Ross Thomson

Said the following about Inverness Maintenance Depot:

“An Introduction to Inverness Depot –

Inverness Maintenance Depot is operated by Abellio ScotRail, the operating company of Scotland’s railway. Our Depot appears from the outside to be one miniature cog in the greater workings of the great railway Swiss watch. However, what isn’t evident from the outside is that Inverness depot holds vital geographic strategic importance within the British rail community. Inverness Depot is quite literally the last railway maintenance location in the north of the UK. It sits 167 miles to the south of Thurso, 81 miles to the east of Kyle of Lochalsh, 108 miles to the west of Aberdeen and 118 miles to the north of Perth. Consequentially, our maintenance staff have the area of responsibility equivalent to 13,500 miles² – greater than the entire landmass of Belgium.

Within the depot, we have a team of 92 dedicated engineers and admin working to provide the local community and our friends with the customer experience and service they would expect in a remote and often barren landscape. The railway is a lifeline in some of these northern communities, which in reality quite often rely on our services for daily life. This community spirit inspires our team to achieve significantly more than what may be expected from other urbanised depot teams.

Inverness Depot currently maintains, services or operates the following fleets –

22 x ScotRail Class 158 vehicles

7 x Scotrail HST’s (Both classic and refurbished)

2 x Class 08 Shunters

The new Caledonian sleeper Mrk5 fleet (Previously the Mrk2 + Mrk3 fleet)

LNER HST (Soon to be replaced by the LNER Azuma trains)

So, what’s successful about Inverness Depot?

Inverness Depot have superseded expected MTIN targets our Class 158’s for 33 consecutive 28 days periods (figures below).

ScotRail 158 Target – 6652 Miles per technical Incident

Inverness Depot Average – 11059 Miles per technical incident (P17/01- P19/07)

ScotRail Class 158 Record Breaking Month – 20178 Miles per technical incident (Period 17/05)

ScotRail’s class 158 fleet has been the most consistent fleet in recent times for achieving the desired levels of fleet performance. This has great benefits to the business is times of such massive change – with the introduction of HST services, the introduction on class 385’s, the Aberdeen to Inverurie track upgrades and the Edinburgh to Glasgow electrification to name a few. This stability means that we can maintain these essential services with allowing us to focus on our improvements.

What’s impressive about this success?

Our team have managed to increase the average performance of the class 158 fleet by 66.2% from the expected target. With a maximum increase of 203.3%. This was done by a new management team that was focused interest in diligent delay analysis utilising all the live data systems available to us, by improved fault diagnosis with the aforementioned systems and by the quality we have put in to the trains with fleet improvement packages often driven by Inverness Depot technical staff.

Some specific examples of technical improvements would include – Improved radiators to increase air flow in the hot summers, an electronically controlled radiator fan system that can determine independently when its required to switch on, new and improved wiring boxes that are impervious to the external elements, improved train lighting for passenger comfort and improved heating systems often needed in this part of the world.

Why do Inverness Depot deserve this award?

As explained previously, Inverness Depot staff are committed to success and improvement. We have a team of reliable, dedicated and professional staff that are commonly willing to go above and beyond for our customers. We are a community orientated function giving consideration to the people who work and live around us. Being such a remote location, means that if a service doesn’t run we inevitably know someone impacted – this burdens us with the responsibility to be timely and professional.

The pressures that have been placed upon Inverness in the last 12 months have been quite considerable with HST introduction, the depot upgrades for Azuma arrival, the training associated with multiple fleet arrivals and with the increase of Scottish services provided.

Regardless of all this adversity, we are still achieving and performing considerably higher than expected. This is a great success for the railway industry.“