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The Tyne and Wear Metro is a metro system serving stations in Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, South Tyneside, North Tyneside and Sunderland, which are located in North East England. The network opened in 1980 and in 2006-2007 provided 39 million public journeys on its route of nearly 78 kilometres (48 mi).[1] It is operated by Nexus[2] and is one of only two underground metro-type systems in the UK outside London, the other being the Glasgow Subway.
OverviewThe 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 began operating in 1980, but was an evolutionary development, as it was a pioneering system in the use of existing rights-of-way to create a modern rail transit system,[3] linking them with purpose-built tunnels under central Newcastle and Gateshead. Much of the Metro's route was part of one of the world's first electric urban railway systems, which opened in 1904 on public passenger lines that were then already well established (see Tyneside Electrics).[4] The Metro alignment comprises most of two of the world's oldest passenger railways, the Newcastle & North Shields Railway (Metro between Chillingham Road and North Shields) and the Brandling Junction Railway (between Gateshead and Monkwearmouth, near the Stadium of Light), both opened in 1839, making the Metro arguably one of the world's oldest local rail transport systems. In the case of Metro's Chichester station, the route of an existing mineral railway was chosen instead of the previous passenger railway alignment, as it passed through a more heavily populated area than the previous High Shields station, This is also the oldest section of the Metro route, dating back to 1834. ChangesWith the opening of the Sunderland extension in 2002,[5] the Metro became the first UK system to implement a form of the Karlsruhe model, using track shared with mainline trains on the section between Pelaw and Sunderland.[6] The section from Sunderland to South Hylton was previously part of the Sunderland to Durham mainline, closed in the wake of the Beeching Axe in the 1960s, and was the second Metro segment to be built on a completely disused line, following on from the Newcastle International Airport extension, which was largely built on the former Ponteland branch line.[7] When the Metro first opened, it was claimed to be part of the UK's first integrated public transport system. The Metro was intended to cover trunk journeys, while buses were reoriented toward shorter local trips, tightly integrated with the Metro schedule, to bring passengers to and from the Metro stations, using unified ticketing. Much was made of the Metro's interchange stations such as Four Lane Ends and Regent Centre, which combined a large parking facility with a bus and Metro station;[8] this distinction is no longer emphasised. Some passengers complained that the Metro integration was pursued overzealously, and for example, bus passengers to Newcastle Upon Tyne would be forced to change to the Metro in Gateshead for a short trip, rather than have the bus route continue for a short distance further into Newcastle. Integration lasted until deregulation of bus routes in 1986. However, it is still possible to buy Transfare tickets that combine a Metro and bus journey. News and issues
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