Infrastructure firm delivers maintenance facility at historic railway site

Spencer Group, the Hull-based rail infrastructure firm, has erected a new maintenance facility at the home of Britain’s last surviving rail roundhouse.

From design and development to handover, the group completed the project at Barrow Hill rail heritage centre in a total turnaround of just 21 weeks.

East Midlands Trains brought Spencer Group on to the Barrow Hill project for Network Rail. The brief was to design and build a temporary depot to enable Barrow Hill to service East Midlands Trains’ fleet of Class 222 Meridian and high-speed trains (HSTs).

The temporary maintenance facility will be operational for approximately 12 weeks, which will allow essential upgrades to be made to the wider network of depots and signal systems.

As well as a tourist attraction and heritage centre, Barrow Hill is also an operational Network Rail depot and a privately-owned facility.

Joe Bennett, Spencer Group project director in charge of implementing the designs and running the 12-week construction phase, said: “We’re a multi-disciplinary company. We take a concept from first principles and bring it to fruition safely, on time and on budget.

“Implementing the construction phase has been a great team effort, with 60 people working on the project.”