Wednesday 9th October was a day which didn’t start out too well on the Tyne and Wear Metro with a power fault at South Gosforth Depot meaning it wasn’t possible to get enough trains out quicker enough to provide the full peak time service. Whilst it was possible for trains to leave they had to go by an alternative route which reduced the numbers which could leave in order for the usual service to operate.
In a statement, Nexus explained further: “We’re sorry if your journey took longer today, or your train was much busier than normal. This was because of a power fault at Metro’s South Gosforth depot in the early hours of the morning. e lost power at one entrance from the depot to our main line – this meant trains had to be shunted by an alternative route, so we could not get them out fast enough to meet demand during the morning rush hour. While Metro trains ran to all stations there were gaps between services and we understand the inconvenience and frustration this causes when you are trying to get to work or college. We arranged for local buses to accept Metro tickets on key routes into Newcastle and Sunderland city centres, and sent staff to busy stations to help manage boarding. We’re sending more trains out throughout the morning to bring our service up to its normal frequency. Our engineering team is now fixing the power fault.”
Trains did get out enabling a service to be run during the day but by the evening peak it was still necessary to cancel five of the extra services which are scheduled to run.