Bescot TMD is a locomotive traction maintenance depot in the

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Situated adjacent to Bescot Stadium station, the depot with code BS is currently operated by

DB Schenker Rail (UK) DB Cargo UK (formerly DB Schenker Rail UK and English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS)), is a British rail freight company headquartered in Doncaster, England. The company was established in early 1995 as ''North & South Railways'', successful ...

Bescot Yard Bescot Yard is a Rail yard, railway yard in Bescot, a suburb of Walsall in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, operated by DB Cargo UK. The yard is the major freight yard of the region, handling all of the rail freight movements and most ...

is to the south-east of the depot. This entire complex of track is clearly visible from the northern end of the M6 and M5 motorway junction.

History

The line via Aston, Perry Barr and Bescot is the former Grand Junction Railway, opened in 1837. The section between Walsall and Cannock was constructed by the South Staffordshire Railway. The section between Cannock and Rugeley was constructed by the Cannock Mineral Railway.

was opened to handle coal and goods traffic in the Birmingham area, and so needed a depot to provide and service a wide range of locomotives. After the LMS took over in 1923, the

shed code British Railways shed codes were used to identify the motive power depot, engine sheds that its locomotives and multiple units were allocated to for maintenance purposes. The former London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) alpha-numeric system w ...

became 3A. The shed was rebuilt as a straight-road pre-cast concrete structure with brick infill sides in the 1930s. The line between Walsall and Rugeley Trent Valley closed to passengers in 1965, remaining open to freight. This brought about the closure of the LMS steam shed, and the opening of the diesel shed. The Walsall line then reopened to passengers in stages. The diesel depot, itself, was opened by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

in May 1967 as a three-track through-road shed, with an adjoining one-track through-road shed for fuelling. By 1987, the depot had an allocation of Classes 08, 20, 31 and 47 diesel locomotives. Classes 45, 56, and 58 could also be seen stabled at the depot.

Post-privatisation

After the sell-off of

, the shed was allocated to primary freight operator

English Welsh and Scottish Railway English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. However, after the down turn in traffic post the

Financial crisis of 2007–08 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

, since 2009 the depot had no allocation of locomotives and was only used for light maintenance and fueling. In December 2013, the former LMS steam Sheds still remained but were isolated from the system and boarded up. Bescot steam shed was demolished during December 2013 and had completely vanished by February 2014

Future

In 2012, Transport authority Centro urged the UK Government to look at making Bescot into a freight station instead of constructing a new station from scratch, in order to cope with increasing freight services. A re-opening of the South Staffordshire Line between Stourbridge and Walsall (it has been closed as far as Brierley Hill since 1993) is also proposed, which would allow freight trains to enter Bescot TMD via the Bescot curve. In January 2020 West Midlands Trains announced plans to develop a portion of the site as the main depot for their new EMUs.

References

Sources

* * * *{{cite book, title=British Rail Depot Directory, year=1987, first1=Neil, last1=Webster, first2=Robert, last2=Greengrass, first3=Simon, last3=Greaves, publisher=Metro Enterprises Ltd., isbn=9780947773076, oclc=20420397 Railway depots in England Rail transport in Walsall