Operator and Northern parent company Arriva Rail North (ARN) has almost completed the refurbishment of the Newton Heath train depot in Manchester.
With a £20m investment, the project is expected to boost the depot’s maintenance capability and subsequently increase the reliability and punctuality for its travellers.
The new Northern diesel trains will be housed at this depot, where its 300 employees will carry out routine servicing, maintenance, upkeep and repair.
Most of the work is done in the night to ensure that the trains operate in the day.
Northern’s engineering director Ben Ackroyd said: “We want to make sure we can get as many trains as possible in service for customers and to do that we need state of the art engineering facilities and expert technicians and engineers.
“Train maintenance depots are the unseen critical element of the railway and we are delivering multimillion investment across the region to improve and expand these operations.”
This project at Newton Heath is slated to finish by June. The new revamped facility will feature 16 15t power jacks that are capable of carrying a four-carriage, 96m-long train.
The other depots undergoing revamp are Allerton, Liverpool; Ardwick, Manchester; and Neville Hill in Leeds.
Last week, Arriva Rail North unveiled 75 new trains for public service. The new rolling stock are part of 101 trains ordered.
In January, UK Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps announced that the government will operate Northern from 1 March, when the franchise will be transferred to DfT OLR Holdings (DOHL) subsidiary Northern Trains Limited.
