Friday 26th July was another swap day for West Midlands Metro with 27 coming back from Worksop whilst 37 left Wednesbury Depot for a second spell of off site storage.
As you will have seen on these pages before, currently limited capacity at the sole West Midlands Metro depot in Wednesbury owing to upgrade works means that a selection of trams (currently five) are being stored off-site at the Harry Needle facility in Worksop. The moves started in August 2023 and since then trams have come and gone, with those at Worksop coming back for maintenance at semi-regular intervals.
The latest set of moves took place on Friday 26th July and it was the turn of 27 to come back to Wednesbury. This tram had departed on 30th January 2024 and its return keeps to the six month gap which we have seen in most moves.
And with 27 coming back it meant a tram needed to go the other way and this time that was the highest numbered of the original batch of CAF trams – 37. This is not the first time that tram (named Ozzy Osbourne) has been to Worksop either with it being there from 2nd November 2023 until 3rd May 2024.
The other trams currently stored at Worksop are 17, 26, 28 and 31.
Early morning on 26th July and 27 sits on the low loader awaiting unloading following its return from Worksop. (Photograph by William Snook, 26th July 2024)
Only WM Metro could buy too many trams for the space they’ve got on the system! Add this to the trams that structurally crack, the late extension and the overhead that should be renamed “ground wire” for the amount of time it seems to spend there and it leaves me thankful the management haven’t been charged with organising any events in breweries!
Uninformed comments like this reflect very poorly on the community of folks who are interested in light rail and transport in general. They contribute nothing to sensible debate. The present situation regarding the shortage of stabling space at Wednesbury are in no way the result of ordering too many trams. The fleet size was defined by the requirements of the projected network and any postponement to deliveries would impact costs. The manufacturer has produced the vehicles according to the client delivery programme and it is unlikely that they would
be willing to store them. It is no doubt cheaper to accept the delivery and store them in the UK. Obviously the need to keep swapping units is driven partly by the subsequent discovery of the problem of cracking. The discovery of cracking is not restricted to either the West Midlands network or the manufacturer CAF as some would seem to imply. It has been a problem that has affected several manufacturers of both light and heavy rail vehicles and couldn’t have been foreseen until service experience was gained. The failures of overhead line do admittedly seem to be more frequent than on other networks but from experience I do know that others have suffered similar failures with the type of material used. Later networks have changed the specific material involved. I can’t and won’t comment on the delays to the current extension project as I don’t have any knowledge of what is involved. But what I will say is that in the case of the Wolverhampton Station project much of the delay was totally outside the control of tramway project team. It is very easy to act as an armchair expert and condemn those involved.