The four year project to totally rebuild Southern’s Brighton Lovers Walk depot and transform its workload from 1963-design slam door stock to state-of-the-art ‘Electrostar’ Class 377s was marked with a major ceremony at the depot on 11 December 2006.

The Right Worshipful, the Mayor of the City of Brighton and Hove, Cllr David Smith unveiled at plaque at the depot at the invitation of Southern Managing Director Chris Burchell.

Brighton Lovers Walk depot had to be upgraded as part of the route modernisation of Southern and the replacement of slam door stock, the original depot facility, built 160 years ago and only marginally upgraded for the Brighton line electrification was unable to cope with the demands of new rolling stock, and over the past four years the main servicing shed of 11 roads has been totally transformed. Together with the building of several new stabling and toilet cleaning/watering lines at Brighton Montpelier, located between Brighton station and Lovers Walk depot.

The main work surrounded the four roads of the main depot building adjacent to the Brighton-Haywards Heath line, where the original five tracks have been reduced to four providing wider isles, designed to cope with modern EMU equipment replacement. These roads of eight-car length include a wheel drop, overhead crane and deep underside and side pits. The other seven tracks of the main shed are of 12-car length and are used for repair, heavy cleaning and programmed maintenance.

Brighton depot is currently responsible for 134 Class 377s (28 three-car and 106 four-car sets). On each weekday the depot has to deal with 27 arrivals and 30 departures and employs over 200 staff, plus 50 support staff employed by Bombardier as part of the Class 377 Electrostar design and delivery package.

In addition to the work above, staff accommodation was fully refurbished, with new mess rooms, stores and offices, including a computer room, library and welfare centre. Also as part of site refurbishment a new coach washing plant has been installed at the Preston Park end of the depot.

Brighton Lovers Walk is also the home to one locomotive, Class 09 No. 09026 which until recently has been used for depot pilot duties. It does not have a Dellner coupler, but is able to be fitted with a mobile coupler adaptor to allow coupling to the depots allocation if needed. However, in recent months a novel use has been found for the loco, which will see its retention at the depot, that of a depot de-icer! With the two Southern-operated de-icing EMUs at Selhurst either out of use or unable to visit Lovers Walk depot, it was agreed for Southern staff to modify No. 09026 to apply de-icing fluid from ‘trickle pipes’ attached below the nose end foot steps. The de-icing fluid is kept in an engine room mounted tank and application to the head of the live rail to inhibit freezing is controlled from a switch in the driving cab.

No. 09026 has recently been renovated by Lovers Walk staff, and now sports green livery, and is not allowed to operate in its de-icing role outside the depot limits. It is thought that this is the first time an 08 or 09 has been modified for de-icing duties.