Toton TMD

Toton Traction Maintenance Depot (Nottinghamshire) is one of the largest rail depots in the United Kingdom. Toton TMD is bordered by Long Eaton and Sandiacre in Derbyshire and Toton in Nottinghamshire. The official depot code for Toton TMD is TO, previously shed code 18A.

Since privatisation of the UK rail network, Toton TMD has been operated by EWS. Toton TMD has been the home of freight trains supporting many British industries, most notably coal and metals. For many years, Toton TMD was the home of Class 20, Class 56, Class 58.

Nowadays,and mainly due to the rationalisation of Railfreight by EWS the TMD is home to the Class 60 and Class 66 diesel locomotives. The older traction has been taken out of service by EWS and over half the Class 60 Fleet is in storage, many at Toton.

Changes in the maintenance of Locomotives have also meant that Toton is now the only TMD within EWS where heavy maintenance is carried out on locomotives. More recently a number of locos at Toton have been modified for use in France with EWS subsidiary Euro Cargo Rail.

Toton Marshalling Yards

The associated yards at Toton (The Old/New Banks, North Yard, West Yard, Sandiacre Ballast Sidings) have declined massively over the last 50 years. At one stage Toton had the largest Marshalling yards in Europe and the bulk of the Traffic that was dealt with was domestic Coal, Iron ore and Steel from the nearby Stanton Ironworks.Many of the Yards were lifted during the 70's and 80's as the domestic Coal traffic declined and the Stanton Gate traffic ceased to exist.During the 80's the Yards were rationalised to the basic shape that they are today. Mainly due to the workflow at the depot which dealt with Coal from Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire being transported to Toton and then to the local Power Stations.As the virtual shutdown of the domestic Coal industry gathered pace during the 90's, Totons primary Coal traffic changed to mainly imports from Immingham, Avonmouth and Liverpool. Also, a large amount of Coal is worked to Toton from Daw Mill Colliery in Warwickshire.The changes in the Coal Flows have meant changes in the way the traffic is handled by the Yards at Toton. Primarily by the fact that the great majority of the Trains now originate from South of the Yards so therefore have to be propelled into either the North Yard, or the Old or New Bank Sidings. There is no connection directly into Toton Yards from the Southern Direction after the remodelling of the 70's and 80's whereby the Yards were rationalised due to the Coal Traffic originating from the Collieries of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.Nowadays, in the privatised era the Yards are a shadow of their former selves, with only a small amount of traffic actually originating from the Yards. The main flows now are Rail Infrastructure Services for Network Rail, and weekend Ballast and Engineering Trains. Coal is now mainly long distance from either Scotland which arrives at Toton via Milford, or imported Coal which stables in either the Old or New Bank Sidings for onward transit to Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station.The Traincrew depot has also declined due to the loss of traffic and now has a depot complement of 63 Drivers, which contrasts with the depots complement on privatisation when around 170 Drivers were based at the depot.

References

*Rail Atlas Great Britain & Ireland, S.K. Baker ISBN 0-86093-553-1

External links

*An [http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=52.914059,-1.280648&spn=0.00458,0.010042&t=h&z=17&om=1 overhead view] of the depot.