So far the Citylink trams used in service have been used as “service extras” with the odd round trip in between the standard service but on Monday 2nd October that changed with their first use on timetabled services. 399 205 and 399 207 were the chosen trams and they were used on the Purple service between Cathedral and Herdings Park.
The Citylink trams made their debut on 14th September with a special trip with 399 202 following its naming in honour of the Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity before the same tram saw further use on 17th September on a special charity tour (with £1154 raised). Further trams have been used over the past couple of weeks but these have not been part of the standard timetable as driver training and familiarisation continued. This was remedied on Monday 2nd October with the two trams running on the Purple route.
All of the Citylink trams are available for use on the current Supertram network and will remain so until such a time as the tram-train pilot is up and running at some point in 2018 at which point four trams will be required for the three an hour service between Cathedral and Rotherham Parkgate.
399 205 travels through the City Centre with a service to Herdings Park on the Purple route.
A view of the cab of 399 207 showing the small screen image from the outside offside camera.
An interior view of the tram with the internal destination screens also showing the colour route as well as the next stop.
Also in service was 399 207. (All Photographs by Stuart Cooke)