Stadler have confirmed that they have now finished construction of half of the planned fleet of new trains for the Tyne and Wear Metro. 23 of the 46 trains have been completed in Switzerland with seven so far having been delivered to north east England, and further examples are expected to follow later this year.
This is considered to be a highly symbolic landmark and comes just as daylight testing has commenced on the network after a period of delays.
The new trains will provide a step change in comfort and reliability with modern features including charging points, air conditioning and there will also be an automatic sliding step at every door. They will also be efficient with the recovering of braking energy and use of highly efficient traction converted technology. On-board energy storage systems are being fitted on the new trains, so that in future, they will be able to run on an extended network, making them even more sustainable.
Patrick Kung, project manager at Stadler, said: “Producing half of the fleet illustrates how far we have come in the project to supply these fantastic new trains for the Tyne and Wear Metro. Safety, reliability and comfort are at the heart of this product, which has been designed with the 21st century passenger in mind. They will transform rail travel in the north east of England.”
Michael Richardson, Nexus Head of Fleet and Depot Replacement programme, added: “We’re delighted to see that Stadler has reached the halfway stage in the production of new Metro train fleet, which is going to be transformative for our customers and workforce. We’re getting a total of 46 new trains and half of the number that we’ve got on order are now completed. Seven new trains have been delivered so far, and more are set to follow.
“The testing of the new Metro trains continues on our network. We are making good progress and were aiming to get the first trains into customer service later in the year.
“Testing the Stadler Class 555 Metro trains includes 90,000 individual checks. This had previously been taking place overnight when the Metro network is closed. It covers everything from seats and windscreen wipers, to more big-ticket items like brakes, CCTV, doors, wheels, and power supply. There are approximately 19,000 hours of training time, with the first few trains completing 37,000 kilometres of running, as part of the testing phase.”