The nail in EWS coffin was when it seemed to believe it could win contracts by just submitting a bid. It failed to take account of changing times and other operators. The loss of the Royal Mail contract was, in all fairness, probably not it's fault but I believe EWS thought it would be the preffered bidder all the time, and that was never likely to be the case for long.

Thanks for that information Dynamo.

It will be a great shame the day it does close down!
So what EWS depot are still fully open now? cannot be many left!

Martrin

Mart,

Do you mean EWS traincrew depots or EWS Maint depots.

There are plenty of traincrew depots stretching all across the country but the maint depots are few and far between. The nearest repair depot to us in Inverness is either Mossend or Millerhill (for what their worth).

Les

Hi,

Yeah like TMD that are still fully open. Has Immingham closed now or it is still hanging on like Thornaby?

Martin

Les G,

Has Ayr shed closed?

To the best of my knowledge, Ayr is now only a traincrew depot only maint depots in Scotland are Mossend and Millerhill, although EWS does have two fitters at Fort Bill.

Les

Even though Thornaby depot itself is closing, there'll still be fitters based in the area, but they'll become mobile.

Will they then be refurbishing the Wickham Trolleys for personal mobility?
More seriously I wonder what sort of operational radius they will have to cover and how will they get to where they are needed? Not so good if it is any distance and travelling takes longer than the work to be done.
John (G)

I don't think they actually need to travel very far to be honest. Most of the work will be done in Tees Yard, and for any more major work, the loco's will be hauled off to Toton if they can't run under their own power.

One thing to remember though is the fact that the modern day loco's that EWS use aren't anywhere near as labour intensive as the older loco's used to be. They are also much more reliable.

Here's a pic of a DB Class 66 in Germany. A friend tells me this loco now has a big DB in the middle of its body since this photo was taken. He also reckons this could be the corporate colour of all DB's loco's soon. That includes EWS.