Saturday 8th December 2018 saw the closure of one of Britains most well known Train Maintenance Depots, Old Oak Common.
Old Oak Common was opened by Great Western Railway (not to be confused with today’s Great Western Railway owned by the First Group) in 1906. It took 4 years to design and build and was designed by the then Chief Mechanical Engineer, G.J. Churchward.
It was initially used for servicing and maintaining GWRs fleet of steam locomotives, such as Pannier Tanks, Manors and the 4700 class.
Later on life, Old Oak Common moved to servicing and maintaining the fleet of BR diesel locomotives, such as Westerns.
More recently, it has been used for servicing Great Western Railway’s fleet of Intercity 125 ‘HST’ trains.
However, the train operating company is now moving with the times with Hitachi Class 800s ‘Intercity Express Trains’. The closure is also because of the building of HS2 from the south of England to the North via the Midlands.
In September 2017, Old Oak Common held their OOC111 Open Day, celebrating 111 years of operation in the UK. This open day celebrated all locomotives that had operated out of Old Oak Common over the years, and included A1 60163 ‘Tornado’, BR ‘Britannia’ No.70013 ‘Oliver Cromwell’, 4 Class 50s, a Western, a HST Prototype and a HST, a Class 800, GWR Tanks and a lot more.
See below for a video of the open day from RailView!
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I wish I was there to see the trains at Old Oak Common depot for the last time. Before the depot was going to close permanently and to be demolished to make way for a new HS2 hub station to be built on the site of the former train maintenance depot. Where will GWR Class 43’s be based at even though they are due to be replaced by the Class 800’s and Class 802’s. As Class 387’s will be based at Reading train depot. And TfL Rail Class 345’s to still be based at Old Oak Common with Class 800’s and Class 802’s based at North Pole Depot on the other side of the Great Western Main Line.
Another good bit off history sail down the lines. Very good video. Just work having a pint. What is going to happen to old common now
Gutted. Used to walk througg kensal green cemetery, over the canal and along to old oak common. Have some wonderful memories there and some wonderful photos, actual photos, not digital, as this was in 1976 – 1979. Farewell OOC Thank you.😂