Its been a little bit quiet from the West Midlands Metro recently in regards to the service being operated. It remains the case that the timetabled service is only in operation between Edgbaston Village and Wolverhampton Railway Station with the section to Wolverhampton St George’s still closed and the trams being used are a mixture of the original batch of Urbos3s and the newer Urbos100s. In this pictorial update though we look away from the trams and see some of the changes being made surrounding the tramway, including the new ticket machines.
As we’ve reported on these pages before, ticket machines are being installed at stops across the network in preparation for their introduction in the coming months (this autumn is the official word from West Midlands Metro). Whilst the majority of the machines are installed and then put under cover this particular one is unwrapped so we can see it for the first time. Its of a very similar style to those seen in Nottingham and allows for payment by both cash and card and also allows passengers to top-up their Swift card.
It may be approaching a year since trams last served Wolverhampton St George’s in passenger service but its pleasing to report that the stop has not been forgotten and it has already received a ticket machine. Its under the special cover which tells us “Sorry! This Ticket Machine is currently not in use.”.
When trams do finally return to St George’s the stop will have new company with the City Learning Quarter being constructed alongside.
And there is more building work taking place at Wednesbury Depot. This is part of a new structure going in alongside the West Midlands Metro Training Academy. (All Photographs by Andy Walters, 1st July 2024)
I asked WMM about St Georges a few weeks ago, they told me they’re waiting for Midland Metro Alliance to hand over the stop back to them after the work that was done there, although I would assume the construction work with the new buildings in close proximity might mean they have to wait further.