Business overview
As part of the new £700m infrastructure and rolling stock project to provide high-speed services from London into Kent, using the Cross Channel Rail route, Hitachi required a ‘fleet headquarters’ and tailor-made maintenance facilities.

Challenges
A new site had to be found for the facilities together with a £120m financial package with terms acceptable to the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), the lenders – HSBC/Lloyds – and Hitachi.

Solution
In a precursor for what would become TenBroekeCo, Simon Baynes Clarke acting for the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) and Paul Tweedale, representing HSBC, shared joint responsibility for the delivery of the new maintenance facilities.

Drawing from previous experience working together on the Thameslink Traincare Facility, Bedford, UK, the team undertook all negotiations with funding for trains and facilities from HSBC:

• Leases – joint HSBC/Lloyds and the SRA with the owner of the sites, Network Rail
• Design and Construct – joint HSBC/Lloyds to agree with the SRA a £120m fixed price package
• Maintenance – full review of the maintenance proposals
• Location – a strategic site, convergence point of numerous rail routes, identified at Ashford, Kent
• For the conventional fleet, we recommended the existing facility at Ramsgate be re-modelled

Results & Benefits

• The Hitachi Rail Depot in Ashford facility is considered ‘the flagship depot for the nation’
• Maintains a fleet of 29 high speed trains
• Completed on time to meet delivery of the first trains from Japan by Hitachi
• Ramsgate completed to meet the new franchise commitments