The early hours of Friday 20th June saw the Tyne and Wear Metro welcome another couple of new trains from Switzerland with 555 017 and 555 031 the latest to make he long trip by rail.
46 new trains are being built by Stadler and they will replace – and provide additional capacity – the long-standing Metrocars which have been in operation ever since the Metro opened in the 1980s. The first few examples (11 to be precise) have carried passengers so far with another nine (now 11m with these deliveries) on the Tyne and Wear Metro but at various stages of testing and commissioning.
All deliveries have been by rail with the units being tripped across mainland Europe through the Channel Tunnel and then up the UK. They are hauled as far as the Network Rail/Tyne and Wear Metro boundary at Pelaw from where they towed by already commissioned members of the Stadler fleet to Gosforth Depot to start their new lives in northeast England.
They are having a phased introduction into service. The plan is that half of the fleet (23) will have run by the end of 2025, and then in 2026 the remainder will enter service. In the interim period Metrocars will continue to operate but as time goes on more will be withdrawn, and ultimately sent for scrap.