Modernisation
All change for Tyne and Wear
Raymond Johnstone, Nexus rail director, describes some of the challenges the company has overcome to deliver the first three years of its Metro modernisation successfully
T
yne and Wear Metro is the busiest light rail system in the UK outside London, carrying around 40 million passengers a
year, and is vital to the staging of major events including the Great North Run, stadium rock concerts in Sunderland and Premier League and Olympic football. Owned and maintained by Nexus,
the system began operation in 1980, springing its biggest benefits from running through purpose-built deep tunnels beneath Newcastle city centre, segregated from other traffic and rail networks. But beyond these tunnels the system
exploits a suburban rail infrastructure up to 173 years old. In many cases embankments are of an ash build that is crude by modern standards.
Modernisation in numbers
Metro: all change has delivered to date...
• 10 Stations refurbished or underway • 18.5km of track renewed or refurbished
• 18km of new cable ducting installed • 17 bridges repaired • 225 new ticket machines • 13 gatelines at key stations • 3 bridges removed completely and replaced with embankment
• 8 escalators replaced • 4 lifts replaced • 5 sets of points renewed or refurbished • 1 new Metrocar wash installed • 1 wheel lathe installed at Metro depot • 1.2km of earthworks repaired (ballast retention)
• 8km of overhead line (contact wire and catenary) replaced
New sleepers are laid through Hadrian Road station during the first 23-day major line closure
FEBRUARY 2013 PAGE 57 In fact, the route between
Chillingham Road in Newcastle and North Shields, on which the first three years of modernisation has been focussed, has been in constant use since 1839, when it was opened as the world’s first dedicated commuter rail route. The ambitious Metro: all change
modernisation programme is the first phase of a £580 million programme to renew and upgrade Metro over the next 20 years, and it has already made a real difference to Metro passengers and the region’s economy.
Unlocking Victorian secrets But a programme this intense has brought with it two major challenges for Nexus, and its major contractors: firstly, how to deliver unprecedented investment
while maintaining a high-quality passenger service, and secondly, how to contend with the unexpected challenges that would come from renewing infrastructure that, in places, dates back to the age of Robert Stephenson. The inward investment Metro: all
change represents, with the Department for Transport making a commitment of up to £350 million to this £385 million first phase of the programme, has also sustained and created hundreds of jobs in the engineering and construction sectors. An asset survey was integral to the
process by which funding was secured. This has been taken much further since the programme began in full, with detailed examination unlocking the secrets of the Victorian foundations on which Metro relies. This asset knowledge
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