Motherwell TMD is a closed locomotive Traction Maintenance Depot

Traction maintenance depot

In the United Kingdom, a traction maintenance depot, or TMD, is a railway depot where locomotives are serviced and maintained. A traction and rolling stock maintenance depot, or T&RSMD, is a maintenance depot where locomotives, multiple units and rolling stock are serviced and maintained. Each rail...

 situated in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire

North Lanarkshire

North Lanarkshire is one of 32 council areas in Scotland. It borders onto the northeast of the City of Glasgow and contains much of Glasgow's suburbs and commuter towns and villages. It also borders Stirling, Falkirk, East Dunbartonshire, West Lothian and South Lanarkshire...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. The depot code is ML.

The depot was operated by EWS following the privatisation of British Rail

British Rail

British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...

 and was used for the maintenance of their fleet of Diesel locomotive

Diesel locomotive

A diesel locomotive is a type of railroad locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine, a reciprocating engine operating on the Diesel cycle as invented by Dr. Rudolf Diesel...

s and wagons as well as the fleet of electric postal trains.

This depot closed in 2007, with its operations relocated to nearby Mossend

Mossend

Mossend is a town on the A775, in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, to the east of its larger sister town, Bellshill, and near to the Strathclyde Country Park....

, following the life expiry of Motherwell depot. Following the closure of the depot, the office space has been taken over by site owners Network Rail

Network Rail

Network Rail is the government-created owner and operator of most of the rail infrastructure in Great Britain .; it is not responsible for railway infrastructure in Northern Ireland...

 as a new maintenance depot for the Motherwell area, and recently the engine sheds have been used by Direct Rail Services

Direct Rail Services

Direct Rail Services is a freight operating company created by British Nuclear Fuels Limited. The company started rail operations in 1995 using five heavily refurbished Class 20/3 diesel locomotives. Since then it has expanded greatly, and has acquired many more locomotives, most bought...

.

It was damaged by fire in 2002, and although some repairs were carried out to allow the depot to continue functioning, it was not fully repaired, adding to speculation over its impending demise.

Its closure leaves EWS without a major traction maintenance depot in Scotland.

External links

An overhead view of the depot.