In 1901, the Great Western Railway acquired a site north of the main line and south of the Grand Union Canal at South Acton for a new loco and carriage depot which opened fully in 1906. Fast forward 111 years to a bright sunny February afternoon and3 12 members visited another new depot almost ready for commissioning on the same site. It will provide facilities for the maintenance and servicing of the 66 strong Crossrail fleet of 9-car Class 345 'Aventra' EMUs being built by Bombardier at Derby. Running at up to 90 mph, each 200m long train can carry 1,500 passengers. There will be 80 maintenance jobs at Old Oak Common Depot.

Bombardier Transport UK awarded Taylor Woodrow the £142M 'design and build' contract for the 9-road Crossrail depot. The shed can be extended west to take 10-car trains. Energy is generated and stored using a hybrid renewable system including roof solar panels, solar heated water, and ground heat pumps using the 15,000m³ of concrete depot foundations with 150m deep bore holes. 11,000 tonnes of ballast will be used and 19km of Overhead Line Electric wire with 249 supporting structures.

The EMUs are specified to be washed alternate days so there is a two-road train wash able to take 12 trains an hour with 70% of the water used recycled. The offices, train simulator, and control room are all sited on the first floor above the maintenance part of the train shed. The control room has an excellent panoramic view to the east and over the approach roads to the shed and stabling sidings. Our interesting tour was led by Fred Garner, Director (Rail) at Taylor Woodrow, part of VINCI Construction UK. First, we saw the inside of the 9-road depot building with facilities for light and heavy maintenance with underbody cleaning and access. At one end there is a double headed wheel lathe. One road has synchronised lifting jacks and another has a bogie-swap facility with bogie turntables where complete bogies can be extracted from a train and replaced very quickly. Ilford depot is supporting the introduction of the new fleet in its current 7-car formation. However, Old Oak Common depot will be ready to receive trains in September as planned, for the start of dynamic testing on Crossrail surface lines in November before operation through central London in Dec 2018. Next stop was the roof of the new building. In addition to seeing the railway layout in the area and trains of many operators, what metaphorically hit the eye were the many solar panels installed as part of the system which will deliver over 30% of energy consumed in the depot from renewable sources. As somebody remarked, with the sun shining all we needed were deck chairs and binoculars to record some numbers. There were certainly plenty of trains whizzing by on the Great Western Main Line. Participants were able to walk through No.9    Shed Road pit, now awaiting rails.    [© Stuart Hicks 2017]

The site of the new HS2 station was pointed out, provisionally named 'New Queens Park', and how it shoehorns into the area. The current 'old' Old Oak Common Depot will be demolished and rebuilt to serve HS2 from London Euston to Birmingham. The new station will be a major interchange with other main line and commuter services, including Crossrail and the GWML. HS2 will be in a tunnel here, with the GWML and Crossrail tracks on the surface. Looking further ahead, future residential tower blocks and offices are planned over most if not the whole of the site, which in turn may well lead to some very prestigious developments. Old Oak Common could well become a very sought after location.

Our visit concluded at the future depot control room with a panoramic view over the arrival and departure roads then an introduction to a Building Information Modelling system over a cup of tea. Our thanks for a most interesting, different and informative visit were given to Fred Garner. It enabled members to gain a greater insight into the vastness of the whole project of Crossrail let alone future developments planned for the enormous site. Brunel would be very proud of what is being achieved, especially as the location was a very important GWR depot in steam days.