All change! Its been a busy few days for the Tyne and Wear Metro with another two trains arriving from Switzerland, another of them entering service whilst one of the original Metrocars has gone for scrap.
The first of these significant changes took place on Tuesday 18th February and saw another of the original Metrocars heading off Tyne and Wear Metro property for a one-way trip to the scrapman. This time it was 4007 which made the move. As with all the recent moves for scrap it was dragged by some of its sisters from Gosforth to Howdon from where it was removed by road. 4007 went to Shildon for the scrapping to take place.
The removal of 4007 makes it 12 Metrocars which have now had a date with the scrapman (not 11 as we stated in our last article). Those which have been scrapped are 4002, 4007, 4022, 4037, 4052, 4055, 4062, 4070, 4076, 4077, 4083 and 4088.
Onto more positive development and new trains continue to arrive two by two (its like a modern day Noah!) and the latest to be delivered have been 555 008 and 555 009. The pair arrived in the northeast in the early hours of Friday 21st February. Once again they were delivered by rail all the way from Switzerland.
The journey is operated by Rail Adventure as far as the boundary between the Metro and Network Rail at Pelaw from where they are dragged by fellow Stadler trains to the depot for a start to be made on their commissioning. This now makes it 15 trains delivered.
And if that’s not enough fleet changes for you, Friday 21st February also saw the third of the class enter passenger service. 555 002 has followed on from 555 021 and 555 020 in carrying fare paying passengers.
There are now two weekday diagrams for the Stadler trains. The long-standing one on the South Shields to St James service (which is what all three have now debuted on) plus the additional Airport to South Hylton diagram introduced earlier in the week.