Last week we reported how Midland Metro’s fleet of T69s seemed to be enjoying a resurgence and that rumours of their imminent demise were premature, but the past week has seen another reversal of fortunes with only three of the class seeing use on a daily basis. The remaining seven daily diagrams have been in the hands of the new Urbos 3 vehicles which seem to settling down into regular operation better over recent days.
The three T69s which have seen use the majority of the week have been 06, 12 and 16 – all vehicles in the original livery which at least provides a bit of variety in colour on the line – with 10 still switched on at the depot as a spare. As for the remainder of the vehicles all of these have seen their pantographs lowered and they are now stored at the back of the depot yard. This includes celebrity liveried 11 which was noted outside of the workshops with its front skirt removed during the week. Of the vehicles remaining at Wednesbury it is known that 03 is withdrawn and it is believed that 08 has also been officially withdrawn although only time will tell if the others (04, 05, 09, 11) have also run their final passenger journeys in the West Midlands.
The rapid decrease in use of the T69s has been made possible by the increasing reliability of the Urbos 3 trams with eight of these trams now passed for service. These are 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26 and it is expected that a further two of the class will soon be handed over to the operational fleet (including 27). When this happens it will mean that the entire weekday service could be handled by the Urbos 3s, although this would not allow for any spares.
The advice to anyone wanting to sample the delights of the T69s on Midland Metro is to get them whilst you can as it really does seem that, after one previous false start, the end is rapidly approaching.
i believe 21 has made an appearance on the line. still have not seen no 17
Yes 21 has run in service but is currently unavailable for use.
21 & 23 are both out with problems .both have been in passenger service ,both have failed and have been out of service for some time awaiting spare parts.
17 ran in the summer 2014 and was used for night time driver training but was taken out of use after & later used has a static test bed to update continual software problems found when the urbos service started
17 has also donated a few minor parts to other urbos ,17 did one test trip a few weeks ago (just to see if it still runs lol) and will now be on the list to get into full passenger working order.
Plenty of T69s out and about yesterday (10/12) late morning.
Trams seen in service: 05, 06 ‘Alan Garner’, 08 ‘Joseph Chamberlain’,
10 ‘J.S.Webb’, 12, 16 ‘Gerwyn John’, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28.
Seen at the depot were: 03 (S end pantograph down), 04 ‘Sir Frank Whittle’ (N end pantograph up), 19, 21, 32, + at least 5 other Urbos.
Steve