In Pictures: Work continues on tram repairs in Dudley

During the last full week of October 2022 we saw the movement of two of West Midlands Metro’s Urbos3 trams to the Very Light Rail Innovation Centre in Dudley for repairs to take place. Of course, these are repairs to the bodyside panels after cracks were discovered during route inspections which led to the complete suspension of services for several months earlier this year (and also in late 2021).

Trams 17 and 26 were the vehicles which were moved on 25^th and 28^th October respectively with Allelys doing the honours of transporting them the relatively short distance to Dudley. The work is being undertaken at the Very Light Rail Innovation Centre which has capacity for two trams to be worked on at any time. This is located just a stones thrown from where the West Midlands Metro line to Dudley will run so these two trams have beaten their classmates getting there by a couple of years!

Since the two have been in Dudley good progress has been made on starting their repairs. Interior fittings have been stripped from the trams and some of the external panelling has also been removed. Its not known how long it is anticipated that repairs will take but once these two are completed its expected more will follow them as the network attempts to get a full fleet of trams available again.

• Elsewhere on the West Midlands Metro the strikes are still going on as planned. Limited services are operating on each strike day with no trams beyond Bull Street and only every 15 minutes during the main part of the day. At time the advertised service has also been unable to operate with only limited staff available to crew them. There is no news of any further negotiations taking place with the pay offer made earlier this year still remaining on the table but not meeting the expectations of staff who are members of Unite the union.

The Very Light Rail Innovation Centre has some handy large windows so a glimpse of what is going on can be seen from outside! Both of the trams can be seen here with the one closest to the camera having had seating removed from inside and panels from the outside taken off too to allow repairs. (Photograph by Andy Walters, 7th November 2022)