 200 axles every four weeks for 14 customers, plus the four TOCs for which ATC provides overnight servicing at Crewe.
As darkness descends, it’s almost time for the night shift to begin, and for the focus to shift away from heavy and light maintenance to overnight servicing. Tonight, there will be approximately 35 staff on site, including an operations controller, shift manager, team leader, 12 technicians, two fuel technicians and 12 train presentation operatives ( TPOs).
It isn’t long before the first unit arrives at 1945 (ATW 153303). Having arrived from the north on Road 8 (see track plan, above), it is handed over by its driver to an ATC technician to take it through the carriage wash and on to one of two fuel roads for refuelling.
A further five ATW DMUs will follow over the next three hours, plus the operator’s Class 67-hauled Mk 3 set and Driving Van Trailer.
London Midland 350374 also arrives before 2000, as the first of ten ‘350s’ due in for overnight servicing. After refuelling and emptying of the controlled emission toilets it is moved to Road 1 (see track plan), where it awaits its turn for internal cleaning by ATC’s team of TPOs.
Road 1 is one of three electrified roads in Carriage Shed 1, which (alongside Carriage Shed 2) was originally built more than a century ago before being used by British Rail to stable DMUs in the nationalisation era.
Following Pete Waterman’s purchase of the site in 1996, the two carriage sheds became home to Mk 1 coaching stock owned by Riviera Trains and Regency Rail Cruises, as part of his company’s remit to provide operational support for charter businesses.
Back in the present, and a team of ten TPOs has arrived for a briefing by the TPO leader on what work lies ahead for them, before they split into three pods: one to service the Voyagers; one for the Desiros; and another for the EMT and ATW DMUs.
Tonight, the team will have their work cut out. The usual allocation of five Voyagers will be joined by an additional three, which constitutes an additional 15 vehicles in for cleaning. This is because heavy rain has flooded parts of the North Wales Coast Line, blocking access to Holyhead TMD where they would normally be serviced having completed their diagrams.
The TPOs set about their task enthusiastically, however, demonstrating both their flexibility and ATC’s ability to quickly respond to the rapidly changing daily needs of the railway.
RAIL enquires as to what items are most frequently left behind by passengers, and discovered on the night shift by the TPOs.
“We find a lot of wallets and phones, as you might expect,” says ATC’s area delivery manager south Nick Jones.
“There are some objects that would not be appropriate to name in a publication like RAIL, but we have found two people on trains in the last few months who were fast asleep. We have a duty of care to get them to their destination station, so we take them to a secure place and phone a taxi, or the BTP if they’re drunk and we get any problems.”
Looking to the future, it seems likely that ATC will need to electrify more roads within the depot, as older DMUs reach the end of their operational lives and a greater need emerges for the maintenance and overhaul of newer electric multiple units.
This forms part of ATC’s 2021 strategy to become the UK’s leading maintenance provider, alongside the need to build up the skills sets required to cater for the next generation of rolling stock in an era of increased digitisation and more automated systems.
The final word goes to ATC Managing Director Sean Forster, who says that the maintenance market for legacy diesel fleets will continue to play a key role in ATC’s dayto-day activities.
ATC will also be looking to work more closely with OEMs, which while increasingly offering TOCs ‘build and maintain’ contracts for new trains, may need to outsource some of the work to meet demand.
He says: “There will be a place for diesel trains for a long time. With electrification on hold in key areas, even the West Coast Main Line is likely to have bi-modes because confidence in electrifying joining routes is not there.
“There is certainly a desire and ambition to move towards all-electric fleets, but I don’t think the legacy fleets will be able to be retired soon.
“There is also an opportunity to work with some of the manufacturers who have limited presence or capability in the UK, and there will be overflow with the new fleets.”
With a growing client base and a bold business strategy to implement, ATC looks well-placed to increase its market share over the next few years. For visitors like RAIL, this could mean that the new road might come sooner than we think.
For more exclusive behind-the-scenes images of ATC Crewe, visit RAIL’s online gallery at: https://www.railmagazine.com/
There is certainly a desire and ambition to move towards all-electric fleets, but I don’t think the legacy fleets will be able to be retired soon. Sean Forster, Managing Director, Arriva TrainCare