Saltley TMD Prototype Information

Saltley TMD was a Traction Maintenance Depot located  close to Birmingham City Centre. The depot was situated on the east side of the line between Birmingham New Street and Water Orton and was near to the former Saltley station that closed in 1968. The depot had originally been built by the Midland Railway in 1854 and by 1900 the shed boosted three round houses and was the company’s key depot in the West Midlands. On grouping in 1923 the shed joined the London Midland and Scottish Railway and then the nationalized British Railways in 1948 with little change. In 1948 the shed had the code 21A which it kept until 31st August 1963 when it was changed to 2E. As the rail network was dieselized the new diesel locomotives were stabled alongside steam locomotives. This process started as early as the late 1940s as the depot became an early user of Class 12 diesel shunters which were the processor of the more numerous Class 08 shunters. The depot closed as a steam shed on 6th March 1967 the day the electric train service was launched between Birmingham New Street and London. With end of steam there was no need for such a large depot so from 5th May 1973 the depot became Saltley Traction Maintenance Depot (TMD) and was given the new code SY. The new TMD occupied only a small area of the original depot in the area where the steam locomotives were coaled and prepared to leave the depot. All three of the round houses were demolished and the land was sold off and have seen in more recent industrial units built on the land. Our model represents the depot after May 1973 and designed to portray the first 10 years of so of the TMD in mainly the BR blue era until the new order of the Class 58s started to appear. Saltley TMD remained open until 2005 when it was closed as a depot though the offices remain as a signing on point for the DB Schenker freight operator.