{"id":24592,"date":"2024-04-03T15:36:34","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T05:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=24592"},"modified":"2024-04-03T15:36:34","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T05:36:34","slug":"porterbrook-to-finance-bletchley-depot-redevelopment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=24592","title":{"rendered":"Porterbrook to finance Bletchley depot redevelopment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph\"><span class=\"normaltextrun\"><span>Situated near Milton Keynes, the \u00a366m upgrade programme is necessary for Bletchley to become the principal maintenance base for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westmidlandsrailway.co.uk\/\">WMT\u2019s<\/a> newly procured Class 730 Aventra fleet.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><span class=\"normaltextrun\"><span>The improvements to the site will include overhead line equipment, new ten and five car sidings, full refurbishment of existing buildings and the installation of modern security systems. Once completed in the autumn of 2025, the depot will be able to support electric fleets which are essential to the UK\u2019s plans for a net-zero railway in the future.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span class=\"eop\"><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><span class=\"normaltextrun\"><span>Stefan Rose, Chief Investment Officer at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.porterbrook.co.uk\/\">Porterbrook<\/a>, said: \u201cBletchley depot has been a stalwart of our railways since the mid-nineteenth century, and we\u2019re delighted to fund the redevelopment it needs to service the modern fleets joining the network. Through private finance, we can maintain and enhance essential rail infrastructure like this to continue to play an important role in the railway for many years to come.\u201d<\/span><\/span><span class=\"eop\"><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><span class=\"normaltextrun\"><span>Ian McConnell, Managing Director of West Midlands Trains, said: \u201cThis private financing deal enables West Midlands Trains to undertake major refurbishment of the depot at Bletchley \u2013 a critical part of our \u00a31 billion fleet and infrastructure investment programme. The enhancements will modernise the facility to support the roll-out of our new flagship electric train fleet, the Class 730s, which will deliver a step-change in the customer experience across our network.\u201d<\/span><\/span><span class=\"eop\"><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><span class=\"normaltextrun\"><span>Financing the redevelopment adds to Porterbrook\u2019s increasingly diverse portfolio, which in recent weeks has included taking a 49% minority stake in the Scotland based rail engineering business<a href=\"https:\/\/brodie-engineering.co.uk\/\"> Brodie Engineering,<\/a> and the purchase of the 135-acre Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre in Warwickshire, which it has been operating on lease since June 2021.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"eop\"><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"box\">\n<p><strong>More Like This<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalrailwayreview.com\/news\/168679\/union-pacific-quarter-1\/\">Union Pacific announces Quarter 1 2024 earnings release date<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalrailwayreview.com\/news\/168280\/porterbrook-zephir\/\">Porterbrook agrees deal for Zephir Depot Shunters<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalrailwayreview.com\/news\/168685\/tgv-inoui-moment\/\">TGV INOUI and Moment renew their partnership to expand on-board digital services<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Situated near Milton Keynes, the \u00a366m upgrade programme is necessary for Bletchley to become the principal maintenance base for WMT\u2019s newly procured Class 730 Aventra [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":24593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,47,488],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-opinion","category-rail-news","category-railway-stations"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}