UK rail depot maintenance firm MTMS has been given the nod to extend one of its longest-running contracts after it signed a new deal with train operators Southeastern.
The Leicestershire-based firm has maintained the equipment at depots serving the busy South-East network since 2014 and agreed to extend its nine-year association this month.
The contract involves the maintenance and renewal of carriage wash plants, controlled emission toilets and associated bowsers at 10 depots, including Ashford, Dover, Gillingham, Grove Park, Orpington, Ramsgate, Slade Green, St Leonards West Marina, Tonbridge & Victoria.
The depots are home to Southeastern’s 399 trains, which deliver 1,700 services each day across the network, which links London with communities in Kent and East Sussex.
Between March 2022 and March 2023 the network carried 29.9m passengers – the fourth-highest in the country – serving 180 stations and covering 540 miles of track.
MTM currently services and maintains rolling stock and specialist equipment, as well as carrying out routine infrastructure tasks, at more than a half of rail depots across the UK, with its central location in Moira, near Swadlincote, helping it to serve customers as far afield as Penzance and Aberdeen.
However, Matt Forst, the firm’s managing director, says there is some extra local pride when it comes to the Southeastern contract because Southeastern mainly operates Class 375 Electrostars, which were made by Bombardier – now Alstom – in Derby, just 12 miles away.
Matt said: “We’re thrilled to have extended our long association with servicing the equipment at the maintenance depots on the South-East network and are looking forward to continuing to work with Southeastern.
“Our work is vital to supporting the quality of service that Southeastern is able to offer its passengers on what is undoubtedly one of the country’s most high-profile networks.
“We’re also proud to operate within the Midlands rail cluster and it will be a matter of pride to our team that the trains they will be helping to service were built up the road, perhaps even by their friends or members of their family.”
