A stone’s throw from Manchester’s thriving city centre is a landmark that has quietly stood the test of industrial and political upheaval spanning three centuries.
From the tail end of Britain’s 19th century railway boom and bust, to the network’s nationalisation and privatisation, the world’s oldest working train depot has been in plain view to millions of passengers busily going about their everyday business along the west coast mainline.
Now, as the workers at the Longsight traincare centre prepare to mark its 175th anniversary this month, the depot is primed to enter another new chapter: high speed rail.
Rather fittingly, the ambitions of HS2 to better connect the country echo the depot’s founding legacy; its very first train shed was constructed in 1842 under plans by the pioneering Birmingham and Manchester Railway Company to link the two major cities.
While the depot’s current owner, Alstom, was formed in France in the 1920s, its family tree reveals that it too has ties to the “railway mania” of the Victorian era. One of its ancestors is Robert Stephenson & Co, a company at the heart of the boom in North England and creator of the Stephenson’s Rocket – the cutting edge technology of its day.
Fast forward to 2017, and being at the cutting edge remains core to what’s now called the Alstom Traincare Centre, located three miles from Manchester city centre.
Recent times have focused on transforming the existing depot into a modern facility that services a diverse range of fleet, including Alstom’s Pendolinos used by Virgin, whose distinctive tilting mechanism enables them to traverse parts of the main line from London to Glasgow at a top speed of 125mph.
Operations director Richard Woodroofe says substantial investments have been made across Alstom’s six depots, with a focus on “developing what we have got rather than knocking it down and starting again”.
Long gone are the track-side terraced houses known as Tank Row – although scratch the surface of the yard and there are still remnants of the old coaling and ash plants.
Many of the engine shed structures remain, the first of which was built in 1869 with 12 roads accommodating 70 locomotives. The two-road electric traction depot built in 1961 to mark the move from steam to diesel still stands tall. The last steam locomotives left Longsight in 1965.
Three decades later and there was more change afoot, as the railways passed from government ownership into private hands and Longsight was taken over by Virgin, before Alstom took ownership.
By 1999 the introduction of the Class 390 Pendolinos ushered in another new chapter for Longsight, with alterations to the sheds and roads to make way for the high speed electric trains. By 2011, the depot was preparing for the next 11-carriage iteration of the Pendolino.
Modernisation at Longsight has meant a fundamental change to the work culture. Safety on site is of course paramount in a way that it never was decades ago.
Maintenance work is also more focused on giving commuters the best possible experience – from keeping the Pendolino in top condition, to ensuring that the cleaning, catering and Wifi access are all up to scratch.
These days, maintenance takes place between 10pm and 6am, and the site hosts innovative fleet maintenance technology such as TrainScanner, which last year attracted hordes of enthusiasts from overseas. The integrated monitoring system hosts lasers and cameras that offer real-time time health checks of the 11-foot tall Pendolino high speed train fleet.
TrainScanner does this via a diagnostics port and predictive maintenance facility that can track and assess the life of components, and ultimately reduce time and cost in order to support the number of trains available to operators.
But while technological advances are an essential part of today’s story, a depot that has operated for this long has only been as good as its people.
One of Longsight’s 175-strong workforce is David Short, a third generation rail worker whose sister, brother in law and now son, Jordan, also work in the industry.
“If you’re a railway family, it’s in your blood,” says Short, who began at the depot as an apprentice in 1976, learning his trade across several British Rail divisions, including derailments, which would keep him away from home for days on end.
The 57-year-old from Reddish, Stockport, who grew up the son of a station master in London before closure took them north-bound, recalls the uncertain times that came with the privatisation of British Rail as Virgin moved in, but says what followed was a surprise.
“They started to look after you more,” he says.
“I’ve loved every minute of it. Back in the 80s [and 90s] it was more uncertain, with the privatisation, you never know whether you’d keep your job. But it’s a pretty safe industry to be in.”
Short’s son, Jordan, joins the likes of Conor Freeman, 21, who lives five minutes down the road in Longsight. Conor, an A* student, has chosen to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by working at the depot. He says it was largely the knowledge of having that family support and community network that brought him to the depot.
Now both the veteran and the apprentice are looking to the next chapter for Longsight - with Short clear about the direction of travel for his son’s career. “I keep telling him, ‘HS2 is your future’.”
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