British Trams Online

Gallery 552: Farewell to the Midland Metro T69s

On Friday 14th August 2015 the end of an era was reached on Midland Metro with the very last passenger runs of the original Ansaldo built T69 trams. The decision had been taken with the forthcoming extension through Birmingham City Centre and possible future extensions that a new fleet of larger - and hopefully more reliable although evidence so far suggests the latter may not exactly be true yet! - trams was needed and rather than supplement the T69s they were to fully replace them. The T69s weren't to go without a fight though and the final date was continaully put back until a final decision was made that there were enough CAF Urbos 3s available for service and that the curtain could come down on the older trams. In this collection we take a took at all 16 of the T69s in service before we see a few of the trams departing for storage at Long Marston. We are then on to the final week with just 10 and 16 still in use before the final day saw 16 run some final public trips ahead of the last by invitation only journey between Birmingham Snow Hill and the depot. We then conclude with a look around the depot at the stored T69s before a view of the very last movement of one of the trams under its own power. The official word is that the T69s are being stored for possible future use but whether that ever happens is open to debate.

Photographs in this collection were taken by David Bosher, Ian Buck, Bob Hodges, Steve Kemp, Ian Nightingale, Gareth Prior, Tony Sullivan & Andy Walters.

13 & 07

09 & 02

03 & 14

13 & 21

15 & 21

12 & 18

06 & 18

28 & 16

08 & 12

03, 11 & 12

08 & 10

09, 16 & 35

09 & 34

34 & 05

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This page was last updated on Sunday 6th September 2015

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