Crown Point Depot celebrates 40 years

greater Anglia is celebrating 40 Years

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of Norwich Crown Point Depot

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officially opened in 1982 it has seen

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many changes over the years

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most recently the depot underwent an 80

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million pound Redevelopment to

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accommodate greater Angler's new trains

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and is now operated in partnership with

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Stadler the new trains manufacturer

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Steve Mitchell is the Depot's head of

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Fleet North and describes how the depot

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has changed

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environment where your

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we're trying to use to get a little bit

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better all the time and now you're into

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a revolution uh and so many windows

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Revolution there are always challenges

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those that are still here and those that

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were here at a time did exceptionally

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well with this Fleet to bring it into

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traffic police decide we're moving back

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towards more of a evolutionary phase

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again uh working with Stadler and

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working with all our partners here

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Network rail in order to get to those

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extremely high levels of reliability and

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availability that people I think have

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now come to expect from Crown Point

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there are a hundred staff on site

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including a few who have been there

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since the depot opened

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one of them is Steve Woodcock who as an

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apprentice was charged with building a

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scale model of the soon to be built

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Depot

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when I was an apprentice over at the old

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Depot I was approached by um our

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engineering head he asked me if myself

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and another Apprentice similar to me

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would take on the challenge of building

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a model of the depot

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so we went down to the local modelers

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and bought lots of plasticine and balsa

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wood and um

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got on with it and and built a nice

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working model of the depot so that we

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could show everybody

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how it was going to look and feel when

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when it was built

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and he also took delivery of the Depot's

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first computer and had to work out how

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to use it

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we had a parcel arrive at the Depot one

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day and my boss asked me could I look at

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this computer thing and see what it's

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all about so

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um I was taken off the shop floor as a

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temporary technical officer and um I got

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this newfangled machine up and running

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and spent the next 18 months inputting

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all the plant Machinery data and all the

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all the Station

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electrical systems into that so we could

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maintain through a computer system

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rather than on paper

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Mervin Brighton a railway technician has

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been at the Depot for 46 years and

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recalls his role in the early days

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I was trained by

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an ex boilermaker

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and his favorite steam engine was um

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grizzly

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you know he worshiped that train and he

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was the one who sort of brought me in in

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my apprenticeship we were looking after

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the buildings I mean looked after all

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light compressors forklifts

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pumps doors anything to do with the

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buildings we looked after

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let's do things a good career for a

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newcomer

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there's a lot of friendly people that is

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similar to a big family

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to celebrate Crown Point's 40th birthday

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new branding is due to be unveiled to

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complete the Depot's Redevelopment and

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look forward to a bright future for the

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Region's train service

English (auto-generated)