page_title: Old Oak Common TMD
section_title: GWR
hierarchical_section_title: Old Oak Common TMD / History / GWR
caption_attribution_description: English: Old Oak Common Locomotive Depot. View westward beside the double-sided coaling plant, towards the quadruple roundhouse Shed. This was the main London Locomotive Depot for Paddington and the largest on the ex-Great Western Railway system, providing all main-line passenger and much of the freight motive power for the London Division, together with countless 0-6-0T engines for empty stock, shunting and local goods trips, also 2-6-2Ts for suburban passenger services. Coded 81A by BR, it had an allocation (in 1954) of 167 steam locomotives and 10 Diesel-electric shunters, also the two experimental gas-turbines (Nos. 18000 and 18100) which were on trial on express services for several years. The steam engines comprised:- 69 4-6-0s, 7 2-8-0s, 4 0-6-0s, 14 2-6-2Ts and 68 0-6-0Ts, also 5 BR Standard 4-6-2s. The Depot closed to steam on 22/3/65 and a much modified Depot was retained for Diesel locomotives, later becoming a Traction Maintenance Depot, until 2009. The photograph features the preparation roads, with 57XX 0-6-0T No. 8763 heading a row of mainly goods engines; on the left cranes are loading ashes and one side of the coaling stage is visible; the roundhouses are ahead.
context_page_description: Old Oak Common TMD is a traction maintenance depot to the west of London, in Old Oak Common. The depot was the main facility for the storage and servicing of locomotives and multiple-units from Paddington. The depot codes were OC for the diesel depot and OO for the carriage shed. In steam days the shed code was 81A.
  The area is also where two Great Western Railway main lines divide: the 1838 route to Reading via Slough, and the 1906 "New North Main Line" via Greenford to Northolt Junction, the start of the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway line. The former is in use for regular passenger services; the latter is used overwhelmingly by freight trains and empty coaching stock movements.
  The 'HST' section of Old Oak Common TMD, more commonly known as 'Old Oak Common HST Depot' closed in 2018 with the removal of the InterCity 125s from services on the Great Western Main Line. This closure was to make way for the development of the HS2 project.
context_section_description: Following the reconstruction of Paddington station and the introduction of larger locomotives and new routes, the Great Western Railway (GWR) required a larger depot than that at the 1855 constructed Westbourne Park, at which to service its locomotives and carriages.
  In 1901, a site was acquired in South Acton, south of the Grand Union Canal and on the upside of the mainline. Taking four years to layout and build, designed by G.J. Churchward, it was the largest depot on the entire GWR system, and set the pattern for similar depots throughout the GWR including Tyseley.
  It had four 65 feet (19.8 m) undergirder turntables, under six-spans of  east-west aligned northern-light pitched roofs. The shed covered a total area of 360 feet (110 m) (six bays of 60 by 444 feet or 18.3 by 135.3 metres} (six bays of 74 feet or 22.6 metres). The roofs were made of wood and steel rafters covered in Welsh slate tiles, supported on steel or cast iron columns, with solid London Brick Company walls. Laid out in an interconnecting 4-square pattern under the roof, each electrically operated turntable was fully boarded, and had 28 tracks spanning from it, able to accommodate locomotives up to 75 feet (22.9 m) in length.
  The associated repair shop, termed The Factory, was allocated to the northeast front of the depot, with 11 roads approached over an electric traverser, and a 12th road direct from the depot throat. Built in a similar style to the depot, it was 195 feet (59 m) by 110 feet (34 m) in size, and housed a 30-long-ton (30.5 t; 33.6-short-ton) crane. There were also separate blacksmiths and carpenters workshops, a stores and a general office.
  The approach to the shed housed a standard GWR pattern coal stage, again the largest on the system. It was approached via a 1:50 gradient brick-arch supported ramp, with 1:80 beyond the stage. In 1938, the approach roads to and from the coal stage were doubled, and in 1942 an ash shelter constructed to protect from Nazi Luftwaffe bombing. The four water tanks housed over the stage held 290,000 imperial gallons (1,300,000 l; 350,000 US gal) of water, while sand was supplied from a separate sand furnace.
  The whole depot came into operation from 17 March 1906, and became the head of the GWR London operating division.
caption: Steam locomotives near the coaling plant, September 1956
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1197", "Image ImageLength": "683", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "EPSON scanner image", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "400", "Image YResolution": "400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 12.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2015:01:30 16:58:37", "Image ExifOffset": "284", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "422", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7810", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2394", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1365"}