Customer: Maintrain

Location: Derby

Requirement: When work began to renew tracks along the West Coast mainline, the Strategic Rail Authority instructed Midland Mainline to put on extra high-speed trains to destinations along this route. Maintrain - the largest independent rail maintainer in the UK - was called in to manage the maintenance of trains during this project, which was dubbed Project Rio.

Maintrain's Midlands-based operations maintain trains for Central Trains and Midland Mainline. When Project Rio was initiated, the company recognised the need for extra office accommodation in Derby to house the staff who would be dedicated to working on this year-long project.

Solution: The company already had four Portakabin office buildings on hire at its Nottingham site. Maintrain had been working with the modular building supplier for around six years, and so went straight back to the Derby Hire Centre when it needed extra office space for Project Rio.

That's when Portakabin introduced its new furniture hire option to the company. It meant Maintrain could fully equip the new offices for the duration of the hire period - and hand everything back at the end.

Portakabin duly installed two office buildings, fully equipped with L-shaped workstations and chairs for the eight staff working on Project Rio. The building also incorporates a meeting room, which Portakabin supplied with a large meeting table and chairs.

"The main reason we went to Portakabin for our Project Rio accommodation was convenience - they are just down the road from us. We needed a very quick solution to our accommodation requirements, and we had used Portakabin successfully in the past, so they were the obvious choice.

"We were very pleased to learn that we could even hire furniture this time too. Project Rio was only due to last for around 12 months, so we didn't want to buy new furniture for the temporary offices. Hiring it was the perfect solution.

"The project has now been up and running for 18 months, so we have extended our hire period with Portakabin. We have been pleased with the service provided by the Hire Centre. They were quickly able to supply and install the buildings and the office furniture we needed. Dealing with them was hassle-free and they were always there when we needed them."

Dave Dixon, Project Rio Service Delivery Manager, Maintrain