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Tyne and Wear metro: will it have a closure during summer 2019?

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Kris28

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Normally in August metro closes part of the network to upgrade tracks etc.

This year theres rumours that it will be closed Central to Pelaw.

Can anyone confirm?

P.s i would of thought Haymarket/Monument to Pelaw, as ive never seen a train Reverse at Central before.

Thanks
 
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Scott M

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Can’t imagine them shutting down the central belt for a month. Would face major political heat.
 

MetroCar4058

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Can’t imagine them shutting down the central belt for a month. Would face major political heat.

I don't see how you can really moan about the politics, track work needs to be done and this can only really be done economically via big block possessions which will occur. Gateshead Stadium - Pelaw track works are currently being planned/costed with the view of doing it this summer (I think).

Re-railing in the Gateshead tunnels is also being explored but this will probably happen in the same way the Newcastle tunnels were. Interestingly Nexus are now trying to push (again) for the South Shields line to be doubled throughout with current thought around sharing paths with the freight.

Trains will not terminate at Central as the tunnels are not bi-directional apart from Monument P1 and Haymarket P2. I'd Imagine it will terminating at Gateshead Stadium or Monument.
 

cosmo

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There was works between Gateshead Stadium and Pelaw recently notwithstanding the recent overhead wire incident there. Closing a major portion of the belt for a whole month would cause chaos but if it needs to be done, it will be. Haymarket is a possible for termination of service, recently there to FLE/Regent Centre they did works.

The best option really would be to shut the line from Heworth to Haymarket, allowing passengers with 3 zone tickets or DaySavers to transfer onto the next Northern service into Newcastle, at least letting them get to the next open portion of the line (albeit a considerable walk from Central).
 

MetroCar4058

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The best option really would be to shut the line from Heworth to Haymarket, allowing passengers with 3 zone tickets or DaySavers to transfer onto the next Northern service into Newcastle, at least letting them get to the next open portion of the line (albeit a considerable walk from Central).

The closure is supposed to be Gateshead Stadium - Pelaw, thus the tunnelled core will still run. I don’t see the logic of closing busy interchanges when there is no need to do so? Also trains would have to terminate at Monument or Jesmond for this proposal, it is not possible for them to do it at Haymarket (the train has to go to Monument regardless).

Using the Northern service will probably not be advertised and only left for those who are savvy. An hourly Class 158 or 156 which as far as I’m aware is always 2 car would not be able to cope with the demand Metro would put onto it.
 

cosmo

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Using the Northern service will probably not be advertised and only left for those who are savvy. An hourly Class 158 or 156 which as far as I’m aware is always 2 car would not be able to cope with the demand Metro would put onto it.

If they close Pelaw though you've still got to walk to get to Heworth, which is about 3/5 of a mile, and if you had someone who wasn't able to walk so far that's going to be most inconvenient. I get not closing Haymarket, I just thought they might be able to turn trains there since that's what they did for the FLE/Regent Centre works.

I was referring to keeping Heworth, a busy interchange in its own right, open thus that people can get the Northern services.
 

ModernRailways

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There was works between Gateshead Stadium and Pelaw recently notwithstanding the recent overhead wire incident there. Closing a major portion of the belt for a whole month would cause chaos but if it needs to be done, it will be. Haymarket is a possible for termination of service, recently there to FLE/Regent Centre they did works.

The best option really would be to shut the line from Heworth to Haymarket, allowing passengers with 3 zone tickets or DaySavers to transfer onto the next Northern service into Newcastle, at least letting them get to the next open portion of the line (albeit a considerable walk from Central).

There is a crossover between Monument and Haymarket which leads from the in line (platform 1) at Monument to the out line (platform 2) at Haymarket. Trains are turned at Haymarket should the line be closed north of Haymarket. So a train from South Shields would travel as normal to Haymarket, and would then wrong line out from Haymarket then across the crossover so when it gets to Monument it is on the normal running line. If the line is closed south of Monument a train from Airport would travel as normal to Monument, and then wrong line out of Monument and use the crossover so that when it reaches Haymarket it is back on the normal running line.

For the core section, trains from the north heading south towards Pelaw can be turned at South Gosforth, Jesmond, Monument, Gateshead Stadium, Heworth, and Pelaw. Trains from the south heading towards South Gosforth can be turned at Pelaw, Heworth, Haymarket and South Gosforth (they can then also be turned at Regent Centre/Regent Centre Sidings), you can also say Gateshead Stadium as trains would shunt forward empty towards Gateshead then turn around to use the crossover back into Stadium.

You can tell by those crossover points as to why disruption will be more severe to those who travel south of the river because there are considerably less crossover points.

I'm not sure if it's a full week/month long closure, but there is work booked in for that section of line. As of now, it just appears to be weekend closures but I'm not privy to the full engineering details.
 

Scott M

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I don't see how you can really moan about the politics, track work needs to be done and this can only really be done economically via big block possessions which will occur.

Just because it is more economical does not mean that it should be done. They have the option there to do overnight and Sunday works to minimise disruption to workers. They would not shut down a main section of the ECML for a month to carry out track works...
 

MetroCar4058

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Just because it is more economical does not mean that it should be done. They have the option there to do overnight and Sunday works to minimise disruption to workers. They would not shut down a main section of the ECML for a month to carry out track works...

ECML is a different kettle of fish - the bus replacement adds hours onto journeys, not 10-20 minutes and lets be fair, there are very little alternatives to using the train on those journeys. Also, major line closures have already happened along the core for a month; see https://nexus.org.uk/news/item/major-line-closure-less-two-weeks-go . I agree that a cost benefit analysis will take place, but in reality it is heavily skewed towards (all about) economics as Nexus are using a very limited pot of public money that barely covers what needs doing to the system.

I'm no technical expert, but I can't see how major track renewal could be done overnight? The whole thing needs ripping up and starting again, its not just re-railing that Metro needs.
 

Scott M

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ECML is a different kettle of fish - the bus replacement adds hours onto journeys, not 10-20 minutes and lets be fair, there are very little alternatives to using the train on those journeys. Also, major line closures have already happened along the core for a month; see https://nexus.org.uk/news/item/major-line-closure-less-two-weeks-go . I agree that a cost benefit analysis will take place, but in reality it is heavily skewed towards (all about) economics as Nexus are using a very limited pot of public money that barely covers what needs doing to the system.

I'm no technical expert, but I can't see how major track renewal could be done overnight? The whole thing needs ripping up and starting again, its not just re-railing that Metro needs.

Yes true, but I just feel metro receive public funding to provide a service of getting people from A to B, and closing the central belt for a month seems to fly in the face of that, so perhaps this is not the time to be economical. They will receive a lot of bad press when, owing to the delays/disruptions and the questionable closure of Chichester P2, public opinion is already not exactly in their favour. Although I guess you could argue that this is the ideal time to do something like this, when public opinion is already rock bottom and can’t sink much lower. I hope they would at least wait until Chichester P2 reopens, otherwise those who commute from Chichester to Newcastle for work would be facing a nightmare journey.

Reason I suggested overnight work is I imagine they don’t have enough track workers to run a 24/7 operation. So I thought they could replace a small section of track each night until it is all replaced; might take them a month to complete it but there would not be any disruption to passengers, and also they would not have to fork out on bus replacement services. Also not an engineer, so not sure if that is do-able.
 

Scott M

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As an aside point, I wonder how London Underground deal with such track renewals.
 

MetroCar4058

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Yes true, but I just feel metro receive public funding to provide a service of getting people from A to B, and closing the central belt for a month seems to fly in the face of that, so perhaps this is not the time to be economical. They will receive a lot of bad press when, owing to the delays/disruptions and the questionable closure of Chichester P2, public opinion is already not exactly in their favour. Although I guess you could argue that this is the ideal time to do something like this, when public opinion is already rock bottom and can’t sink much lower. I hope they would at least wait until Chichester P2 reopens, otherwise those who commute from Chichester to Newcastle for work would be facing a nightmare journey.

Reason I suggested overnight work is I imagine they don’t have enough track workers to run a 24/7 operation. So I thought they could replace a small section of track each night until it is all replaced; might take them a month to complete it but there would not be any disruption to passengers, and also they would not have to fork out on bus replacement services. Also not an engineer, so not sure if that is do-able.

This sort of work isn't done by the in house teams, its contracted out. TXM Rail did the last major closure for example. It all depends on how much work there is to be done, but from what I understand it is all of the track from Stadium to Pelaw so it'll need something hefty! They will have to come up with something to also ensure trains can be maintained and swapped over. Not sure what they did when FLE/APT-HAY was closed.
 

Scott M

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This sort of work isn't done by the in house teams, its contracted out. TXM Rail did the last major closure for example. It all depends on how much work there is to be done, but from what I understand it is all of the track from Stadium to Pelaw so it'll need something hefty! They will have to come up with something to also ensure trains can be maintained and swapped over. Not sure what they did when FLE/APT-HAY was closed.

I thought Felling to Gateshead Stadium was done not that long ago?
 

cosmo

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This might be our answer.

https://www.nexus.org.uk/news/item/nexus-carry-out-track-replacement-work-gateshead

In short, they're doing it in 3 parts. April 13 and 14 will see no trains Monument-Hebburn and Brockley Whins. Services will be South Shields-Hebburn, South Hylton-Brockley Whins, St. James-Monument via Wallsend and Airport-Monument.

April 19-22 is a 4 day easter weekend closure and the closure is shortened to Gateshead Stadium, still to Hebburn and Brockley Whins.

May 4 to 6 is a 3 day bank holiday weekend closure and extends to Monument again.

This will particularly affect anyone who lives near the closed stations to the line termini at South Shields/South Hylton (ie. me). Yellow line users between So. Shields and Hebburn could use the Shields Ferry to get to North Shields, and board a train to Monument via Wallsend or Whitley Bay to arrive at platforms 3/4 or 1/2 respectively.

Anyone between Brockley Whins and East Boldon will probably need to travel to Sunderland and interchange onto a Northern service to Newcastle.

A crudely modified map, as a visual aid:
 

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