At the end of November 2020, the Tyne and Wear Metro introduced a revised timetable with fewer trains running to allow for a backlog of driver training to take place. The driver school is now well underway and they have moved from the classroom to the mainline with the trainees being seen taking some of the trains out as part of their continued learning. One such occasion was 18th December 2020 when 4068 was being used for this purpose. Trevor Hall captured the images in this article.
4068 is seen here as the rear unit of this pairing in the siding at North Shields on 18th December 2020. This siding used to be platform 3 at North Shields which was used as the terminating platform of the “Blue line” peak extras from St James to North Shields. This service hasn’t run for a number of years though and the platform is no longer useable for normal services although the track remains handy as a siding.
A close-up view of the siding/former platform 3 at North Shields. (Both Photographs by Trevor Hall)