Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

The work behind the scenes which keep the north’s trains running

Pictures by Sandy McCook
Pictures by Sandy McCook

For the most part the public experience of the rail network is gazing up at a departures board or sipping a cup of coffee in a carriage.

But behind the scenes in Inverness there is a huge engineering effort running around the clock to keep the trains on track and, wehere possible, on time.

It is a world of huge numbers – both in the value and the quantity of equipment required to keep the network running smoothly.

And it is a world that the manager of the Abellio ScotRail engineering depot at Inverness acknowledges most people don’t know exists.

Derek Glasgow is the fleet manager at the Inverness Depot, near the city’s station, which houses the engineering and maintenance unit which looks after the rolling stock.

He said: “I just want people to know we are here and the work that we are doing.

“This is a busy depot and we have a lot of people working here in well paid and highly skilled jobs.”

The yard takes in trains from the across the north network and from further afield, even from the new Borders Railway for maintenance.

Routine work covers everything from refurbishing worn out doors – to completing replacing engines and gearboxes which have reached their maximum mileage on the class 170 and 158 trains widely operated by ScotRail.

The yard works 365 days a year and 24 hours a day, with much of the running repair work taking place overnight – while planned maintenance is carried out during the day.

The station complex employs around 200 people in total – with around 80 working at the depot in a range of highly skilled – and paid – jobs.

Mr Glasgow said: “With all this heavy engineering and heavy work we’re doing, it all comes back to the customer.

“All they care about at the end of the day is the train turning up on time, it being reasonably warm and it getting in on time.

“They don’t really know or care about the engineering that’s going on. Ultimately what’s important is going from A to B.”

He added: “It’s quite funny because if I ever take people around the depot they are shocked.

“They don’t know about it and the work we do here.”

Among the challenges they have to deal with is fitting around the timetable to get a train to the depot from the central belt.

Another Highland challenge is dealing with animal strikes – a deer can knock out an engine, while cows can knock a train off the rails, a frequent problem on the Kyle and Far North lines.

Mr Glasgow said that a technical member of staff is now based in Wick, which has helped prevent cancellations in the last few months.

THE FUTURE OF INVERNESS STATION

The rail depot at Inverness Station is preparing for major changes over the next two years in preparation for new rolling stock.

Abellio ScotRail are planning to introduce new high speed trains across Scotland – including from Inverness to the central belt.

It is estimated there will be around 18 months in total of major works to prepare for high speed trains being brought in.

All the work has to fit around the depot’s day-to-day work keeping the railway network going.

Derek Glasgow, fleet manager at the depot, said: “We’ve got to keep getting the trains out while all this work is going on.

“Actually I’ve taken a manager off his shift for nine months working out how we can keep the trains running and get all this work underway as well.”

The work involves trebling the depot’s area for refuelling trains in size to accommodate the new rolling stock.

Some of the tracks in the depot will be straightened so the longer trains can sit while they are being worked on.

New energy supplies will also be installed so the trains can be powered without having their engines running, partly to cut down on emissions and also to keep the engines up to temperature.