by Mark Collins

This was a long night! Chelsea were dumped out of the UEFA Cup by the part-timers of Viking FK, we were filming until 4am and I started to get a cold as we started at around 8pm.

However despite all this it was really interesting to find out what goes on at a maintenance depot at night. Once again the First Great Western staff were more than helpful and I enjoyed the enthusiasm of Steve Overton and the cleaning staff who posed for us with their vacuum cleaners.

Unless you’re involved on a regular basis, you can’t appreciate what goes on in order to get trains ready for the following day. For instance I didn’t know that Train Operating Companies can still be fined if a train is late off the depot first thing in the morning.

While we were filming they found they had an extra Class 47 on shed which had come up from Laira. I found it odd that no one wanted it and it was shoved in a siding while more important matters were taken care of. I also felt old remembering that IC125’s were now getting on for 20 years old!

The leap forward in maintenance technology was shown by the new Adelantes (Class180). Plug in a laptop and it even tells you if the flush in one of the toilets isn’t working properly. If there’s a second series of trainspotting then I’ll cover them in a feature.

Trainspotting.links (will open in a new window)

www.great-western-trains.co.uk
www.users.zetnet.co.uk/lexcie/ic125.htm