{"id":13310,"date":"2015-12-02T21:12:14","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T20:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=13310"},"modified":"2015-12-02T21:12:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T20:12:14","slug":"preparations-step-up-for-birmingham-city-centre-extension-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=13310","title":{"rendered":"Preparations step up for Birmingham City Centre extension opening"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last couple of days have seen a major step up in testing on Midland Metro\u2019s Birmingham City Centre extension with the first powered test run taking place on Tuesday 1st December followed by a simulated recovery of broken down tram the next day.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Up until Tuesday 1st December any trams which had been used for testing and commissioning (as well as the visit of the Queen) had been towed there by the unimog as the overhead had not been commissioned but on this day the power had been switched on and <strong>35<\/strong> was chosen to continue the testing process. The tram made its way gingerly onto the street section and ran a slow speed gauging run with pieces of card used to check clearances as it went through to the temporary terminus of Bull Street. We keep using the word historic but once again this was a historic occasion as this movement meant that <strong>35<\/strong> was the first tram to run under its own power in Birmingham City Centre for over 62 years.<\/p>\n<p>With this gauging\/test run declared a success further testing took place on Wednesday 2nd December with <strong>35<\/strong> again chosen to perform the some runs. It was later joined by <strong>28<\/strong> which was used to simulate a rescue following a breakdown with the two trams being coupled together before <strong>28<\/strong> took <strong>35<\/strong> back as far as St Paul\u2019s where it the two were split before returning to depot.<\/p>\n<p>After the apparent success of these test runs Midland Metro have confirmed that services will start through to Bull Street from 0800 on Sunday 6th December. The new stop at Snow Hill will not open until 2016 along with the remainder of the line to New Street which will also include a stop on Corporation Street.<\/p>\n<p>Who said December was quiet?!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_13311\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=13311\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13311\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13311\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13311\" title=\"1.35-aw\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/1.35-aw-550x309.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"309\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13311\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">35 sits at Bull Street in between testing on 2nd December.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_13312\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=13312\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13312\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13312\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13312\" title=\"2.28-aw\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/2.28-aw-550x309.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"309\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13312\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">28 makes it way towards Bull Street ready to rescue its sister.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_13313\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=13313\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13313\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13313\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13313\" title=\"3.28+35-aw\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/3.28+35-aw-550x309.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"309\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13313\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">28 and 35 are coupled together at Bull Street.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_13314\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=13314\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13314\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13314\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13314\" title=\"4.28+35-aw\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/4.28+35-aw-550x309.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"309\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13314\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">28 tows 35 back to depot.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_13315\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=13315\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13315\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13315\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13315\" title=\"5.28+35-aw\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/5.28+35-aw-550x309.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"309\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13315\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The connection between the two trams is seen here as they make their way back.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_13316\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=13316\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13316\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13316\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13316\" title=\"6.28+35-aw\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/6.28+35-aw-550x309.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"309\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13316\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">28 and 35 disappear towards St Paul&#39;s following a succesful resuce mission. (All Photographs by Andy Walters)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The last couple of days have seen a major step up in testing on Midland Metro\u2019s Birmingham City Centre extension with the first powered test run taking place on Tuesday 1st December followed by a simulated recovery of broken down &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=13310\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13318,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13310\/revisions\/13318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}