Most days during the past week have seen delays on Midland Metro mainly caused by tram availability with several vehicles receiving workshop attention at the moment. 14 is currently in the workshops undergoing wheel repair work whilst 08 has also not been seen for a while so is presumed to also be under attention. Coupled to this is the fact that 04 is on limited operations (it normally operates one journey a day and seems unable to work to Wolverhampton) and 05 has just returned to service after it was fitted with a set of new wheels at the Birmingham end only.
Monday 29th April was a particularly challenging day for Midland Metro with three incidents adding up cause large gaps in the service. The day started off with a points failure at Birmingham Snow Hill which led to the service being suspended between St Pauls and Snow Hill but once this was fixed 06 failed on the line and this was swiftly followed by another points failure, this time at Wolverhampton St Georges!
The points at Snow Hill were again causing problems on Thursday 1st May when there was another service suspension from St Pauls whilst the issue was fixed whilst on Friday 2nd May newly returned to service 05 failed at Wolverhampton St Georges.
The current status of the Metro T69 fleet is believed to be as follows:
01 – Withdrawn
02 – Withdrawn
03 – Withdrawn
04 – Limited operations
05 – Operational
06 – Operational
07 – Operational
08 – Out of service
09 – Operational
10 – Operational
11 – Operational
12 – Operational
13 – Operational
14 – Under attention
15 – Operational
16 – Operational
With only a maximum of 10 trams available for full operations on a daily basis currently the entry into service of the Urbos3 vehicles cannot come sooner enough with this expected to be during July. In the meantime the T69s will have to struggle on operating the service and hopefully they will remain up to the task in this period.
On 2nd May with 05 having failed at Wolverhampton St Georges there was a rare chance to see two trams in the platform together. In this view 06 is just arriving.
05 has now been joined by another of the "Network West Midlands" liveried trams.
With 05 at the platform for a while the chance could be taken to take a closer look at its replacement wheels as seen here.
The previous day - 1st May - saw two trams in the platform at the same time at Birmingham Snow Hill. Here we see the elusive 04 waiting for the off with another tram in front.
The elusive 04 is seen at Dudley Street on 30th April. (All photos: Andy Walters)
They need to bring the ubros3 in sooner.
8 was in service last week,
What journey is tram four typically making?
It tends to operate the 0808 Wednesbury Parkway-Birmingham Snow Hill and 0837 return. It has also been used as a football extra when West Bromwich Albion are at home. It doesn’t currently seem to be able to run through to Wolverhampton St George’s.