Extra funding announced for Metro fleet maintenance

An extra £900,000 in funding is to be invested by Nexus into the ongoing maintenance of the current fleet of the Tyne and Wear Metro to try and attempt to improve reliability of the nearly 40 year old year vehicles.

The investment will be targeted at preventing power faults, a train cab refurbishment programme and extra staff at the Metro depot. This funding is in addition to the existing fleet maintenance budget and will be spent over the remainder of this financial year and the financial year ending March 2020.

Tobyn Hughes, Managing Director of Nexus, said: “This extra funding, £900,000 over the next two years, will be used to give an extra boost to the maintenance of our current Metro fleet. We aim to get the reliability of the Metro fleet as high as we possibly can, although it will continue to be a challenge because of its age. The longer term solution is to buy new trains. We are in the process of finding a supplier to design and build our new rolling stock. We aim to see the first new trains in service by late 2021.”

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