Thameslink Three Bridges depot opens its doors

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Thameslink’s Three Bridges depot has opened and is set to begin maintaining Britain’s modern Class 700 fleet.

Around £300 million has been invested in Three Bridges and another brand new depot in Hornsey, both built by VolkerFitzpatrick, which will maintain GTR’s new 12 and eight-car trains.

The facility in Crawley, West Sussex, was opened by Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin on October 15.Siemens-Three-Bridges-Traincare-Facility-Aerial-Shot-3

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said: “The opening of this state-of-the-art facility is a major milestone and paves the way for an impressive new fleet of hi-tech trains to come into service from spring next year.”

The depot includes an automatic inspection facility which uses lasers to measure and predict when components need to be maintained and renewed.

Driver training will also be carried out in the depot’s purpose-built simulator.

The first Class 700 train arrived at Three Bridges in the early hours of July 31. Testing is underway, ready for the start of passenger service in spring 2016.

The new trains, combined with the redevelopment of London Bridge and an upgraded signalling system, will allow operator GTR to run 24 trains an hour on the Thameslink route through central London by the end of 2018.

In July 2016, Hornsey will also be complete, marking another milestone in the creation of the £6.5 billion project’s support network.

4 COMMENTS

  1. So when is the new Siemens Hornsey Depot due to open? Next year or 2017. Anyways it good to see that Siemens Three Bridges Depot is now opened and soon the Class 700/1 8-car and Class 700/2 12-car Desiro City trains are to be delivered from Germany to both Three Bridges and Hornsey depots ready for passenger services from Bedford, Luton, Luton Airport Parkway, Peterborough, King’s Linn and Cambridge to Brighton, Sevenoaks, Horsham, Gatwick Airport, Crawley, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, Hastings and East Croydon in 2016/2017.

    • Andrew

      As I understand Hornsey will be ready mid 2016. Two Class 700 12-car trains are in the UK now. 6 more are built, as well as two 8-car, waiting to complete testing and be sent to UK. A total of 5 x 12-car will be here by Christmas.
      Testing on the network commences next month, and the first train will be in passenger service in Spring 2016.

      • Right. So the Class 700’s will start passenger service from Spring next year with the Class 319’s cascaded to Northern Rail which 20 of them been cascaded to serve Manchester Suburban, North Pennine and Manchester-Liverpool routes. London Midland already have got 4 Class 319’s for Semi-Fast services between London Euston-Milton Keynes Central & Northampton (3 319’s) and 1 Class 319 is being used on the Watford Junction-St. Albans Abbey service that the 7 Class 321’s are to be cascaded to Abellio Scotrail and the rest of the Class 319’s are to be cascaded to Great Western Railway along with 29 Class 387/1’s also to be cascaded from Thameslink.

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