March TMD is a railway

traction maintenance depot A motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine sheds" or just "sheds". Facilit ...

situated near

March March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 2 ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. March was a

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

shed under

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commis ...

with the depot code 31B; the depot code of the diesel depot under BR was MR. The nearest railway station is

, and the depot was located close to the Whitemoor Marshalling Yard. Despite its rural location, in the 1970s it accommodated a similar number of locomotives to the comparatively larger

Toton TMD Toton Traction Maintenance Depot or Toton Sidings is a large traction maintenance depot located in Toton, Nottinghamshire. The TOPS depot code for the depot is TO. Before TOPS, the shed code was 16A (18A prior to 1963). Prior to the 2021 Integr ...

and served as the main diesel depot for

East Anglia East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...

History

March Shed was built by the

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

(GER) as part of the redevelopment of local railway facilities in the mid-1880s when the construction of a new, larger station at March had meant that the earlier engine shed had had to be demolished. Construction of the new shed included realigning the branch line to

Wisbech Wisbech ( ) is a market town, inland port and civil parish in the Fenland District, Fenland district in Cambridgeshire, England. In 2011 it had a population of 31,573. The town lies in the far north-east of Cambridgeshire, bordering Norfolk and ...

further west and replacing a level crossing at Norwood Road with a bridge. The new shed was a brick-built 6-track straight shed with a triple gable style slate roof. It was provided with the two northerly roads as through and the other 4 roads as dead-ended on the west side. In 1900 a turntable was provided on the north side of the shed yard; this was enlarged to 70 feet in 1925 when a corrugated asbestos-cladded 4-track straight through shed was added along the north side of the original structure. The 1923

Grouping Grouping generally refers to the creation of one or more groups, or to the groups themselves. More specifically, grouping may refer to: * Shot grouping in shooting sports and other uses of firearms * the use of symbols of grouping in mathemati ...

incorporated GER into the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after London, Midland and Scottish Railway, LMS) of the "Big Four (British railway companies), Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It ope ...

(LNER). The LNER then built a new locomotive shed on Hundred Road with a Mitchell Conveyor and Transporter Co. mechanical coaling plant for the engines, with an associated electricity generating plant. The former GER engine shed was retained to undertake heavy repairs. A brick-built 5-track straight through washout shed was added in 1933. A water softener with a capacity of 11,700 gallons per hour was added in 1939 at a cost of over £12,000.

World War II

During

WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, March Shed was considered of strategic importance at both operational and national levels. Some of the LNER's diesel shunters were delivered new to March; these featured a large switching board at the rear of their cab to enable them to be used as mobile power stations in the event of bomb damage, which affected local supplies. Due to locomotive examination problems caused by the wartime

blackout Blackout(s), black out, or The Blackout may refer to: Loss of lighting or communication * Power outage, a loss of electric power * Blackout (broadcasting), a regulatory or contractual ban on the broadcasting of an event * Blackout (fabric), a t ...

, the shed was provided with an illuminated locomotive inspection pit, generally referred to as the Light Tunnel; this contained six rows of tube lights, two on either wall and one on either side of the pit. This remained in use until the end of steam. A number of US Army Class S160 2-8-0s were allocated to the shed during 1943 and 1944 in the run-up to the invasion of Europe.

Dieselisation

With the arrival of diesel shunters, roads 1 and 2 were dedicated to their exclusive use. As more diesel locomotives entered service the first 4 roads were partitioned off, with all diesel maintenance and repairs taking place there. A total of forty Brush Type 2 diesels were based at the depot by the early 1960s. By that date, diesel locomotives were still fuelled at the old steam shed which lacked the spillage trays; this was changed in 1962 when a steel-framed diesel depot was built on the site of the original shed, complete with spillage trays and oil drainage facilities. In 1987, the 4 track extension to the original shed was also replaced by a purpose-built diesel facility. The depot was closed in 1992 when the remaining

Speedlink Speedlink was a wagonload freight service that used air-braked wagons and was operated by British Rail from 1977 to 1991. History Background, 1970s In the late 1960s British Rail (BR) was loss making and government supported; government and Br ...

(wagon-load traffic) services were withdrawn, which left the facility with no work. March diesel depot - geograph

However, after the neighbouring Whitemoor yard's re-opening in 2003, on 18 April 2008

GB Railfreight GB Railfreight (GBRf) is a rail freight company in the United Kingdom. As of 2022, it is owned by the global investment company Infracapital, itself a subsidiary of M&G plc, a UK investment group. GB Railfreight was established in April 1999 ...

freight operating company The Rail transport in Great Britain, railway network in Great Britain has been used to transport cargo, goods of various types and in varying volumes since the early 19th century. Network Rail, which owns and maintains the network, aims to inc ...

and part of

FirstGroup FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.March station and was opened by Ian Coucher, then chairman of

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and railway infrastructure manager, infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. ...

Shed codes

The following shed codes have been used to identify locomotives allocated to March:

References

*{{cite book , title = British Rail Locoshed Directory, publisher = Ian Allan Ltd , location = Shepperton , year = 1981 , isbn = 0-7110-1143-5 Railway depots in England