Today, 28th October, Alstom invited RailAdvent to their Crewe Works to have a look at their new offices and have a tour around their HVAC Facility, which has recently opened.

The offices have been officially opened after renovation, with staff here looking after job cards, customer complaints (if any), engineering and supply chain contracts, etc.

The new offices and HVAC facility are both part of a multi-million pound investment into the Crewe works to secure its future.

Rob Whyte, head of Alstom here in the UK and Ireland, cut the ribbon to declare the offices officially open.

The office and reception area are bright and airy and feature some hot desks where staff can hook a laptop up to a pair of monitors.

With the offices officially opened, we were then taken around the HVAC facility.

Around 75 members of staff can be on the shop floor at any time, taking care of a variety of HVAC units.

HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning, and currently, the works are taking care of HVAC units for Class 377, 379, 390, 387, 334 and 375 trains.

The current shop floor has three ‘lanes’, the two outer lanes are for saloon HVAC units, whilst the middle lane, the smaller of the three, is responsible for driver / conductor cab HVAC units due to the size difference.

These lanes will be doubled from next year as Alstom is also opening up another shop floor, which is due to increased demand and orders. Both of the facilities are making use of recently disused buildings to make better use of the space at the Crewe Works.

Currently, there are 49 build stations in the shop, all working on different stages of a unit refurbishment, and all seemingly working on different HVAC units from different trains. It’s really great to see.

In the facility are three test bays where they can test the HVAC units before heading back to their respective depots.

Also there are a HVAC wash facility, and a facility where all of the gases are taken out of the units for work to be carried out.

Alstom says that all gases are removed before work is carried out, regardless of the length of time in use. The ‘used’ gases are sent to BOC to renew/sell on to a further company, so whilst not reused in the rail industry, they are reused for other projects around the country.

After a look around at the HVAC facility, we were then shown around the Class 390 Pendolino bogie refurbishment works.

This is another building that is a hive of activity. A number of staff are here working on wheels and bogies for the Avanti West Coast Pendolino bogies.

There is also a section for taking care of smaller components like brakes, etc, and a painting booth for these smaller components to be painted and reattached to their bogies.

A big thank you to Alstom for inviting us down to Crewe today for a look around. This is the first time we have ever visited the Crewe Works, and we are told we have just touched the surface, so a revisit is definitely on the cards…!