Stoke Gifford intercity express depot
The Stoke Gifford depot provides a new purpose built, state of the art facility, incorporating a ten car storage maintenance depot and carriage wash building along with associated rail infrastructure and three new connections to the Great Western Main line.
The new Stoke Gifford depot in Bristol is one of three depots selected by Hitachi to house its new fleet of long-distance intercity express trains that operate on the Great Western Mainline (GWML).
The depot facilities were built on a brown field site previously used by a concrete aggregate recycling facility. This meant extensive testing and checking for contaminants to ensure the site was appropriately remediated.
As a condition of the planning consent, a 500m long culvert, up to 15m deep in places, was built under the site to take away flood water. The construction of a 7m high noise bund around the depot perimeter protected residents from disturbance.
The depot is located on a triangle shaped site. The ten car storage and maintenance depot was constructed on the northern corner of the site with a floor area of approximately 4,950 m2. The depot included two raised maintenance roads with roof and platform level access and 2.5 tonne monorail hoists. To the west of the depot, a two storey building was constructed to provide office and welfare facilities. Other buildings house a train wash, wheel lathe and amenity facilities.
Permanent way works including track signalling and overhead line electrification to Network Rail approved standards were also installed.
At its peak, over 350 people worked on the site during the construction phase. The workforce included several apprentices from the local technology colleges as part of our National Skills Academy in Construction role.
