Merry Christmas everyone! It may be Christmas Day but we continue our “Random A-Z” and the letter being featured today is S.
We go with S is for Supertram and of course by that we mean the system currently trading under the Stagecoach Supertram brand but that will all change in March 2024 when it comes back under public control. Opening in phases from 21st March 1994 (when trams started to run from Fitzalan Square in Sheffield City Centre to Meadowhall), the original network was fully opened on 23rd October 1995 when the sections from Shalesmoor to Middlewood and Malin Bridge ran with passengers for the first time. There has been one extension since then when the UK Tram-Train pilot opened from Meadowhall South to Rotherham Parkgate on 25th October 2018. A fleet of 25 trams were built by Siemens-Duewag for the opening of the network (all of which remain in existence today) and they were supplemented by a fleet of seven Citylink Tram-Trains for use both of the line to Rotherham but also to provide extra capacity on the rest of the network (wheel profiles are different with this fleet split into two for use on Tram-Train and conventional tram services).
We go back 18 years for this photo as we see one of the earlier fleet liveries on two trams sitting at the familiar location of Cathedral. This is the second Stagecoach livery with a dark blue band at the bottom and is before the trams were updated with electronic destination displays. 125 on the left and 106 on the right are both working on the Yellow route. (Photograph by Gareth Prior, 9th June 2005)