West Midlands Trains (WMT) has announced that it has come to a long-term maintenance contract to keep maintaining, servicing and cleaning CrossCountry’s Class 170 fleet at WMT’s Tyseley depot in Birmingham.

The contract started this month (April 2024) and secures jobs at the depot until 2031. WMT says that it “reaffirms the partnership between the two train operating companies”.

Long-distance operator CrossCountry announced last month that it is to increase the number of trains that it operates.

Tyseley depot, which first opened in 1908, is undergoing major upgrades, as well as gaining a new stores building and an improved fuelling and servicing facility.

The upgrades will include:

• four new high level mobile gantries and hoists
• a synchronous lift facility to lift a full length unit
• a package of environmental improvements including shore supplies to reduce diesel engine running
• extensions to two of the maintenance buildings
• an Automatic Vehicle Inspection System (AVIS).

“Servicing, maintaining and cleaning the Class 170 fleet has been, and continues to be, an important part of Tyseley depot’s workload and we are delighted to have signed this new contract with CrossCountry.

“The Class 170 fleet provides services connecting regions running from Cardiff and Gloucester in the west through Birmingham to Derby, Leicester and Nottingham in the East Midlands and onwards to Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted Airport in the east.

“The fleet shares many synergies with West Midlands Trains’ own class 172 fleet and the contract ties in perfectly with our commitment to investing in new infrastructure at depots.”

John Doughty, Engineering Director at West Midlands Trains

“It’s fantastic to announce our renewed contract with West Midlands Trains who have looked after our regional Class 170 fleet so carefully for many years already. With Tyseley so close to the hub of the CrossCountry network in Birmingham, not only does this decision make perfect operational sense, but it’s important for us to support the communities and economies in Tyseley and wider Birmingham with many more years of planned work for the West Midlands Trains depot.”

Adrian Hugill, CrossCountry’s Fleet & Engineering Director