Singlewell
Maintenance Infrastructure Depot
I
like many others no doubt, have watched with interest the construction of the
CTRL lineside buildings at Singlewell, south of the present and planned A2
route.
The
object of these structures is to provide am integrated maintenance facility
(IMD) for the whole of CTRL (or HS1 as Union Railways now wish to call it)
It will provide the base for
maintenance of the HS1 route, of the following departments:
Track,
and signalling,
Control
and communications systems
Power
supply system
Civil
Engineering
When
completed It will consist of
About
145 staff will be employed (about half of whom in 2003 were already employed at
Ashford) and the facility will operate 24 hours a day.
It
replaces a proposal at the time of the CTRL Bill for a Maintenance
Infrastructure Depot on Swanscombe Peninsular. This became the temporary
construction site east of the Thames tunnel portal.
The
requirement for a seperate maintenance depot was deleted when Railtrack got
involved, but the requirement was re-instated when it was realised that the
special track maintenance machines are built to UIC B gauge and would be out of
gauge for the normal British rail C1 lines.
It
will not be used for ballast or rail laying, this will continue to be dealt with
from Hoo Junction, although there is to be an area for laying out new points.
The
depot is planned to be operational prior to the opening of the route via
Ebbsfleet to St Pancras November 14th 2007.
Many
thanks to Tony Chadwick @ Gravesham Council for the background information.