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…at St. Leonards Depot.
We are taking bookings for our Solent Sentinel railtour on 20 March 2010. Detailed timings have been published; please see the Railtours page for full details.
Bookings have also opened for our Severn Explorer railtour on 24 April 2010.
The DEMU Diary contains details of all workings on the main line since March 2003. See also the HDL Railtour archive.
Our train has five vehicles re-certified for main-line use, including the Buffet car. See the Current fleet status of CDL for further details. Additionally, 70262 the CEP-coach passed its Ultrasonic Axle Test on 4 November 2009, and work is running apace to ready it for service as soon as time permits; it will be in the Solent Sentinel railtour train.
The unit’s formation at the depot is:
[Bexhill end] 60116 Mountfield-60529-70262-69337-60501-60118 Tunbridge Wells [Ashford end]
News articles which are fresh, still being updated, or still current and relevant, are linked below. Older news articles, all closed, have been placed in the News Archive.
Some of our non mainline-certified vehicles (opened on 22 February 2010)
Olympia Express special excursion, 19 December 2009 (opened on 2 February 2010)
Comings & goings at St. Leonards Depot (part 2) (modified on 25 January 2010)
Christmas Scholar railtour, 5 December 2009 (opened on 6 December 2009)
Driver-Training Run, 10 November 2009 (created on 15 November 2009)
Central Door Locking (updated plus additional photo on 15 November 2009)
Worcester Leveller railtour, 3 October 2009 (modified on 9 October 2009)
Midland Forester railtour to Nottingham, 4 July 2009 (modified on 9 August 2009)
Comings & goings at St. Leonards Depot (part 1) (closed on 30 July 2009)
Restoration of trailer car 60528 (updated on 5 March 2009)
Restoration of motor coach 60019 (more photos added on 19 March 2008)
On-Train Monitoring Recorders (updated on 19 March 2008)
Older news articles, all closed, have been placed in the News Archive.
Since 18 May 2003, St. Leonards Depot (leased and operated by HDL’s sister company St. Leonards Railway Engineering Limited) has been playing an increasingly active role as an operational railway depot, dealing as it does with the day-to-day fuelling, cleaning and examination of Southern’s fleet of DMUs, among other tasks. As it has thus become in effect a “main line” depot, with trains arriving and departing from/to the Network Rail network at all hours, we regret that casual visits are not possible. We thank you in advance for your understanding.
![[PHOTO: motor coach in foreground, depot yard in background: 67kB]](20070301-TheSoapRun-Armitage.jpg "Motor Coach 'Hastings' about to set off on The Soap Run
This is a link to a larger version.")
This striking study by Andy Armitage was taken on 1 March 2007 just before Motor Coach Hastings led two cars of 1001 out of the depot on “The Soap Run”, delivering supplies to [South Eastern]’s carriage-washer near Bopeep Junction. That little outing was also a test-run for Motor Coach Mountfield following completion of modifications in preparation for the fitting of CDL/OTMR. In the background can be seen Motor Coach Tunbridge Wells, Ex-4TC Driving Trailer 76215, and [GBRF]’s Electro-Diesel loco no. 73 205.