The inevitable start of the scrapping programme for the Tyne and Wear Metro trains (the “Metrocars”) is underway following the departure of 4055 and 4062 from Howdon Depot at the end of June.
Both of these units were withdrawn from service in early 2021 and were moved to the Training Centre at South Shields for a new life. This saw them used by trainee engineers to get them used to maintaining the Metrocars but now with the fleet set to be fully withdrawn over the coming years this is no longer required.
Both units have already been heavily stripped of parts during this use as training trains so there wasn’t much need for component recovery before they left Metro metals for the very last time to meet their maker.
Having been transferred from South Shields to Howdon Depot, 4055 was the first to depart on 28th June and was followed the next day by 4062. They have both gone to EMR at Tyne Dock for final scrapping to take place.
Only one Metrocar has been scrapped before. This was 4022 which had received accident damage just outside the depot and despite being moved to Bristol to see whether it could be repaired it was deemed uneconomical to do so and eventually it was scrapped at Burton in October 2019.