New Metro train's start date just weeks away as new fleet on track to enter service by end of 2024

Tyne and Wear Metro passengers should have to wait only a matter of weeks before they are able to set foot on one of the network’s long-awaited new trains for the first time.

North East transport bosses expect that the first of the £362 million fleet will be ready to enter passenger service by the end of the year. The Swiss-built carriages were meant to start coming into use in summer 2023, but have suffered a series of delays.

After a major setback last January caused by a problem with the trains’ traction system, Metro operator Nexus set a revised target of having a new train in service by the end of 2024 – a deadline that is fast approaching and which managing director Cathy Massarella is confident of meeting. She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service on Monday morning that she is now “the most positive I have been” about the transition to the new fleet, ahead of what will be a momentous occasion.

The first four Metro drivers passed their training course to learn how to drive the new fleet last week, with the Stadler-made carriages marking a huge technological shift from the outdated trains that have served the region since 1980. And the first of the new trains themselves, which boast modern features including air conditioning and should be far more reliable, are in the final stages of being formally verified by regulators and have been out for testing on the Metro tracks for several months.

Ms Massarella declined to give a more specific date when one is expected to be ready for the public to use, but confirmed it would be put into the timetable “as soon as it is feasible to do so”. She said: “One of the drivers who has worked with us for years and is a very experienced driver, the word he chose to describe the new train was ‘phenomenal’. That is really reassuring.”

Ms Massarella added: “The eight months we have just gone through and then the next six months will be the most complicated stages of the project because you have so many moving parts that have to align to move into the next phase. What I would say is that I am the most positive I have been that we are on a straight trajectory now and it is just about the pieces dropping into place. I am not foreseeing any issues.

“The trains in [the local testing phase of] kilometre accumulation are performing better than some of the Stadler fleets in the UK are after a year of running, which is unheard of. We are exceeding their performance now and that is not normally what you see. It gives me a lot of confidence that the quality of the build is really good, and that the training package our drivers will go through is a very robust, well managed and considered one. And it gives me a lot of confidence that the excitement of the drivers is well placed.”

It is hoped that all of the new trains should come into use within two years of the first one 13 out of a total 46 of the new trains have been delivered to the Metro’s depot in Gosforth and it is hoped the entirety of the Stadler fleet will enter service in the next two years, during which time the existing trains will be gradually retired.

It will take 14 months to train up 214 drivers to use the new trains, around 30 of which have been built by the Swiss manufacturing giant. Ms Massarella said that the traction problems that plagued the fleet earlier this year have now been resolved and that the carriages have “performed really, really well” during test runs carried out during the infamously problematic ‘leaves on the line’ season.

She added: “I don’t have massive concerns at this moment in time. That is not to say it won’t go off without a hitch, because you can design these trains to every standard in the world, but until you see how people use them and how they interface with the service… there will be bits where we need to stand back and think about how we make it work.

“These first services will be quite sporadic. It won’t be that one train goes in and you will see it every day, because we will have to align with our drivers [who are trained to use them]. And we will see how the customers interface with it.”

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