Tyne and Wear Metro
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The Tyne and Wear Metro is a light rail metro system in and around Newcastle, in the Tyne and Wear county of north-east England. It opened in 1980, and in 2002-3 served 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.
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Overview
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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.
The Metro system has two lines:
- Green line - Newcastle Airport via Newcastle city centre, Gateshead, Jarrow to South Shields
- Yellow line - Newcastle St James via North Shields, Tynemouth, Whitley Bay, then looping back on itself and going south via the city centre again to Gateshead, the Stadium of Light, Sunderland to South Hylton.
Originally there were also a Red and a Blue line, to increase service frequency between Heworth and Benton and between St. James and North Shields during peak hours.
The Metro was a pioneering system in the use of existing rights-of way to create a modern rail transit system, linking them with purpose-built underground sections in Newcastle and Gateshead. It was also the first UK implementation of the Karlsruhe model, using track shared with mainline trains on the section between Pelaw and Sunderland.Tyne1.jpeg
The Tyne and Wear Metro is also the first underground train network in the UK that has installed repeaters allowing customers to use their mobile phone in tunnels, an achievement which is being closely watched by the London Underground. The Metro does not, however, permit the carriage of standard bicycles, a policy which has received much criticism from environmental campaigners (only small folding bicycles are permitted).
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
Metro stations
See: List of Tyne and Wear Metro stations
Current issues
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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 (http://www.twpta.gov.uk/archivehtml/PTA%20(html)%202004-05/May%202005/DECEMBER%20TIMETABLE%20CHANGES.pdf) 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.
The future
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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.
There have been many suggestions for potential 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; any significant new extension would require new rolling stock.
In 2002 Nexus unveiled Project Orpheus (http://www.projectorpheus.com), an expansion plan that would extend the Metro system by adding new sections using street running, thus changing the nature of the Metro to a supertram-like 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.
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 (http://www.tyneandwearmetro.co.uk/metro.htm)
- Tyne and Wear Transport Group (http://groups.msn.com/tyneweartransportgroup) (fan site, with historical and technical information)
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