Tyne and Wear Metro

Tyne and Wear Metro logo

Tyne and Wear Metro logo

The Tyne and Wear Metro is a light rail metro system in and around Newcastle upon Tyne, in the Tyne and Wear county of north-east England. It opened in 1980, and in 2002-3 provided 40 million journeys. It is operated by Nexus, previously known as the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive (TWPTE). Nexus also operate a passenger ferry service at the mouth of the River Tyne between North Shields and South Shields, and several bus services around the Tyne and Wear area.

Overview

A Tyne & Wear Metrotrain crosses a level crossing. Although nominally "light rail", the high platforms and full segregation from roads and pedestrians place this system at the upper end of the transport genre that includes street trams.

A Tyne & Wear Metrotrain heading for South Shields calls at Kingston Park station.

The Metro is usually described as Britain's first modern light rail system. However, it can be considered a hybrid system, displaying elements of light rail, heavy underground metro, and longer-distance, higher speed suburban and interurban railway systems.

Although the Metro celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2005, it can be considered an evolutionary development. It was a pioneering system in the use of existing rights-of-way to create a modern rail transit system, linking them with purpose-built tunnels under central Newcastle and Gateshead.

Much of the Metro's route was part of one of the world's first electric urban railway systems, which opened in 1904 on passenger lines that were then already well established (see Tyneside Electrics). The Metro alignment comprises most of two of the world's oldest passenger railways, the Newcastle & North Shields Railway (Metro between Chillingham Road and North Shields) and the Brandling Junction Railway (between Gateshead and Brockley Whins), both opened in 1839, making the Metro arguably the world's oldest local rail transport system.

In the case of Metro's Chichester station, the route of an existing mineral railway was chosen instead of the previous passenger railway alignment, as it passed through a more heavily populated area than the previous High Shields station.

With the opening of the Sunderland extension in 2002, the Metro became the first UK system to implement the Karlsruhe model, using track shared with mainline trains on the section between Pelaw and Sunderland. The section from Sunderland to South Hylton was previously part of the Sunderland to Durham mainline, closed in the wake of the Beeching Axe in the 1960s, and was the first Metro segment to be build on a completely disused line.

When the Metro first opened, it was claimed to be part of the UK's first integrated public transport system. The Metro was intended to cover trunk journeys, while buses were reoriented toward shorter local trips, tightly integrated with the Metro schedule, to bring passengers to and from the Metro stations, using unified ticketing. Much was made of the Metro's interchange stations such as Four Lane Ends and Regent Centre, which combined a large parking facility with a bus hub and Metro station; this distinction is no longer emphasized. Some passengers complained that the Metro integration was pursued overzealously, and for example, bus passengers to Newcastle would be forced to change to the Metro in Gateshead for a short trip, rather than have the bus route continue for a short distance further into Newcastle. Integration lasted until deregulation of bus routes in 1986.

The Metro has drawn criticism from environmental campaigners as it does not permit the carriage of standard bicycles, though there are now storage lockers for these at many stations. Only small folding bicycles are permitted.

Rolling stock

Prototype Metro car 4001 in original livery at South Hylton in 2005

The Metrocars owe much to similar German Stadtbahn vehicles, although they were built by Metro-Cammell in Birmingham (now part of Alstom). Prior to opening, the Metro's two prototypes (numbered 4001 and 4002; they are still in service) underwent several years of testing at the Metro's own test track on North Tyneside, opened in 1975. The track was also used to test cars for the Hong Kong MTR, also built by Metro-Cammell. However, to accommodate the larger size of the Hong Kong cars, a short aboveground test tunnel had to be demolished. The test track was built on the route of an old mineral wagonway, and it is now home to the Stephenson Railway Museum.

Route

The Metro system currently consists of two lines:

• Green line - Newcastle Airport to South Hylton via Newcastle city centre, Gateshead and Sunderland.
• Yellow line - St James to Southsheilds via North Shields, Tynemouth, Whitley Bay, then looping back on itself and going south via the city centre again to Gateshead, the Jarrow and South Sheilds.

File:Tyneandwearmetro map.gif

A schematic map of the Tyne and Wear Metro system before the 2005 line changes.

Originally there was also a Red line that ran between Pelaw and Benton, and a Blue line that ran between St James and North Shields. Additional trains ran on these lines during peak hours to increase the service frequency at the busier stations; they also made sense in the context of the extensions that were mooted at the time the Metro was opened. Many of these additional services still operate today, but are now considered Yellow line services.

Before December 11th 2005 the Yellow line was a route that ran from South Hylton to St James and the Green route ran from South Sheilds to Airport but this was changed to accomadate a new timetable system. This was introduced due to lower than expected passenger numbers on the Sunderland extension.

See also: List of Tyne and Wear Metro stations

Notable features

Wallsend station is probably the only station in Britain with signs in Latin

• The Tyne and Wear Metro was the first railway in the UK to use the metric system.

• Smoking has been forbidden on the entire system since service began; this was one of the first comprehensive smoking bans.

• Wallsend station is probably the only public facility in Britain in which the signage is in Latin. This is a nod to its location near the Segedunum fort at the end of Hadrian's Wall.

• Before tunneling could begin, several disused mineshafts in Newcastle and Gateshead, some of them hundreds of years old, had to be filled in.

• Although the Metro opened in 1980, most of its route was previously part of one of the world's first electric suburban railways, which began service in 1904.

• The Metro could claim to be perhaps the world's oldest commuter railway. Two of its sections were already operating as passenger railways in 1839: the Newcastle & North Shields Railway (Metro between Chillingham Road and North Shields; the line terminated at Carliol Square in Newcastle), and the Brandling Junction Railway (Metro section between Gateshead Stadium and Brockley Whins).

• The Metro is the first underground train network in the UK to install repeaters allowing customers to use their mobile phone in tunnels, an achievement that is being closely watched by the London Underground.

• The Metro pioneered the playing of classical music in some of its stations, which had a positive effect on reducing vandalism, as it was thought to drive vandals away. In 2005 the London Underground began to follow the Metro's example.

Opening dates

The system opened in stages:

• 11 August 1980 - Tynemouth to Haymarket (Newcastle city centre) via Whitley Bay and South Gosforth
• 10 May 1981 - South Gosforth to Bank Foot via Fawdon
• 15 November 1981 - Haymarket to Heworth via Monument and Gateshead
• 14 November 1982 - St James' to Tynemouth via Monument, Wallsend and North Shields
• 24 March 1984 - Heworth to South Shields via Pelaw and Jarrow
• 17 November 1991 - Bank Foot to Airport
• 31 March 2002 - Pelaw to South Hylton via Sunderland

Current issues

New proposals from Nexus would mean alterations to the service so that trains from South Shields would travel via Four Lane Ends and the Coast to St James, and trains from Sunderland would run direct to the Airport.

Timetable constraints

Since the opening of the Sunderland extension, Nexus has found that the standard of service across the Metro network has fallen. This has mainly been due to Network Rail stipulations requiring metro services to be timetabled at least three minutes apart from the mainline trains at Pelaw and Sunderland. The stipulations mean that it is difficult for Metro services to run to a regular timetable.

Nexus has now decided to reduce the number of mainline services between Sunderland and Newcastle from 36 per day to 22 effective from 11 December 2005. This will allow metro trains to run at evenly spaced 12-minute intervals throughout the day between Sunderland and Newcastle.

Poor patronage on Sunderland extension

The patronage on the section of the route between University and South Hylton has failed to meet targets. In 2004/5 less than half the passengers predicted to use the service between these two points did so. In addition, passenger numbers have fallen on this section since 2003/4. This has led Nexus to propose a 50% reduction in services between University and South Hylton, again effective from December 2005.

Corporate identity and livery

From the beginning, the Metro system employed a distinctive design and corporate identity, in part to distinguish itself from the decrepit rail system it replaced, but also to match the livery of the bus system then in use. The Calvert typeface, used for signage and in printed materials, was designed specifically for the Metro by Margaret Calvert (see [1]). The corporate identity was revised in 1998, de-emphasizing the Calvert font, and adding the word Metro to its M logo.

The Metro fleet was initially painted in a two-tone livery of cadmium yellow and white that matched the Metro station design of the time, as well as the livery of the Tyne and Wear bus fleet until 1986. In the mid-1990s a new colour scheme was introduced, with Metrocars painted solid red, green, or blue, with a yellow wedge at each end and yellow triangles on the doors. This scheme was modified slightly in 2005, in part to comply with safety regulations (the doors are now solid yellow).

In addition, many Metrocars have carried full-body advertising. The initial prototype, number 4001, has been repainted in its initial yellow-and-beige livery from 1975.

The future

Yellow, Green - existing Metro lines run by Nexus. Black - Tyne passenger ferry run by Nexus. Dark grey - proposed extensions on existing rail lines. Light grey - proposed extensions requiring new track.

A new station, Northumberland Park, is due to open in 2005. It will serve a new housing development between Shiremoor and the A19 Holystone Interchange. The new station will be located adjacent to existing track between Palmersville and Shiremoor on the northern loop section of the yellow line. In addition, Haymarket station in Newcastle city centre is to be renovated, and will include leisure and retail facilities. A public consultation process is currently underway for a proposed station at Simonside, between Tyne Dock and Bede on the South Tyneside section of the green line, which would open in 2007 if given the go-ahead.

There have been many suggestions for further Metro extensions, but none of these is likely to be built in the near future. There are several reason for this. The Metrocars will need to be replaced by around 2015. The Sunderland extension was built without requiring any new trains, but any significant new extension would require new rolling stock.

In 2002 Nexus unveiled Project Orpheus, an expansion plan that would extend the Metro system by adding new sections using street running, thus changing the Metro into a high-end tram system. Nexus argued that this would provide a cost-effective way to introduce rail service to parts of Tyne and Wear the current Metro did not reach. The plan listed a number of routes, not all of which were to be built as rail lines; transitional bus services were envisioned that could be replaced by trams as demand increased.

However, the future of Project Orpheus is in doubt, because of the government's present value-for-money policies for public transport. This increased scrutiny has affected expansion plans for other light-rail systems such as Manchester Metrolink, where an expansion scheme was halted even after construction had begun. Critics have said that government policies now overtly favour bus schemes. A Metro link to Washington failed to gain government backing, despite the existence of substantial railway rights of way to both Pelaw and Sunderland; preliminary support was offered only to a guided bus scheme.

Another project, to remove the last section of single track in the Metro system, between Pelaw and Bede, would cost around 10 million pounds, and would allow freight trains to use the Metro infrastructure. Again, the government has expressed doubts as to whether this would be cost-effective. As of 2005, there has been discussion of a public-private partnership to raise the funds necessary to modernize the Metro system.

Among extensions proposed at various times:

• Washington, either via the disused Leamside Line or a new route. Present planning may lead to the Leamside Line being opened as a conventional passenger rail line instead. The government favours guided-bus service to Washington.

• Blyth & Ashington, running on existing little-used freight lines. Northumberland Park station is being built to provide a link to a potential new rail service to these communities; if opened, it will not be a part of the Metro system.

• Tyne Dock to East Boldon along one of two dismantled railway alignments could easily be added, as only a short distance lies between two Metro lines. This may be the most likely future Metro extension, but the lack of rolling stock makes it unlikely at present.

• Killingworth and Cramlington have been planned since Metro was on the drawing board, but would require widening of the busy East Coast main line to four tracks, which would be expensive, or a new alignment involving street running.

• Newcastle's west end would require entirely new track involving tunneling and bridging in hilly terrain; this would be very costly and is pehaps least likely to receive funding, though would probably have the highest potential ridership.

• Ryhope, in southern Sunderland, has been mooted as an extension using existing railway lines. This route is shown in the current Project Orpheus plans.

External links

• Official Tyne and Wear Metro website
• Tyne and Wear Transport Group (fan site, with historical and technical information)