We continue with “Old(er) and New” with another edition from the West Midlands Metro with one of the original fleet and one of its replacements at the same place.
In both of the images today we see the crossover at Priestfield in use as the line from there into Wolverhampton was closed for trackworks. Priestfield is the final location on the original line on the way to Wolverhampton where the tramway runs on reserved track after which its on street all the way to St George’s and now the railway station. But on 22nd September 2014 there was no going any further and so Priestfield was in use as a terminus. This meant that trams terminated at the stop and then pulled forward to reverse and then use the crossover as 12 demonstrates for us. The tram had electronic destination displays by this time and kept the original fleet livery (as it did until the end). 012 was withdrawn in January 2015, moved to Long Marston for storage on 23rd March 2016 and was one of those sold on for scrapping after a period of storage.
There was more trackwork on the way to Wolverhampton on 11th August 2017 which meant there was chance to see the Priestfield crossover in action again. This time its Urbso3 33 which shows us it in use as it prepares to go back south to Grand Central which had opened on 30th May 2016. At the time of this photo the tram retained the magenta/silver/white livery. (Both Photographs by Gareth Prior)