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Need your help

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Hello Guys
I am German student and I am doing some reseach about the English freight market and in particular rail market. The British railmarket is so complex :)!!
I found out that the main players are EWS, freightliner, GB Rail and Rail Service. is that right?
Can anybody tell me how many depots EWS has got and where they are placed? In my studies I focus on maintenance want to compare Germany to England. I could not find anything about that question on the internet and the EWS homepage does not provide that many information. Typical for Deutsche Bahn :)!!!!
I hope you can help me and many thanks in advance.
 
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laseandre

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You have: EWS, Freightliner, First GBRf (stands for GB Railfreight), Direct Rail Services, and Fastline Freight as the main companies and you also have Advenza and Mendip Rail as smaller companies and Europorte 2 which operates through the Channel Tunnel, but is inactive at the moment.

I have asked EWS on the Contact Us page of their homepage about the depots.
 

Mintona

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EWS, Freightliner, First Great British Railfreight and Direct Rail Services are the main players. Advenza Freight and Fastline Freight are the newboys, whilst Mendip Rail have been around for ages, but aren't huge.

EWS's main depot is Toton in Nottinghamshire, near Long Eaton. It is where they fix and repair most locos, and it is where most of their broken locos are stored.
Secondary is probably Margam, South Wales, near Swansea. They seem to mainly deal with the class 60s, though they play with class 66s as well. If they can't fix womething it will be probably sent to Toton, or stored.
Immingham used to be a major depot, but now EWS have closed most of it down, and it is little more than a stabling point. Immingham is in Lincolnshire, not far from Grimsby. There are still a lot of freight trains to and from Immingham Docks, but the depot there isn't what it used to be.
Bescot, Birmingham, is fairly busy. They look after locos there, and give them some maintenance.
The next one would probably be Arpley Yard, in Warrington, Cheshire. They do quite a bit of loco testing there, and maintenance when Toton is too busy.

There are many smaller EWS depots, off the top of my head I can think of:
Old Oak Common, London.
Barton Hill, Bristol
Peterborough Yard
St. Blazey, Cornwall
Crewe
Inverness
Guild Street, Aberdeen
Mossend, somewhere near Glasgow

There are more but I am tired!
 
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Thanks for your help. Fantastic!
Do you know about depots of GB rail freight and Direct rail service as well? And do you know any facts about their fleets? Otherwise I just include estimated figures into my overview.
 

Turbostar

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EWS, Freightliner, First Great British Railfreight and Direct Rail Services are the main players. Advenza Freight and Fastline Freight are the newboys, whilst Mendip Rail have been around for ages, but aren't huge.

EWS's main depot is Toton in Nottinghamshire, near Long Eaton. It is where they fix and repair most locos, and it is where most of their broken locos are stored.
Secondary is probably Margam, South Wales, near Swansea. They seem to mainly deal with the class 60s, though they play with class 66s as well. If they can't fix womething it will be probably sent to Toton, or stored.
Immingham used to be a major depot, but now EWS have closed most of it down, and it is little more than a stabling point. Immingham is in Lincolnshire, not far from Grimsby. There are still a lot of freight trains to and from Immingham Docks, but the depot there isn't what it used to be.
Bescot, Birmingham, is fairly busy. They look after locos there, and give them some maintenance.
The next one would probably be Arpley Yard, in Warrington, Cheshire. They do quite a bit of loco testing there, and maintenance when Toton is too busy.

There are many smaller EWS depots, off the top of my head I can think of:
Old Oak Common, London.
Barton Hill, Bristol
Peterborough Yard
St. Blazey, Cornwall
Crewe
Inverness
Guild Street, Aberdeen
Mossend, somewhere near Glasgow

There are more but I am tired!

AFAIK, St. Blazey is closed, or soon will be, Guild Street Aberdeen is closed (replaced by Raiths Farm, near Dyce).
 

me123

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EWS Mossend is just south of Coatbridge and is rather large, although I'm sure there are bigger. There's also a Frieghtliner depot just North of Coatbridge. AIUI, they also own a depot north of Motherwell and south of Mossend, which is separate from Mossend although seems to be mostly dead locos. FSR have used that for stabling 156s in the past.
 

driver9000

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Old Oak Common is closing later this year too.

DRS (Direct Rail Services) are based at Carlisle Kingmoor where they service their locomotive fleet. DRS started out as an arm of BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels) conveying nuclear waste to Sellafield. In recent years they have moved into container work and charter trains. The fleet is made up mostly of former BR locomotives some now 50yrs old including classes 20, 37, 47. They also have newer locomotives such as the generic class 66 much loved my freight operators in the UK and recently purchased the original 57/0s from Freightliner which are re-engined class 47s. Im not sure how many of each type of locomotive they operate Im afraid, the junction website above is very good though....
 

Mintona

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First GB Railfreight are based in Peterborough. Their biggest yard and maintenance depot is Peterborough. They can also regularly be seen at Whitemoor, near March in Cambridgeshire, at Wembley, North London, and Ferme Park somewhere near London as well.
The FGBRf class 73 fleet is usually at Tonbridge, Kent, or Eastleigh.
 

CraigS

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The FGBRf class 73 fleet is usually at Tonbridge, Kent, or Eastleigh.

They are also regulars at St Leonards West Marina Depot, just down the road from Tonbridge. They go their for either A, B or C examinations. FGBRf also send 66s down there too. FGBRf send up to five locos at any one time, sometimes consiting of just 66s, just 73s or a mixture of both.
 

hairyhandedfool

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Direct Rail Services (DRS) also have Crewe Gresty Bridge Depot.

They lease the class 66s like all the other 66 users but the rest of their fleet is wholy owned by them. Ten of the 66s are to be returned to owner soon, as they are 'non-standard'.
 

rail-britain

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EWS Mossend is just south of Coatbridge and is rather large, although I'm sure there are bigger
AIUI, they also own a depot north of Motherwell and south of Mossend, which is separate from Mossend although seems to be mostly dead locos
EWS Mossend is purely a staff building
EWS Motherwell has loco and refueling facilities, most of the dead locos have been removed now

I assume EWS also have a facility in Ayr
Guild Street in Aberdeen is long gone now
I am not aware of EWS having any actual facility in Inverness, I've certainly not found any, unless they have a portakabin hidden!
 

P156KWJ

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I don't know stacks, but I've listed basic produce transported by rail in the UK here:

Intermodal / containers: EWS, GBRf, Freightliner, and fastline mostly provide container services on behalf of various internationally known shippers like P&O, Maersk, 'K' line, Medite (MSC), Safmarine and so on. On non electrified routes, it's always class 66s booked, bar Fastline which is usually class 56s. In electric areas, EWS will operate class 92s, and Freightliner use class 86s and 90s.

Oil & Petrolium: I'm not quite sure which oil companies still recieve supplies by train, think Total still do. Most is transported by EWS / Freightliner, and the former can be found using its own class 60 fleet, and sometimes 66s. FL uses 66s for these diagrams. A major terminal for these supplies is Immingham - managed by EWS.

Food: As far as I know, DRS do most of this. I reguarly see class 66/4s on refrigerator containers for Russel foods, Tesco and Morrisons. Other than that, I'm not sure.

Nuclear material: DRS move nuclear material mostly in the north-west to Sellafield, using class 20s and 37s, and sometimes 66s.

Coal: Fastline recently won a big contract to transport coal from Hatfield and Daw Mill to Ratcliffe-on-soar power station in Nottinghamshire, next to the MML, using a brand new fleet of 5 class 66s and currently 46 wagons, with the rest being hired from GBRf until they have all arrived. EWS also transport a lot of coal to Ratcliffe, in similar style wagons (though old style 2 axle hoppers can still be seen every now and then). Freightliner seem to transport a lot of coal too, but I'm unaware of where from / to. EWS coal trains are almost always class 66s (except 66001/02)

Metals: Scrap metal is often hauled by Advenza class 47s, and you can find class 60s and 66s operating on EWS steel trains from places such as Scunthorpe.

Mail & Parcels: Though largely gone, some Royal mail trains are still around, and used to be hauled up until 2003 by EWS class 73s / 90s. Nowadays, The class 325 FMUs can be found on their own, and are operated by GBRf. They currently have 86101 as a thunderbird, with 87002 likely to take over soon.

Other freight: Scrap wagons can be seen transported by Advenza freight and Cotswold rail, you can hire a locomotive for moving your scrap too. Both companies use class 47s, though the latter have decreased the number of them and are considering selling two more. Heavy plant can sometimes be moved by Colas Rail class 47s, and fastline operate some MPVs too, some of which are based at Eastcroft, Nottingham. EWS and GBRf often run infrastructure trains (new track etc) under contract from network rail, using class 60s, 66s or 73s.
 
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