Hitachi Rail engineers have helped to transform a carriage from a disused Pacer train into a unique learning environment for a primary school in Spennymoor in County Durham.
In 2019, following a surge in pupil numbers, Kirk Merrington Primary School appealed to the local community for help after outgrowing its existing facilities. School staff devised an ambitious plan to convert their current library into an extra classroom, and launched a fundraising campaign to purchase a disused Pacer train that they could convert into a unique learning environment.
The school was successful in their bid for a decommissioned unit, and volunteers from Network Rail worked to install track, sleepers and ballast for the train to sit on. After being placed on the track, the carriage needed to be stripped out and made into a safe environment. It was at this stage that engineers from Hitachi Rail volunteered to help the school as a colleague of the engineers had a child who attended the school.
Expressing their desire to become involved, four members of the team worked for two weeks to completely strip out the train, before other Hitachi Rail employees worked to make the carriage safe for use as a library.
After two years of hard work, the primary school's all-new learning environment and the library opened in March, with Hitachi Rail engineers in attendance for the official opening as well as many members of the local community.
Steven Hall, Senior Section Leader at Hitachi's works at Newton Aycliffe, was one of those who contributed. He said “It's invaluable being involved in the community like we are up here at Newton Aycliffe. The school have been so thankful for the community coming together to help them out.
“For us specifically, it's been fantastic to support such a unique local project that will provide the children at Kirk Merrington with a fun environment in which to read and learn.”
Very nice. Perhaps Hitachi could of helped out with Vivarail to continue on converting the former LU D78 Stocks to Class 230 DEMU/Battery-Hybrid units and to merge both companies together to continue with mass production of converting Class 230s with Battery power and Hydrogen.
Well done to all those involved, putting it to good use for the education of future generations is so much better than scrapping the unit.
A good idea, maybe other old pacer trains could have the same work done and be donated to primary schools.
What I don’t see the need for on this occasion, was Network Rail to put in track, sleepers and ballast. Surely a concrete plinth could have been erected and the wheels sunk into.
There was probably a manufacturer’s condition for continued use that the unit to be ‘sat’ on rails, as that was what it was designed for (covering themselves should ‘force majeure’ be an issue)