{"id":14642,"date":"2016-05-17T19:48:42","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T18:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=14642"},"modified":"2016-05-17T19:48:42","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T18:48:42","slug":"delay-for-grand-central-midland-metro-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=14642","title":{"rendered":"Delay for Grand Central Midland Metro extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

Midland Metro services through to Grand Central will not open to the public on Sunday 22nd May after all with further work required before passengers will be able to travel on the extension from Bull Street. The decision has been taken by Centro \u201cfollowing extensive safety checks\u201d.<\/p>\n

As recently as the middle of last week Midland Metro and Centro were still advertising that the line would be opening, even going so far as releasing a new timetable and providing details of fares but the past few days have evidently thrown up some issues which prevents the line \u2013 which had originally been due to open in December 2015 \u2013 from opening to the public.<\/p>\n

The official statement from Centro states that \u201cservices were scheduled to start running from Bull Street to Stephenson Street from Sunday May 22 but have now been put on hold for further track alignment works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phil Hewitt, Centro\u2019s Midland Metro Programme Director, said: \u201cIt is bitterly disappointing as everything else is in place and ready to go but, as we have said right from the start, safety is paramount. A stringent testing programme has identified minor anomalies in some of the track alignment which need to be addressed. These are exactly the sort of issues the tests were designed to identify. However remedial work is relatively straightforward. Once that is complete, on-street driver training can begin and we will soon have passenger services running.”<\/p>\n

A Midland Metro family fun day had also been due to take place at Martineau Place \u2013 close to the new stop at Corporation Street \u2013 on Sunday 22nd May but this has been cancelled as there isn\u2019t actually anything to celebrate on this day after all.<\/p>\n

The delay will come as a bitter disappointment to many and is just another delay in this project which for such a short extension seems to have taken a very long time to get off the ground with initial construction starting in 2012.<\/p>\n

No new dates has been announced for the opening although it looks likely to be June at the earliest before trams are running to Grand Central with driver training yet to commence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The first test runs on the line through to Grand Central took place on 25th April with 37 the tram chosen to do the honours. We will now all have to wait a little while longer before this is a regular sight. (Photography by Andy Walters)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Midland Metro services through to Grand Central will not open to the public on Sunday 22nd May after all with further work required before passengers will be able to travel on the extension from Bull Street. The decision has been … Continue reading →<\/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\/14642"}],"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=14642"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14645,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14642\/revisions\/14645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}