Present-day
Modern diesel and electric locomotives need very little maintenance thanks to a large number of maintenance-light and non-wearing components. For that reason there are only a few Bahnbetriebswerke today compared with those in the steam era and they often concentrated on the maintenance and repair of an entire locomotive class.
In the Deutsche Bahn today's Bahnbetriebswerke, called Betriebshöfe, are increasingly independent and divided up between several DB AG business areas. In the ÖBB the Technische Services division is responsible for them. In the majority of Betriebshöfe, jobs are also carried out for other companies, for example, the maintenance of private railway stock. This is because the private railway operators cannot afford to build their own depots and so the task of maintaining locomotives is often handed over to the Betriebshöfe of the national railways.
The Betriebshöfe are restricted areas that are usually not open to the public. The work is not just carried out during the day, but predominantly at night, when large numbers of locomotives are not needed for traction duties. ICEs or other multiple units are also stored in the Betriebshöfe, which is not accessible and therefore there is no graffiti problem, as is often the case when unprotected goods wagons are stored in the open.
At Betriebshöfe which still have buildings from the steam era, there are often problems in extending them. Buildings that are under heritage protection may not be torn down. Otherwise Betriebshöfe are basically laid out so that they can be extended in any direction. Even in the planning stages, consideration must be given to ensuring there is enough additional real estate that can be bought without difficulty if it is later decided to extend the facility.
Former Betriebswerke are often no longer used and completely overgrown. Often the trackage is totally removed and only the buildings under historical protection remain. There is however a project in Germany to turn a former Bahnbetriebswerk into the largest railway experience world in the country. This involves restoring all the ramshackle buildings to their original state once again.
Read more about this topic: Bahnbetriebswerk
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