The Three Bridges Rail Rail Depot was formally opened by the Secretary of State for Transport, Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin MP on Thursday, 15th October.
The site has been constructed to provide servicing and driver training for the brand new Class 700 trains which will be entering service on the Thameslink line into London Bridge and beyond from Spring 2016. They will be fully operational in 2018. The Depot will employ 150 and is on a vast scale - it contains enough rail sleepers on its under-cover five lines to support a railway running from Croydon to Brighton and its area could accommodate 30 Olympic sized swimming pools.
Class 700s should result in increased comfort, performance and space. The new trains will be 50 per cent more energy efficient, partly as a result of being 25 per cent lighter.
Jeremy Quin, MP for Horsham attended the opening. He commented,
"It's great to see at this depot and London Bridge Station a huge amount of investment going into our railways. Since privatisation the number of regular rail passengers has doubled but we needed more investment to keep pace. The result will be more capacity and a more reliable service across the region."