Services on the West Midlands Metro into Birmingham City Centre were suspended for much of Sunday 2nd May 2021 after “damage to the overhead lines”. The news of the damage was first made on the West Midlands Metro Twitter account shortly after 0730 on the day with a full service not reported as resuming until 2148.
The initial reports stated that no trams were able to run between St Paul’s and Library suggesting that the damage was caused somewhere within that section of line – which is mainly within the city centre save for the first section – although almost immediately that information was changed to state that Kenrick Park was the southern limit of operations with a tram service running from there to Wolverhampton St George’s.
A 15 minute interval service initially ran between Kenrick Park and Wolverhampton St George’s before this was increased to every 10 minutes. Any passengers wishing to continue their journeys into Birmingham City Centre were advised that there was ticket acceptance on the National Express 74 bus and West Midlands Railway services. With engineers on site repairs were completed to enable trams to resume through to Library from approximately 2148.
Its not known exactly where the damage was (although it is thought to be close to St Paul’s) or what caused it but looking at the times it would appear this happened after the last trams the previous evening. It is, however, the latest in a fairly long line of issues with the overhead on the West Midlands Metro, either they’re very unlucky the overhead or we just hear about it more than on other systems!