swt_passenger
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 7 Apr 2010
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- 31,376
Tyne Wear Metro fleet replacement funding confirmed in budget today, at £337 million.
Yes. One in the eye for those who thought NEXUS wouldn’t be trusted with the money.
Do hope one of the plans for this new fleet that will be scrapped will be the longitudinal seating, I never see the trains get so rammed that more standing space needs to be provided with the exception of the Great North Run, Sunderland Airshow and match days so I don't think we need to go down route personally.
I be shocked if we see one new train by the end of 2021 as there is usually delays in big projects like this(and new trains usually have teething troubles also), I do expect full fleet replacement to be completed by 2023-2025 like the original plan though. Going to be interesting how they sort out these replacements, would imagine 1 new set in, 1 going out for scrap and it will be interesting too see if its going to be 84 new units or perhaps even less than that as 142094 says, they did not recieve as much as they would of like. Nevertheless, good too see the future of the Metro is more secured now.
A lot of the German Stadtbahns run similar vehicles, albeit with a different supply voltage. And there are a lot of similarities to the DLR vehicles TfL is just going out to tender for.One thing I saw mentioned was that there are quite a few Metro designs we could use 'off the shelf' and have tweaked and that would bring cost down as it wouldn't require a brand new train design.
...and also no mention of funding for either a new or refurbished depot.
The plans are very much still the same from what I heard, just with a few cutbacks (possibly less trains, no new depot).
It would maybe be useful to have at least a "tram-train" crash worthiness (whatever that turns out to be), for the Pelaw - Sunderland section?
AIUI there are special signalling rules in place when a heavy rail DMU is following behind a Metro unit, is it double blocking?
The intention is to procure dual voltage stock.
NEXUS have said that they will need to demolish and rebuild the depot to prepare for the new stock as a refurb wouldn't actually achieve anything. The intention is to do this in stages so that there's always some maintenance facility available. They are looking at 2 temporary stabling locations, with one being at Walkergate.
I would assume so (I've not heard that they're doing anything like double blocking for Rotherham)! That being said I assume it would require some back end work at Tyneside IECC to remove the protection.Tram Train standard stock would presumably negate the need for double blocking, which would create extra capacity on the heavy rail section immediately.
I personally think that units similar to the Stadler Merseyrail units would be ideal for the metro; though I'd also be interested to see if CAF offer anything, seeing as they'll have their new UK factory and the Metro order will be quite a large oneWould a variant of Stadler's new Merseyrail units be appropriate? It would also be good to see a Hitachi bid too, with their factory just a few miles down the road.
Would a variant of Stadler's new Merseyrail units be appropriate? It would also be good to see a Hitachi bid too, with their factory just a few miles down the road.
The figure being spent is actually £362 million, with the rest being contributed by the local councils.
Nexus have suggested that they may purchase 4 car trains as opposed to 2 car trains, however there has been no mention from Nexus about how many 4 car trains would be purchased if they were to go down that road; all publicity seems to state 84 2 car trains, so if they were to go for the 4 car option then it may be more likely that its only 42 trains that would be purchased (overall decrease in trains as even when the unrefurbished "reserve" fleet of 4001/02/40/83 is excluded, that's still the equivalent of one 4 car train less than the current fleet).I think i saw that rather than replacing 90 2 car sets as at present the replacement will be 48? 4 car sets
We mean the length of two of the current metrocars (which many of us consider to be 4 cars long due to the articulated sections; so 2 cars per metrocar)No point in buying 4 car sets as 90% of platforms are not long enough to take 4 car sets. So that would require platform lengthening and upgrading monitors and mirrors, money which they do not have.
Completely agree, the new Merseyrail units definitely do look nice, the interior would be completely different for Metro however.
I very much doubt we'll see Hitachi bid, I'm keeping my eye on AdTranz as they've been producing some good Metro units recently - but Brexit could cause some issues as we won't be receiving this stock till 2021 so there may import costs etc. to consider.