Metro carriage heads off the tracks for refurbishment

Jun 22 2010 by Amy Hunt, The Journal

A METRO carriage took a break from life on the tracks for a run out on some of the North East’s busiest roads yesterday.

The first of 90 Metro cars was winched onto the back of a lorry to be taken away for refurbishment as part of a £20m project.

Over the next five years all the 30-year-old trains which run on the Tyne and Wear railway will be given a facelift, including new seats, a paint job and new wiring, which should keep them running for at least the next decade.

The 80-tonne Metro car was taken off the tracks at a maintenance yard in North Shields, before being driven through the streets of North Tyneside, over the Tyne Bridge and to the A1.

It was taken to a specialist railway engineering firm which is carrying out the work to refurbish all the Metro carriages. The project is part of a Metro modernisation programme, worth up to £400m over the next 11 years, which will also see stations revamped and infrastructure work carried out.

The first carriage to be refurbished will return to service in about nine months’ time, when Metro bosses will unveil the new decor which has been designed for the trains.

Until then they are remaining tight-lipped, but Ken McKay, head of rail infrastructure at Metro owner Nexus, said: “The big ‘M’ will stay – it’s one of the most highly recognised trademarks in the North East. The colour scheme will be completely different. But you will have to wait and see. The Metro cars have got a lot of useful life left in them and this is the most cost-effective use of them.”

Richard McClean, managing director of DB Regio Tyne and Wear, which recently took over running the Metro, said: “This is a technical and specialist job and the firm in Doncaster, WabTec, are experts at it. It’s not that the skills aren’t here on Tyneside, just the practice and the facilities aren’t. This is about making best use of what are very reliable, well-proven trains that do an excellent job every day.”

The operation marked the first time a complete Metro car had been moved by road since 1975, when the first prototypes were delivered. A carriage was moved in two pieces by lorry to and from Gateshead Garden Festival in 1990, but none has taken to the road since then.

The first Metro car to be chosen for refurbishment was 4041, named after the late Newcastle Councillor and MP Harry Cowans in honour of the work he did in the 1970s to get the Tyne and Wear Metro built.

After refurbishment the Metro cars will continue to run until 2022 when they will be replaced as part of a programme currently being planned by Nexus. Bosses say each of the Metro cars, which were built by Metro-Cammell Ltd of Birmingham will have clocked up more than two million kilometres of service since entering service in 1980.