BRITISH RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE DEPOTS, WORKS AND STABLING POINTS.
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LEEDS MIDLAND ROAD TRACTION MAINTENANCE DEPOT - Leeds Midland Road depot was opened in 2003 by London & North Western Railway as a maintenance facility to maintain the Freightliner Class 66 fleet under a ten-year contract and was located on the former Balm Road sidings that had been used to offload quarry products. LNWR were contracted to maintain up to 30 Class 66 locomotives that worked in the Yorkshire area at the site, with heavier maintenance being carried out by Electro-Motive. In 2006, Freightliner Maintenance Limited (FML) was formed and assumed control of operations at Leeds. Besides being a central point for maintaining the Class 66 and Class 70 fleets, both classes are based from here and the facility undertakes wagon maintenance. The site has a total of nine roads whilst the shed has two covered roads that have pits beneath them to allow access to the underside of wagons and locomotives, the fuelling point also has two roads, but only one of these is covered. Outside of these, there are a further five roads for storage and maintenance. A 28-ton crane spans roads 3 and 4 to allow for wheelset changes on locomotives and wagons. As the site is 10 chains north of Stourton Freightliner Terminal, locomotives in need of repair (or electric locomotives) are often hauled dead-in-train to Stourton and transferred to Midland Road for servicing or repair. Locomotives on routine maintenance find their way to Midland Road by hauling scheduled services. Besides the container trains passing through Stourton to the south, many Heavy Haul trains run past the depot too, which makes switching locomotives easy and cost-effective. Seen here in 2016 with numeros Class 66's on display and a couple of Class 70's.