Developing projects with an eye to the future

The recent works to expand Banbury depot is great news and also offers a great lesson in project development with the future in mind.

Over a decade ago, when I worked for Chiltern Railways, we knew that depot investment was needed. The resignalling of Banbury was due to sweep away all the idiosyncrasies of the old track layout and the mechanical signalling. The result was a big improvement in approach speeds and flexibility at the station, but the scheme was also designed to take out a number of sidings that were used every night to stable our trains.

I led the site sifting and selection, and developed the business case for the replacement depot. It should be no surprise that we chose the old steam engine shed site for the new depot. There is very little that is new in railway planning, only ideas and concepts that have their time, and sometimes have their time again.

It's always an aspiration of project development teams to future-proof their plan, to allow for growth in the future or deal with the unknown. When affordability meant the whole site at Banbury wouldn't be used for the new depot a decade ago, the remaining land was available to grow the footprint and capacity of the depot at a later date. It's fantastic to see that's now happened. I wonder how much more cost-effective this has been because the opportunity was taken to acquire the whole site a decade ago?

There's some great footage and time lapse of the works here:

Time-lapse and drone shots show Banbury train depot upgrade (networkrailmediacentre.co.uk)