Major problems with the overhead line caused issues for Midland Metro this week with no trams able to run into Birmingham Snow Hill from Sunday 7 until Wednesday 10 July. The issue with the overhead occurred at Jewellery Quarter and first arose on Sunday 7 July with trams immediately suspended between Birmingham Snow Hill and Winson Green whilst engineers were called to the scene to assess the damage.
Services continued to operate from Wolverhampton St Georges to Winson Green for most of Sunday 7 July before the scope of operation was extended one stop further towards Birmingham at Soho Benson Road. Passengers were being advised that they could change at The Hawthorns for onward travel to Birmingham Snow Hill on London Midland rail services whilst local bus services were also accepting Midland Metro tickets.
Then on Wednesday 10 July as repairs were being completed the service suspension was extended as far as Wednesbury to allow the engineering vehicles to be removed from the line. This disruption lasted an hour after which the Wolverhampton-Soho services resumed before finally during the mid afternoon trams were able to operate the whole length of the route between Wolverhampton St Georges and Birmingham Snow Hill after almost four long days of disruption for regular passengers.
To make matters worse on Tuesday 9 July a tram broke down between Priestfield and Wolverhampton which caused further delays to the service and meant that for a time trams were only running Soho Benson Road to Priestfield.
It is not known what caused the problems with the overhead line but high temperatures had been experienced in the region leading up to the problems. Unfortunately this is not the first time that there has been major disruption to services on Midland Metro due to overhead problems but hopefully it will not happen again in the future as four days of delays is unacceptable and passengers may soon lose their patience.
the main problems with overhead cables always happen past winson green into birmingham