{"id":407625,"date":"2026-04-17T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/railuk.com\/?p=192116"},"modified":"2026-04-17T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:00:00","slug":"alstoms-traincare-centres-welcome-charity-railtour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=407625","title":{"rendered":"Alstom\u2019s Traincare Centres welcome charity railtour"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Alstom, global leader in smart and sustainable mobility, <\/a>has welcomed a passenger service into three of its Traincare Centres as part of a unique charity railtour.<\/p>\n

On Saturday 4 April, a Branch Line Society<\/a> charter visited Alstom facilities in Manchester (Longsight), Wolverhampton (Oxley) and Liverpool (Edge Hill) as it traversed rare track along the West Coast Main Line on its round trip from Merseyside. Named \u2018Alstom\u2019s Depot Dash\u2019, the special service gave those on board a chance to observe and capture rare footage of railway maintenances sites most have never had access to before.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpening our Traincare Centres to a passenger service is something we do very rarely, so Alstom\u2019s Depot Dash was genuinely special. These sites are first and foremost operational environments, and the professionalism of our teams ensured the tour could be delivered safely while giving passengers a unique perspective on the work that keeps Britain\u2019s railway moving,\u201d said Christopher Mackenzie, Head of Passenger Operations at Alstom.<\/p>\n

Alstom operates five Traincare Centres along the West Coast Main Line, where the company services various fleets, including Avanti West Coast\u2019s high-speed Pendolino (Class 390) trains. The Alstom-built Pendolinos have served routes between London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh for over 20 years, and a recent \u00a3117 million upgrade<\/u><\/a> has returned the whole fleet to an \u2018as new\u2019 condition.<\/p>\n

The railtour commenced at Edge Hill railway station \u2013 one of the oldest in the world \u2013 before being hauled by GB Railfreight (GBRf) locomotive No. 66701 to Liverpool Lime Street. No. 57306 then took over duties to Alstom\u2019s Manchester Traincare Centre, while No. 66694 carried the train from Bescot Yard to Bletchley railway station. Around 300 passengers travelled on Alstom\u2019s Depot Dash in Mark 3 carriages provided by Eastern Rail Services.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Alstom Manchester Traincare Centre (Credit – Kevin Parsons) \u2013\u00a0Class 09 being driven by Mark McGrath, Operational Safety Manager at Alstom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Alstom Midlands Traincare Centre (Credit – Christopher Mackenzie)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Carrying the headcode 1Z57, the train was welcomed at each site by Alstom\u2019s Central Operations team, who were on hand to ensure its safe arrival and stay. Making the journeys across Alstom\u2019s depot sites even more unique, resident shunting locomotives at Longsight (No. 08887 and No. 09007) and Oxley (No. 08617) hauled the charter\u2019s eight coaches to the delight of passengers on board.   <\/p>\n

The charter raised more than \u00a33,200 for Beatson Cancer Charity<\/u><\/a>, with an additional donation of over \u00a31,200 shared among the Railway 200 charity partners<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Branch Line Society is a UK-based voluntary association for railway enthusiasts. Established in 1955, it focuses on the study of railway infrastructure and the history of networks, with mainline, heritage, and private railtours and visits a key part of its offer to members.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlstom\u2019s Depot Dash offered our members the kind of access that simply isn\u2019t available on the everyday railway. Visiting multiple live maintenance depots in one trip and travelling over such rare track made this a truly memorable railtour, and the response from our members has been exceptional,\u201d said Kev Adlam, Fixtures Secretary at the Branch Line Society.<\/p>\n

Last year, Alstom\u2019s Glasgow Traincare Centre \u2013 known as Polmadie Depot \u2013 celebrated its 150th anniversary<\/u><\/a> and opened its doors to the public for the first time in 25 years. The day before, the Scottish maintenance facility welcomed its first-ever passenger train, giving railfans a unique opportunity to ride along rare track across the depot site. Also organised by the Branch Line Society, the unit was shunted along multiple depot tracks by the facility\u2019s resident Class 08 locomotives. This too raised over \u00a33,200, enabling around \u00a36,500 to be donated to the Beatson Cancer Charity from the two most recent Alstom railtours.<\/p>\n

Lead image credit: Ben Goodwin \/ Alstom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Alstom, global leader in smart and sustainable mobility,\u00a0has welcomed a passenger service into three of its Traincare Centres as part of a unique charity railtour. On Saturday 4 April, a\u00a0Branch Line Society\u00a0charter visited Alstom facilities in Manchester (Longsight), Wolverhampton (Oxley) and Liverpool (Edge Hill) as it traversed rare track along the West Coast Main Line [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[2348,16013,47,16016,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charity","category-general-interest","category-rail-news","category-train-operating-companies","category-uk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407625","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"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=407625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407652,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407625\/revisions\/407652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=407625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=407625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=407625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}